Trust

I was sent an email today that had a quote that hit me with a ton of bricks, "Trust one who has gone through it."  This is a quote by Virgil, who is remembered as one of Rome's greatest poets.  However, I have to think that he was part psychiatrist.  With deep sayings like the above, he must be much more than what is on the surface.

I was thinking about trust the other day so it was in the back of my head when I saw this quote.  I recall reading John Huntsman Sr's book, "Winners Never Cheat."  In a nutshell, this book discusses how he made billions by striking deals with a handshake.  That's all it took.  Millions and billions of dollar deals with a single handshake.  He discusses shaking on one deal, and before the deal was finalized, the stock of the company he was buying shot skyward on news of the acquisition.  Now John had a deal at a set price, and the seller wanted to renege on the deal, but John stood firm.  What he actually ended up doing was paying a premium for the company, but this illustrates the trust that John Huntsman Sr used in his business dealings.  (I would highly recommend reading his book if you get the chance.)

In today's world, trust is not what it used to be.  Today, most business deals cannot be completed with a simple handshake, rather they entail boatloads of lawyers, business analysts, and months to make happen.  I have seen it in industry.  A good friend was working on a project for a customer.  He was a part of a small team that was trying to keep it that way.  The customer trusted this team to complete their project.  They were trying to keep it away for the myriads of executives within this consulting company.  However, the executives found out about it and they all jumped in skyrocketing this project to unheard of complexity.  The original manager of the project quit in favor of another company.  The project continues, growing out of control.  However, the customer is hanging in there, wanting to receive the final product.

Trust can be a simple as two boys at a swimming pool.  The first jumps in and finds that he can stand on the bottom with his head above water.  He asks the second boy to jump in -- that he will be OK.  The second boy jumps in and trusts the first that he will be OK.

After college, I started my work career at a large computer company.  I spent over 10 years there.  After leaving, I spent a few years at various companies, having to leave each due to financial problems, bad management, and loosing contracts.  In a lot of the cases of moving from one company to another, I engaged a recruiter, an expert in finding me a new job.  I had to place blind trust in this recruiter to represent me and to get me interviews with various companies.  I also had to trust that when I didn't get a job I interviewed for, that the feedback I received would be valuable.  However, in most cases, the feedback was worthless.

In my personal dealings, I have tried to exhibit trust with my fellow man.  In some cases it works well, in other cases I end up on the short end of the deal by trusting someone.  Maybe you can have a better chance of trusting someone by looking their facial expressions.

Is it possible to know if a person is trustworthy by looking at their face?  Granted, each and every one of us have a built-in ability to know right from wrong.  I had a friend, and I say had since this person is no longer my friend.  This friend came to me one day and promised me the world if I would only invest with his friend who owned this fabulous company.  He promised me an unreal amount of return on my money.  And since I knew for a fact that this friend had made a killing in the stock market, and happened to be worth a good sum, I took his word and trusted him.  I gave him a portion of my retirement money to invest.  Fast-forward a few years, after receiving a few dividend payments, I stopped receiving monthly statements and other promissed paperwork.

I called my friend up, but all I got was his voice-mail.  A little while later I read about a Ponzi scheme, where they were investigating my friend's friend.  A little but later, my friend's friend was arrested.  Needless to say, I lost all the money I had invested.  I also lost a good childhood friend, a friend who, himself, may be headed to prison.

Today I keep my retirement in as reputable places as I can find.  Hopefully bad things don't happen here, but I have to trust them, since one business has been in business for over 20 years and has done my taxes for half that time.

So how can you build a circle of trust around you both in your personal life and that of your career?  How can you know that you can trust the politicians that you chose to vote for?  I live in a small suburb of a larger city.  A few years ago a few spots in our city council were up for re-election.  One of the incumbents (that I trusted) decided not to re-run.  So, that opened up the reality of a new member of the council.  Several candidates went door to door to expound their virtues.  One gentlemen came by, looking rather hip and with the "in crowd."  As I chatted with him, I thought, "How would I be able to ever trust this man?"  But I did some research, discovered he was well educated and had quite a resume in business and technology.  I took a gamble and voted for him.  I even campaigned for him.  I trusted him!  Lucky for me he has be a great asset to my city's government.

So is the safe thing to do to not trust anyone?  I hope not.  We just need to have a little faith in our decisions to trust, but that is for another post.

Til next time,
Bill