Distrust is cholesterol to knowledge flows.

Very intelligent article on trust, a fundamental but often overlooked success factor, by John Moore over at the KnowledgeBoard (registration required). A meaty discussion follows.

By the way, I see blogrolling lists as explicitly defining webs of trust, and as instrumental towards furthering generalized trust and disinhibited self-expression in the weblog community.

  • Trust multiplies creativity[...] What makes a full connection possible is trust. I won?t share my half-formed thoughts, interests and concerns with just anybody. I need to feel confident they won?t run off with them without sharing the benefits with me, and ? perhaps even more significant ? I need to know that they won?t set out to ridicule or destroy them.
  • Trust saves energy [...]
  • Trust is generative If trust is established at the core of an organisation, it is likely to spread, as trust begets trust.

Two people who have established trust can create more value in their relationship as each has more access to the other?s resources. One can compensate for the other?s weaknesses and each is more free to focus on the things they are personally best at. Two people who work together well will be more able to connect with a third person, and so on. Contagious trust can build fantastic creative communities.

(Similarly, once distrust is established between two people, their energy gets channelled into defensiveness. Which reduces openness, and further diminishes trust, in what can be a vicious circle.)

So trust is clearly a jolly useful thing. More so now than ever. Little to argue about there. But what do I do about it?

Being a lazy kind of person, the energy-saving aspect is a killer feature of trust for me.

[Seb's Open Research]