Trust In A Hyperconnected World

Reputation is what people say about you when you are not in the room. In a hyperconnected world, it matters more than ever before.

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When we live in a closed community, we are observed by others living in it. Our reputation is built on what they believe about us or say to the other members of the community. And their beliefs are based on snippets of our behaviors that generate small signals which in turn make our trust quotient go up or down — for example, someone seeing us yelling at a kid plucking flowers might be seen negatively or helping in a community celebration might be seen positively. However, trust is not a simple mathematical equation — it depends on how much the two behaviors are valued by the members of a community. If the community believes that plucking flowers is an acceptable behavior, admonishing the kid will be inexcusable.

Trust – the first emotion

Call it reputation or personal brand, trust is hard to manage if you don’t understand how it works. Our life experiences lead us to conclude whether we largely trust others or we do not, which actually starts from the first six months of being born.

It is about the first opinions we make of others. A startup must be trusted by VCs to get funded. A potential employee must trust the employer to sign up. The employer must trust the candidate’s responses to decide to employ the person. When team members stop trusting each other, the relationship becomes toxic and work suffers.