When we meet some people, we tend to trust them at first instance. With others, we may take sometime and build our trust.  It is always intriguing to see why we trust some and we don’t with others. Nevertheless, the point we will establish here is that trust comes with associated risk.

Even with those that we trust, are we not taking any risk? We certainly do. At the beginning, our trust on someone is a mere hypothesis. We start the relationship with a statement that ‘you may be trustworthy!’ As the time passes by, we accumulate experiences with that person which may support our initial hypothesis or may go against it. 

If our hypothesis is proven wrong with our experiences, it means that that person has surprised us by not being a trustworthy person. To that extent, we would have suffered the loss by trusting the person and we would have paid a price for the same.

For fear of proven wrong, what if we do not trust anyone? Does that also has some risk associated with it? Yes, certainly. We will end up mistrusting everyone and we will suffer with poor relationships. Can you imagine a workplace that is devoid of trust? I am sure it would be suffocating to say the least.

What is the way out?

If we start trusting someone and if we are cheated, we face the risk. If we are too guarded and do not trust any one, then also we suffer from trust deficit and with poor relationships. In the final analysis, we do carry some risk either way in our relationships. We simply need to ask ourselves if the relationships are worth the risk!  Also, managers and leaders need to ask if a trusting workplace culture will be worth the risk!