The boom of AI has changed the way people all around us are seeing the world. This is not another thought about AI, and not even one about trusting AI but rather on the impact of speed and cost on making the progress we want to make as leaders.
I learned from Steven M.R. Covey a simple idea about trust that became real to me as I pondered the age of AI and the pace of innovation. The idea is that trust accelerates progress (and business) and there is a simple heuristic we can follow to assess the level of trust in our families, communities, teams, or organizations.
Trust affects cost and speed. If trust is low then costs will increase and speed will decrease. Cost does not always mean a monetary cost. My six-year-old daughter is strong willed, driven, independent, and sweet. She wanted to go to grandma’s house to play and I told her she could not go until a few chores were completed first. Now it is important to call out here that there have been many times my wife and I have set expectations and then because we are tired or worn out we have given in and given our kids what they want.
This time I was being serious with my daughter but she didn’t trust I would follow through so she complained, said she was tired, rolled on the floor in exhaustion and told me the chores were too hard. She didn’t trust my follow through so the chores that should have taken 10 minutes took over an hour and “required” a lot of coaching and encouraging. The cost of getting the chores done went way up and the speed went way down because of the lack of trust.
You have your own examples where high trust has sped things up and also had a reduction in cost.
In the work context, I work with a professor that teaches our leaders at Microsoft. I wanted to do some extra work that was outside the standard scope and we had high trust. This particular professor hates negotiation – for him it is about the work not about the money. We talked for 20 minutes (maybe 15) and arrived at something that felt reasonable, fair, and beneficial to both parties. Trust was high and both speed and cost were impacted significantly.
Take a moment to quickly evaluate an area of your life. Consider drawing two boxes, one labeled cost and the other speed. Put an up or down arrow in the boxes.
If the arrows are not opposite directions, then why is that? My guess would be there is a deeper reality that might flip the direction of one of the arrows.
I have found this tool useful at home and work.
As you can see I have changes I need to make to increase trust in my home. I hope this is useful for you too.
