The wounds of commitment

Trust is on my mind a lot these days, as a driver for new business innovation, and as a more fruitful starting place for thinking about customer relationships than "brand love."

Vernor Vinge has espoused the idea recently that "in the modern world, success [will come] from having the largest possible educated population and providing those hundreds of millions of creative people with credible freedom." As Vinge notes, in an increasingly transparent society, that verisimilitude of freedom could approach the real thing closer than ever before.

With these ideas on my mind, I was happy to stumble across Elizabeth Doty's insightful article in this week's strategy+business, showing exactly how breaches of trust within an organization extinguish innovation and individual commitment. Good reading for any leaders looking to build trust internally, or struggling with the ethical grey areas that inevitably come with success and increasing complexity.