It seems to be stating the bleeding obvious to say that trust is important, but it is. When you trust someone you’re asking them to take care of something of value to you. Trust gets created when that person demonstrates care of the thing you have trusted them with. Trust gets destroyed quickly when that person demonstrates carelessness, neglect or a disregard for the thing you have trusted them with.

As the owner of a company I’m always asking people to take care of things for me.

• I ask them to take care of the companies best interests.
• I ask them to take care of the needs of our customers.
• I ask them to take care of the people who work for the company.
• I ask them to take care of the technology we build.

And in return they expect me to take care of them, their physical and emotional wellbeing, their salary, their careers and helping find them the kind of work they enjoy doing.

But trust is not about words, it is about deeds. People can sit in a room and talk for days at length about how they are going to do this, and do that, and take this thing that you care deeply about and nod and smile, and say “yes don’t worry you can trust me”. That’s all just a truck load of bullshit. Trust is built when people demonstrate clearly that they care for the things you care about.

I’m lucky to work with people who care a lot.