Paul J. Zak is answering age-old questions about the evolutionary and scientific - actually neuroscientific - basis for identifying and establishing trust. For example, why do people trust each other in the first place? Is there a natural inclination to trust? Does location and/or ethnicity matter when it comes to trust? What does this mean for businesses and their employee relations?
There is a fiction that suggests that business decisions are made on purely utilitarian grounds. Psychologists have shown convincingly that people value the avoidance of loss far more highly than capturing gains. There are many and significant implications for those seeking to implement change, particularly in an agile environment.
The Agile Manifesto
Nobel laureate Daniel Kahneman, professor emeritus of Psychology at Princeton University, famed for his psychological research into economic science and behavioral economics, laid the foundation for the field of research known as cognitive biases.
We know that trust, ethical behaviour and collaboration go hand-in-hand in our personal and social relationships. But how widespread are those things in our business and outsourcing relationships? Obviously they should be!
Too often people and businesses are locked into either destructive I-win-you-lose relationships, or what I often call a “ping pong” match where you are in a so-so relationship but either don’t know there is a better way or don’t have the courage to get out because things are not actually bad.
Luckily, things are changing and people are starting to wake up to the fact that win-win approaches are real – and offer real advantage and are worth the extra effort.
