The trust battery
A few months back, I stumbled upon this interview with Tobi Lutke, the founder of Shopify. There were several memorable moments in the podcast (he’s a big fan of Starcraft), but I really liked this concept of the trust battery. Here’s how Tobi describes it.
People sort of think about trust as almost an on/off kind of thing. Like, I trust my mother, I don’t trust the NSA. But, it’s really a gradient. It’s really something with a lot of different points on this particular spectrum, right?
If people meet each other, especially in a curated context like a company, like both of us start working here, and we both got hired, so we both ran through the gauntlet of how to be hired here, so that means we probably will trust each other, let’s say, 50% right off the bat. Then we have these interactions, we have a meeting like the one we just talked about, the combatant idea, or we just talk about an idea, we come up with something even better, we work well together. This slowly charges, right? I think it’s useful to have this metaphor between people because it allows you to sort of talk about the trust that exists between two people without actually becoming personal. So much about working in teams is the way you communicate working together, the way you give each other feedback.
This concept is particularly interesting to me as I just started a new job. I also think it’s highly applicable to other parts of life. For example, the approval rating of every newly elected presidents in the past 30 years has been around 50%. We are, on average, a fairly optimistic and trusting group. I’ve found that my default trust battery (the one I apply to strangers) affects my mood, the way I see the world, and how I treat others. A battery is a wonderful analogy because it highlights its impermanence — let it languish and trust erodes over time.
In an organization, trust is paramount. Trust allows meetings to be shorter, people to move faster, and decisions to be better. Without trust, teams run A/B tests to settle disagreements, schedule repetitive cross-functional meetings to “touch base”, and engage in petty office politics.
Trust is also an important currency for product managers because we will eventually have to spend it down to get things done. I’ve had to charge and recharge my battery many times now. Here are some of the things I’ve learned.
There’s no substitute for showing up. I strive to make it to every standup, every planning meeting, every retro, etc. Be on time.
First, observe. It’s really tempting to join a startup and immediately recommend changes. Even when processes seem wholly inefficient, there’s usually a reason why. Maybe there was a p0 recently or a lack of budget.
Get early wins. Don’t tell my opponents this, but when I sit down to play poker, I usually wait until I have really good cards before playing my first hand. An early win sets the mood for the entire session, and gives me the confidence to take more risks. At every new startup, there’ve been obvious things that would be too stupid not to fix. So, do the obvious.
The last thing to remember is that a fully charged battery is useless when it’s just sitting around. Build that trust, spend it wisely, and build cool shit. See you all next week!