Tea shop Chronicles - Trust and Mistrust Updated by Pandiyan and Nandakumar

One of the authors went to a neighbourhood tea shop which is pretty popular in the area. So it was crowded most of the time. Five or six men work there. One to collect cash, one to make tea, one to make snacks and a couple of them to do odd jobs such as cleaning, filling up and deliveries.

A man came in and said in a very hesitant voice that he had ordered six samosas the previous day and paid for it. But forgot to pick up the parcel. He was not sure how the man at the till would react and whether they would believe his story. The man at the till answered without blinking, 'Oh, no problem. I will get six samosas for you' and told someone to pack it. The cook saw the customer and said, "Oh, I am sorry, I saw that yesterday and should have reminded you to take it."

They gave fresh samosas to the relieved customer. The story was not over and the customer was not finished. He said, " I also had a tea as I was waiting for the samosas yesterday but forgot to pay for it separately. Here is the money for it. Sorry about that"

We are sure none of these people ever thought or theorised about relationships, honesty, goodwill, branding, customer orientation etc. They just behaved as the heart and mind told them to.

This was the most crowded shop in that area. There are more than a dozen tea shops not more than 10 minutes from that place. The price is same. 10 rupees or 12 cents. The tea in this particular shop was not anything exceptional. Unlike other tea shops, this one does not even sell cigarettes which are a big crowd-puller in such shops. No newspapers either. One had to go a nearby shop for those.

So the people who run this shop obviously do something others don't or can't. Competitive advantage and differentiation are big issues for businesses. There could be many reasons for the shop's popularity. Quick and efficient service; good location with shady trees; few other neighbouring shops, such as a grocer, pharmacist, tailor etc adding to customer convenience; and perhaps the most important of all a friendly, congenial atmosphere where every customer is noticed, acknowledged and served.

We will just look one key element highlighted by the anecdote above. It refers to trust and mistrust. This goes to the heart of any group which either has a healthy and friendly climate or otherwise. Could be a family, friends circle, neighbourhood tea shop, a supermarket chain or multinational corporation.

The issue is not simply whether they value trust or not.  Everybody knows trust is essential and mistrust is toxic. Individually we all value trust. In all our relationships, be they with the spouse or friends or bosses or suppliers or government, we value trust.But then why don't we cultivate trust? We know it is difficult but why don't we try? Do we not want to? Or we don't know how to? Or we don't do it the right way?

We don't see a lot of evidence of trust in many businesses and organisations. Take a look at some examples. Employees need to work from home. Managers ask for a software which will monitor employees' screen activity remotely. The company is giving a festival gift to customers but would like the representative take a cellphone photo as proof. Customers have to jump through hoops to get insurance claims processed or a service deactivated. True there are many exceptions but it is normal for us see many actions stemming from mistrust.

One thing that would help us through this is not looking at trust as something between one and zero. We need to look at the full spectrum of trust to mistrust between 1 and -1. Mistrust has negative consequences.

Feeling of trust creates comfort, ease and friendliness. We feel acknowledged and respected; we are filled with warmth; we are free of negative thoughts. Our brains more bandwidth for positive ideas, thoughts and hope.

Mistrust goes the other way as we can imagine. We get defensive; we withhold opinions, thoughts ideas and information; we feel undervalued; our self-esteem takes a hit; we stick to strict rules and become calculative. More importantly we may do things which may further mistrust and get us on a slippery slope.

Even when we know all this, the question is unanswered. Why do find it so hard to build trust?

The funny thing with mistrust is that it works differently. It is toxic and unlike trust even a little bit of mistrust makes a big impact. Even a drop a of coloured ink in a glassful of water is still coloured though pretty diluted and diffused. We still won't consider it good water.

So actions that we do to generate trust take a long time to bear fruit. But mistrust is far more potent and even a little bit of creates a lot of damage.

Now consider the every one of our actions as managers and policy makers in promoting trust or mistrust. Do the other side - our reports, our employees, general public - do they see them as something which shows our trust on them or otherwise.

Yes, we don't live in an ideal world. We do need rules and regulations. Most people get it and do not mind them. However, if we introduce policies which are meant to catch 5% percent of wrong-doers but 95% percent of decent folks have to endure them, we have not thought through our options clearly.

In a company we worked in, we had a system of daily attendance for everyone. We decided to change it around so that employees do not sign everyday they are present but just apply when they need leave. System automatically assumes they were present if there was no leave. Sure, there was some opposition saying people would take advantage of it and misuse. How many people, we asked. Few in a hundred. So all along we had a policy which made 90% percent of decent folk marking attendance everyday just because of few black sheep. Could we find some other way of dealing with black sheep?

We did introduce the system and it did work very well. The feedback from the employees and the supervisors was positive. They said it displayed trust on individuals.

Imagine the feeling of an employee who goes to deliver a festival gift to customer and is asked to take a photo proof. What does that communicate about the company to the employee? What do we think of how committed that employee would be to his/her job and the company. Then we go back to rely on all oppressive methods to get employees to perform their work.

True, we may not be able to do away with all controls in running a large company. That is where our resourcefulness and critical thinking comes in. Where all we can change policies and systems that promote trust with safeguards against misuse that do not doubt decent employees. Believe us, most decent employee are okay with reasonable controls. But policy makers in many companies do not do a full cost-benefit analysis of policies that promote mistrust. many leave out the intangible costs which destroy the social contract within the group.

We know from popular books that trust needs reliability; behaviour and words need to be consistent. Trust needs personal touch; not xeroxed copy of circular on a notice board or mass mailed letter. Trust grows when people don't suspect self-orientation. Company or the managers need to see issues not only from their point of view but also from the standpoint of customers and employees. If we do all this, we will never do silly things like asking an employee to take a photo of having delivered a gift.

One of us stayed a Taj hotel during a business trip. At the checkout we didn't recognize a billed item from the room fridge. On raising this issue, the hotel representative just said, "Okay sir. I will cancel it." No arguments. No questions. Perhaps there are customers who abuse this trust. But I am sure the Taj Hotels know that the good will among decent clients far outweighs the petty loss of stolen chocolates. Even after years, we still consider Taj Hotels as a great chain and have recommended it to many.

In short,  trust lightens the atmosphere and mistrust mars it. Trust gets more trust but slowly. Mistrust breeds fast. So we need to test every major action, programme and even our style for its trust/ mistrust potential.