After
2 years working in MNC, I got bored at doing the routine work like a nail fixed
in a joint machine. At that time, I tended to believe small companies are more
dynamic and less hierarchical, which would help me to achieve myself. Then I
left and joined my previous company, the founder who recruited me told me that I
would be responsible for brand management as branding manager which was exactly
as I expected. It was also clearly articulated in our labor contact. However,
couple of months after on board, I realized it could not be any possibility for
me to work as a branding manager because the founder did not take branding
seriously and already decided to cancel all the plans he shared with me in the
interview. He hardly listened to my opinion and arbitrarily relocated me to
other position, I was quite pissed but concerning the time already consumed
there, I decided to struggle in the situation and come up with something related
to my branding experience and take advantage of them. It was a big lesson for
me to learn the trade-off between trust and distrust, and through the whole decision
making process, I reflected myself as below:
Firstly, I am quite an
optimistic and risk-taking person and to some context, tended to believe
and trust others. Although I was young and lack of experience to identify the
risks of joining such small companies,my optimistic personality leaded to me
believe I won’t be so unlucky to the potential misfortune, even if there could
be such so called misfortune, I am quite flexible to adapt or overcome it. Some
of friends did kindly remind me of risks in working in small company. I told myself this one is unique then.
Secondly,I
know my personality could drive me less objective and to become an easy
truster, so I relay on very much on information accumulated to help me figure out the underlyingtrust cost.I
think there is asymmetry between interviewer and interviewee, thus collecting
information through internet and acquaintance as much as possible would be
brilliant. However, did information I had collected really work? In my story,
my answer is negative, because I failed to see the implicit meaning from the explicit
information. For instance, I read the rumors about occasional salary delay incident
of the company, but I told myself it is understandable that small companies
might have financial problems from time to time, anyway t it is acceptable for
me. But what I forget to ask myself was did I know the frequency of the delay,
what was the root-cause of that, management skills? Would that lead to other
possible consequence unacceptable for me, for example the personality or
capability of the founder, the boss? At least I should have a guess or get some
clue about those problems, but I had not! In the interview, the dilemma for
both sides is information asymmetry, in my opinion, the party with stronger ability
to infer the underlying or implicit information from the explicit information is
more likely to lower its trust cost.
Thirdly, Stereotypes and misperception misled me to make decision based
on the person instead of the problem. I still remember the very first
day I was interviewed by the founder, who was polite, gentle with thick
glasses. Through our communication, I found we shared the same interest,
insight and value about the company’s business. “I was so exciting to say no to
this company” the voice echoing in my brain, no exaggeration for that moment.There
are several perceptual errors and biases (false
consensus effect because I think I am trustworthy and normally people like
me in some extent also worth to trust. I know our similarity effected) I also
lost my brain to evaluate the chance since the focus had already shift from the
job to the person.
Last thing but not lest thing also worked----the context, at that
time, I was out of job and actually a little stressed. I think those drove me
to be less doubtful and suspicious to make a quick decision instead of a smart one.
Basically,
the experience helped me to grow in aspect
1,
Enhance self-awareness. Actually I am quite grateful for this experience
because it is beneficial for my self-awareness. For instance, about my
over-optimism and risk taking I was unaware before and then Johari window was
rebuilt.
2,
Do not mix personal trust with experience trust. In the interview I thought the
founder is reliable and nice person but to what extent should I trust him to be
a good leader? Now I don’t blame him for cheating but realized he indeed lacked
the experience to lead a team and plan long-term business goal then.
3,
Look at the person as well as the roles
In
Roderick’s article, he shared 6 rules to trust and rule 6 was Look at roles as
well as people. I can’t not agree anymore. Sometimes, I trust the person but
try to think in his position, do you still think the person is so convincing?
Think twice, you will hesitate because maybe it’s not what he said not depend on
his personality but position.
4,
Question more about current Information
Trust
dilemma was there because of information asymmetry. Both sides would protect
their own interests by not putting less negative and more positive information
on the table. That is why when 2 companies merge, there is always many third
party involved to decrease both side’s trust cost in my opinion. For me, keep
on question is an effective way to lower the potential risk. Based on the
information accumulated, dig deeper and do not stay on the surface or
description.
Robert
F. Hurley (2009) The
Decision to Trust Harvard Business Review
Roderick
M. Kramer(2009) Rethinking the Trust Harvard
Business Review
