In this article in the series of “Catalytic Leadership”, we’ll see about what trust is from a leader’s perspective
As usual a small story, Bob and Rob were very close friends from childhood. They were so close that their appearance and preferences were almost the same. They wore the dresses of the same colour, they preferred eating the same food. Because of the resemblance, many would confuse them to be twins, which they were actually not.
One day they went on a train journey. During the journey, these two folks caught the eye of a stranger who just passed by in the train compartment. He was astonished to see two people wearing almost identical dress and wanted to strike a conversation with them
He went near them and asked, “Sir, Sorry to interrupt, are you both twins by any chance?”
Bob and Rob laughed, “No, we are not. But we hear this question from many whom we meet!”
The stranger replied, “Then how come you both look almost identical?”
Bob said, “We have been very close friends since childhood. Our likes and dislikes are mostly the same. We would like to be close friends till the end of our lives”
Now the stranger asked, “So nice to hear that! nowadays even twins born together have constant disagreements or small fights throughout their life and separate at one point”
This time Rob replied, “But we never had a situation to disagree or fight. We respect and trust each other so much, that we had never ever doubted each other”
The stranger questioned, “But people would usually feel jealous about your long standing friendship, I am sure many would have tried to cause an issue between you and separate you. How did you handle all that for so long?”
Bob replied smugly, “Many have tried and failed!, we trust each other and there is absolute transparency between us. So, even GOD will not be able to separate us”
The stranger exclaimed, “Well then! So, it would be a challenge for me to try that!”
The stranger continued, “Ok, let me challenge you that I will cause a disagreement and separate you both within the end of the journey. If I succeed, you pay me 1000 bucks and if I fail, I’ll pay you 1000 bucks”
The friends accepted the challenge and the stranger went saying that he’ll be back shortly.
After about 30 minutes, the stranger came back to the compartment of Bob and Rob and spoke with Rob.
“Rob, I would like to talk to you in private for a moment about an important thing. Would you mind coming to my compartment?”
Rob replied, “You can talk about anything in front of both of us. Bob and I don’t have any secrets between us”
The stranger replied smartly, “If there is no secret between Bob and you, you could just tell him what I said when you come back. Won’t you?”
Bob agreed and Rob went along with the stranger to his compartment.
The stranger started talking totally unrelated things for more than an hour without telling the reason why he called Rob to his compartment. Even after Rob asking him multiple times, the stranger dragged on the conversation talking about everything under the sky without coming to the point.
Finally, Rob lost his patience and was furious at the stranger and told him, “See, you called me here to talk about something important. Just let me know what it is now, or else I’ll just go back to my compartment”
The stranger apologetically said, “Oh I am very very sorry, I got carried away into a different thing. The important thing is that I just wanted to know if you remove the husk from a paddy grain, will you get rice?”
Rob’s fury knew no bounds he shouted, “Are you kidding me? You got me all the way down here and wasted more than an hour of my time just to ask this stupid question?” and then stormed out of the compartment back to his own.
When Rob returned, Bob asked, “What was so important that you guys discussed for so long?”
Rob, already annoyed by the stranger, replied to Bob, “Ah!, enough of that stupid… He asked me if the husk is removed from paddy grain, will we get rice?”
Bob was shocked and confused to hear such an answer from Rob and thought, He has spoken with that stranger for over an hour, even a small kid would know that the rice comes from the paddy grain. He is hiding something…
From then on, Bob kept quiet and did not speak a word with Rob.
Close to the end of the journey, the stranger came again and saw the two friends sitting in two opposite corners with a gloomy face. He went to Bob and said that he has won the challenge.
Furthermore he said to Bob, “I was just asking Rob if we remove the husk from paddy grain, will we get rice.. and all the other conversations we had were irrelevant..”
This caused Bob to become more doubtful, when he saw both saying the same stupid thing alike. He came to the conclusion that both Rob and the stranger were colluding.
Throwing 1000 bucks at the stranger, Bob walked away alone…
Just like the environment we live in, Trust is something that takes a lot of effort to build and maintain, but easy to destroy.
Leaders usually take more time to trust people and bring them close. They don’t trust people easily, but once they do they don’t mistrust them easily either.
Trust is a very delicate aspect that builds over time and it is fragile and very tough to maintain as well because there might be instances where situations and people like the stranger would shake the trust and put it to test.
Image Credits: Pixabay