Why Networks Grow at the Speed of Trust

“Relationships compound faster than capital.” It’s taken me years to really understand what that means. You can’t “build a network” by attending speed networking events or adding 100 LinkedIn connections after a conference. It never works that way. The best relationships grow when there’s no agenda - just genuine curiosity, respect, and a mindset to be useful to the other person. That kind of relationship takes patience. But when it compounds, the outcomes are magical. Years later, when I was raising for Kalvium, it was Smrithi who connected me to our first big investor, a relationship that began long before the company did. And Ankur who helped us land our first big customer, again, not because I asked, but because trust had already been built over years of shared belief. That’s how real networks work. You can’t fast-track them. You can only earn them - one genuine connection at a time.

Trust Is the Fastest Way to Grow That Everyone Ignores Most teams think trust is the long game. Something you worry about later, after you’ve shipped more features, captured more leads, run more experiments. So they postpone it. Or worse, they assume it’ll happen on its own. That’s how they lose. Because trust isn’t the slow path. It’s the shortest route to sustainable growth. And it scales faster than hype ever could. It starts with one user who tries your product and nothing breaks. They click. It responds. They invite a teammate. It works again. They stop asking whether it’s going to fail. That’s trust. And it spreads fast. Slack didn’t explode because it was viral. It exploded because it was dependable. Ninety percent of its growth came from users referring others. Not because they were incentivized. Because they didn’t want to switch back to email ever again. Zoom’s NPS wasn’t 70 because people liked video calls. It was 70 because it always started on time. People trusted it to work so they invited it into every meeting. 1Password didn’t grow with stunts or paid marketing. It grew because people used it once, realized it kept them safe, and made it a habit. They shared it with coworkers. Teams adopted it. Security multiplied because trust did. Stripe became the default not because of a flashy brand. But because engineers knew it wouldn’t screw up their money. When one mistake can mean someone’s paycheck is wrong, you don’t go with the cheapest API. You go with the one that never makes you second guess it. Founders often ask: “What’s the fastest way to grow?” The answer is simple. Remove every reason for someone not to trust you. Remove hesitation. Remove doubt. Remove the tiny pain points that make someone hesitate to share, or invite, or return. Want short-term results? Fix first impressions. Ship graceful failure states. Make sure the second time feels better than the first. Want long-term results? Earn belief early, then protect it like your life depends on it. Because once a user believes in your product, you don’t have to push. They do it for you.

Salesforce didn’t just build software. They built a tribe. Here's how Marc Benioff turned culture into their growth engine: In just 3 years, Salesforce scaled so fast that departments barely knew each other. Meetings overlapped. Burnout spiked. Star talent quit quietly. Execution looked fine, but the trust was gone. Benioff didn’t double down on strategy. He built something deeper: Ohana. Ohana wasn’t just a value; it was operationalized. When one employee lost their home, 50 coworkers helped rebuild. Culture moved from posters to real-life behavior. The trust engine ran on 3 key systems: 1. VTO → Volunteer Time Off was team-driven. Entire departments adopted causes, connection followed. 2. V2MOM → Everyone’s priorities were visible, top to bottom. No silos. No guessing. Just radical alignment. 3. Community spaces → Real decisions happened over ping pong or volunteering. Work and trust blended. Then came the 2008 crisis. Instead of layoffs, Benioff asked for ideas. The culture delivered: Engineers killed wasteful tools Sales redrew territory maps Marketing found $10M in savings Total savings: $50M Jobs lost: 0 While competitors cut people, Salesforce kept theirs and kept growing. The lesson for you? Trust isn’t built in off-sites. It’s built through shared action, transparency, and time. That’s the real infrastructure of scale. What’s one thing you do to build trust while growing fast? Want more research-backed insights on leadership? Join 11,000+ leaders who get our weekly newsletter: https://lnkd.in/en9vxeNk

The 'Network of Trust': A new model for global reputation building the most powerful advocate for your company isn't someone from your company at all. As we’ve deepened PQE Group’s presence in the U.S. over the past year, I’ve found myself relying less on traditional reputation-building strategies and more on something I now call a Network of Trust. It’s a deliberately cultivated group of people mostly Americans with deep roots in the life sciences industry who understand our mission, believe in our work, and are willing to speak up on our behalf. What’s remarkable is how effective they are. These aren’t hired spokespersons. Many are second or third-generation Italian Americans who share a cultural intuition for how we operate. Even when they echo things we’ve said internally for years, their voices carry more weight because they are perceived as independent. As insiders. As trusted peers. I’m sure many of you have experienced this as well. It’s not a hunch, it’s a proven psychological principle known as the messenger effect: people are more likely to trust and act on information when it comes from someone they identify with. It’s not only what you say, it’s who says it that determines how it lands. This Network of Trust functions as a kind of social capital infrastructure a web of authentic relationships and shared values that allows trust to move more fluidly across cultures and communities. Like physical infrastructure enables the flow of goods, this enables the flow of credibility, belief, and opportunity; because people advocate not out of obligation, but out of genuine conviction. This approach goes far beyond market entry. In an increasingly interconnected world where industries are both global and hyper-local, the ability to foster trust through human networks may be one of the most strategic capabilities a leader can develop. The future of influence isn’t about pushing harder or broadcasting louder. It’s about building a Network of Trust and empowering the right people to carry your message in ways that feel native, credible, and true. Because trust in our industry doesn’t scale through influencer marketing or PR blitzes, it scales through the quiet power of people.

The speed hack nobody talks about — Trust. What comes to mind when people talk productivity? We think of tools, workflows, or automation. But trust? It’s the silent engine behind the most successful teams and businesses. When trust is missing, tools (bureaucracy) steps in. Processes, approvals, and constant follow-ups might feel safe, but they slow everything down. When trust is high, speed thrives. Decisions happen faster, teams collaborate seamlessly, and customers stick with you for the long run. The same applies to startups: → Founders who trust their teams create space for innovation and ownership. → Teams that trust each other avoid bottlenecks and thrive under pressure. → Customers who trust you become your biggest promoters, speeding up sales. As AI reshapes how we work, trust will matter more than ever. For all its productivity gains, it also introduces new uncertainties—and companies that rely on trust will outpace those that rely on bureaucracy. At Devotion Ventures, we’re thinking trust before. It’s what makes startups agile, scalable, and sustainable. #Leadership #Trust #Entrepreneurship

One thing I’ve learned the hard way. You can’t shortcut trust. After reading The Speed of Trust by Stephen M.R. Covey, years ago, one idea stuck with me: organizations and missions move at the speed of trust. That’s exactly what we’ve seen in our work at LIFT Orlando. As we enter our next phase, we’re building tools to scale impact through multiplication. The goal is simple: help others do more, better, faster than what took us 10 years. We’re sharing: • How to cast a compelling vision • How to raise capital to do the work • How to structure partnerships • How to leverage Tax Credits But when I recently shared the story of our early days, working to earn trust in a neighborhood that had every reason to be skeptical, someone asked me: “Can you help others skip that part?” I said, No. I can help you build relationships I can help you raise money. I can help you close a deal. But I can’t help you shortcut trust. Because trust doesn’t just take time. It takes intention. And it never stops being the work. As Covey writes, “The ability to establish, grow, extend, and restore trust is the key professional and personal competency of our time.” If we want lasting impact, we have to lead at the speed of trust, and keep earning it every step of the way.

Success Doesn’t Move at the Speed of Scale It moves at the speed of trust. 🤝 When Climate Cardinals began, our team didn’t come with a polished résumé or a list of accolades. We came with conviction—an unshakable belief that language shouldn’t be a barrier to climate education—and a willingness to learn everything we didn’t yet know. We didn’t have institutional backing. There were no major donors. No established infrastructure. Just a $500 budget, a shared Google Classroom, and a group of young people across time zones who believed we could build something that mattered. We reached out to organizations who never replied. So we translated the materials ourselves. We set up review systems, trained volunteers, created workflows—and just kept going. We didn’t wait for permission. ✨ We trusted each other, and we started anyway. Over time, the work began to grow. Our partnerships expanded. Our reach deepened. But that growth didn’t come from prestige or polish. It came from trust. 🌀 Trust that young people—often underestimated—could lead. 🌀 Trust that mission was more important than ego. 🌀 Trust that showing up with care, over and over again, could build something lasting. Some of the most meaningful work I’ve been part of didn’t begin in boardrooms or formal planning sessions. It began in late-night calls, shared notes, voice memos, and spontaneous “What if we tried this?” moments. That’s what I’ve come to think of as relational infrastructure—the invisible scaffolding that holds purpose-driven work together. It’s not flashy and it doesn’t always fit into slides. However, trust and relations are everything.

Speed looks impressive on a dashboard. Trust looks invisible until it is the only thing left standing. In my time watching systems rise and fall across blockchain, governance, and enterprise, one pattern keeps repeating: yesterday's flashy launch becomes tomorrow's cautionary tale if people cannot rely on the system without second guessing. ⚠️🔁 Here is why trust is the real benchmark: ✅ Reliability wins. People forgive slow features. They do not forgive surprises that break their workflow or money. 🔍 Predictability compounds. Predictable behavior from your product and your team turns first-time users into habitual users. 🛡️ Safety builds adoption. Clear governance, transparent incentives, and recoverable failure modes let partners and enterprises say yes. 🤝 Reputation outlasts velocity. Reputation is earned by consistency, not by hype. A quick builder checklist you can use today: • Track trust metrics, not just usage metrics. Examples: time to first value, repeat actions, governance participation, dispute rates. • Design for observable failure modes so partners can audit and accept risk. • Make promises you can keep and communicate those promises plainly. Plain language builds credibility. • Invest in education and onboarding. Trust is taught more than it is coded. Fast can win rounds. Trust wins decades. If you want something that lasts, build for the latter. 🔥 Share one sentence about a time trust saved or broke a project you care about. I will highlight the most useful examples. 👇

ON TRUST, TIME, AND BUILDING ACROSS BORDERS Jane Goodall’s passing feels like a quiet bell. Her breakthroughs didn’t come from noise—they came from patience. She sat still long enough to be trusted. No megaphone. A notebook, humility, and time. She let chimpanzees set the pace, learned their rhythms, and only then drew conclusions. From that trust came new truths about tools, grief, family, and intelligence. The same rule shaped me in the Peace Corps. Any “plan” that arrives before trust withers fast. The work that lasted started small: a shared meal, a walk through a field, a conversation about what “better” really meant to the people who would live with the outcome. Communities open when they know you’ll stay long enough to help, learn, and eventually leave something that stands without you. We don’t talk about this enough in business—especially in global software. We celebrate frameworks and tools, then wonder why distributed teams push back on changes they don’t yet trust. At Accelerance, we see the law in action: code moves at the speed of relationships. When engineers in San José, Buenos Aires, Kraków, or Ho Chi Minh trust each other, handoffs tighten, assumptions surface sooner, and quality rises without drama. When trust is thin, even brilliant people ship brittle software. Across animal cultures, human cultures, and geopolitical divides, trust follows the same path: show up, listen first, earn the right to be heard. In globally distributed teams that looks like: • Be predictable. Light, regular cadences that respect time zones. Reliability is the first language of trust. • Share context, not just tickets. People commit better when they understand the “why.” • Tell the hard thing kindly. Radical candor with dignity prevents quiet drift. • Give real ownership. Decisions that matter—and shared credit—grow trust. • Invest in time together. Visit, break bread, celebrate local wins. These are not soft ideas; they’re performance levers. Trust lowers hidden costs: confusion, rework, blame cycles, and the anxiety that slows judgment. In a moment that profits from division, the counterpractice is collaboration that works—across borders and difference. Jane’s method was scientific, methodological, and moral: attention as love in action. The Peace Corps etched the same truth for me. Global software confirms it weekly: sustained cross-cultural trust isn’t optional; it’s the operating condition for reliable, scalable, predictable outcomes. If you want breakthroughs—in science, in community, or in code—start where Jane started. Offer time. Earn trust. Let understanding grow before you move. The forest responds. So do partners, teams, and customers.

From Personal Trust to Systemic Trust: The Hidden Engine Behind Scalable Businesses For the last 25 years, I’ve been buying loose milk from Modak Dairy in Pen. The quality is outstanding, and every month we settle accounts — no invoices, no reminders. Just mutual trust. But when I travel outside Pen, I wouldn’t dream of buying loose milk from an unknown dairy. I reach for Amul India or chitale dairy. Why? Because in one case, trust is personal. In the other, it’s built into a system. Think about it. When we order on Zomato, ride with Ola, or book through Airbnb, we trust strangers. We believe the food will be on time, the ride safe, the villa clean — not because we know the people involved, but because the platform makes us feel secure. It’s not about the individual anymore, it’s about the system they operate in. This shift from personal trust to systemic trust is the secret behind scalable businesses. Local businesses like Modak Dairy build trust one person at a time. Brands like Amul build it through process, consistency, and technology. That’s what allows them to operate across cities, states, even countries. This insight isn’t new — many bestselling business books have emphasized it. “Good to Great” by Jim Collins says great companies move beyond dependence on a few individuals. They create disciplined systems that deliver consistently, even when people change. “The E-Myth Revisited” by Michael E. Gerber - Beyond The E-Myth reminds small business owners: to grow, you must work on your business (designing systems), not just in it (doing everything yourself). “The Speed of Trust” by Stephen M. R. Covey says trust isn’t soft — it’s a business advantage. Systemic trust reduces friction and increases speed. So what should small businesses do? Here’s a simple roadmap: Step 1: Build personal trust Be dependable. Deliver consistently. Build goodwill. Step 2: Create repeatable systems Document your way of working. Make quality non-negotiable and consistent. Step 3: Use technology to scale CRMs, ERPs, customer apps — these help you deliver the same experience to 10 or 10,000 customers. Step 4: Monitor, learn, and evolve Systems aren’t static. Update them based on customer feedback, market shifts, and internal audits. Trust may begin with a person. But to grow, it must live in a system. That’s the difference between a local legend and a national brand. And that’s the journey every small business can take — from Pen to the world. What are you doing in your business to build trust that scales? Let’s share and learn from each other. Subodh #SmallBusiness #Scalability #Trust #SystemsThinking #GoodToGreat #EMyth #Entrepreneurship #DigitalTransformation