Management Toolkit

Story: IBM boss spells out a better future

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Palmisano’s comments are noteworthy for several reasons.

First, he chose the Financial Times and Foreign Affairs—not BW, HBR, WSJ, NYT, or ZDNet—to air his ideas. Message: this is a big deal, and about a lot more than just the business of daily business.

Second, two issues he addressed in the FT article were the need for skills—no surprise there—and the need for trust. Trust? Why? And compared to what?

As to why, his case is simple and powerful. In an increasingly interconnected, flat, horizontal, wired world, everything connects to everything. It is becoming infeasible for companies to “compete with” their employees or customers, or even to look at customers as just objects of profit (when you hear “customer focus” these days, it usually means the customer focus of a vulture—this idea’s days are numbered). Increasingly, everyone is related to everyone—if you treat another badly, what goes around comes around. Palmisano is recognizing that.

But what’s most intriguing is Palmisano’s model for trust creation. You’d think the head of a global tech empire would be fascinated with “scaling trust,” or looking to online network models derived from eBay, Amazon, mySpace, or LinkedIn.

Instead,Palmisano flatly states that the way to increase trust is through shared values. And it’s not because he’s gone soft. The truth is, you can’t scale trust without diminishing its scope. True trust is personal at both the giving receiving ends It needs high bandwidth, personal, interactions to establish. Palmisano recognizes this.

As perhaps an “expert” in the area—I wrote Trust-based Selling and co-wrote The Trusted Advisor—I think he’s dead on. His view of the future isn’t wishful thinking: it’s being driven by economic and technical shifts. It’s coming. It will look very different. And it’ll also be very personal, and very trust-based. Like the man said.

Charles H. Green
Trusted Advisor Associates
www.trustedadvisor.com

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