M’s the word: Who can you trust?

Why pharma should become more like your local barber - or a Disney hotel

By Malcolm Allison on Sep 11, 2011

In preparation for a late notice trip to the US, I strolled into the hairdresser on Saturday morning.

I understand why ladies like this. There is something peaceful about water running through your hair, and someone else deciding whether they have missed a bit wth the shampoo.

And the towel is warm and soft, and my eyes are almost closed as I am guided to the chair.

I am more than a little short sighted, so the glasses are not a fashion statement. So it is purely guesswork when I am asked how it looks.

I have got the language down to a fine art, and I am confident that I can ask for ‘not too short, ears free' in French or German.

Then he produced the scissors and comb and proceeded to spend five minutes slashing away at the left side of my head. ‘Is that OK?' he said.

A little too late, if he has cut it too short.

It is only at that moment that I see his own hair is cut very short, with a sort of Mohican down the middle.

Now I am fully awake and frowning strongly.

He moves to the other side of my head and begins to decimate the hair.

It is at this point that I remember, if you are in a town with two barbers, go to the one with the worst haircut because he had it cut by the other bloke...

Fortunately, I walked out feeling relaxed, with a good cut. Which made me think.

It takes a lot of trust to allow someone else to cut your hair.

We assume they are professionals, of course, but still we are putting our faith in their hands.

A similar thing happens in Disney hotels. Staying at the Grand Edwardian, I was amazed to watch rich tourists hand over thousand dollar cameras to waitresses.

Of course, Disney actually teaches waitresses to take pictures ... but most of these trusting tourists do not know that.

Who do you trust? It is a good idea to work it out.

We all need people we can rely on; no man is an island.

In modern business, it is not always a question of what you know.

We all need someone to lean on. We work in tight communities, usually based on mutual interrelationship, and cross functional matrices, and we all rely on people we can trust.