A West Indies proverb says that trust building takes the time to grow a full-grown coconut tree, while it can fall at the speed of a coconut!! (via my favourite, Rory Sutherland’s talk at Nudgestock 2026. Video below).
I should have known. Having grown up in the land of coconuts, and named after coconut trees. (For the uninitiated, ‘Kera’ in Keralam stands for coconut tree. Historians tend to believe ‘Kera’ has more to do with Chera dynasty than with coconut. Nevertheless, it is a hard nut to crack. And nobody named a movie ‘The Coconut Story’.)
Rory was speaking in the context of brands, trade, commercial exchange and the likes.
But in organization building, trust is the bedrock. But people (mostly) don’t stay in the same organizations the time it takes for a typical coconut tree to grow. Yet trust needs to be built. Easier said than done. What works for me might not work for you. I start with blind trust, and I have the patience to stretch enough till it reaches a few breaches. Yes, this can’t be a universal approach.
Many organisations do well intended workshops and trainings (remember the ‘trust fall’ exercise in the last outbound?). But trainings and workshops can only be an initial nudge. Often forgotten before the check-out from the retreat. What mostly works is a set of practices that can be built into the daily rhythm of operations, which helps build trust. And it is possible. Fundamental behaviour change might take a long time like tall coconut trees, but small changes that make work stress-free can be tended like a balcony garden.
Rory Sutherland’s Talk at Nudgestock 2026.