Time has become our greatest asset; it is the new currency. Leveraging it in innovative ways is, and will continue to be, a distinct competitive advantage. But beyond time, two other critical luxuries are emerging: trust + truth.
Trust: There is a growing vacuum of trust. And that vacuum is giving new urgency not just to transparency but ho Honesty in everything from ESG principles to employment practices to corporate values and ethics. But trust is getting harder to define because trust is fluid. Building stakeholder trust will be an ongoing process. It must be something that becomes fully engrained into the ethos of the company. Consumers will pay a premium for things they can trust, and there will be new value in trusted human-to-human relationships.
Truth: The distortion of the truth is being exacerbated by a climate of rampant distrust and mis-, dis- and mal-information. We are operating in a world in which different versions of reality battle to see which gains our momentary attention. That reality might be based on established truths – or it might be based on falsities…and perhaps it doesn’t even matter because increasingly we are living in a world without proof. Fairness, integrity and authenticity will rise in importance.