The Troubling Topic For Trust In Business

Julie Starr • April 19, 2022

Trust is a topic that has been focused on in a number of different conferences, articles, and management books. Trust is claimed to be some almost magical economic elixir that explains everything from enhanced happiness to productivity gains. However, in reality, it is just as challenging and complicated to measure at an organizational, individual, and team level. Luckily, there have been discoveries in neuroscience that have provided us with actionable, peer-reviewed, rigorous, and fresh insight into what trust is, how to measure it, and most importantly, how businesses can create and enhance trust to improve their performance. 



In this blog post, will take a look at the science behind trust and how leaders can cultivate it by giving more in business. 

Understanding trust

There is only one place to begin, and this is by understanding what trust is. In 2001, Steve Kanck and Paul J. Zack released a biologically based model that provided us with the first comprehensive mathematical derivation of trust. It showed us that we can lower the transaction expenses that are linked with investment decisions through sheer trust. It was all about improving the confidence in what the other party would do. This involved using 41 different countries, and the outcome was that the strongest predictor economists had ever found was trust. Since then, trust was deemed an economic lubricant, which lowered the friction that usually happened during economic activity. This same relationship can be applied to organizations when it comes to describing interpersonal interactions between the workforce.

Oxytocin

One of the turning points when it comes to trust in business and in leadership was the discovery of oxytocin and the role it plays. This is where the neuroscience of trust really comes into play. Oxytocin is a neurochemical , and trustworthiness is predicted by the amount of oxytocin produced. Therefore, the study of this chemical enabled us to understand things from a different perspective. One study involved giving synthetic oxytocin to patients. In this research, it found that those participants were twice as likely to show optimal trust by sending all of their money to someone else and they also trusted strangers with 17 percent more money. There has since been further research into this chemical that shows that it works by increasing our empathy and emotional connection to someone else, which again, increases trust. After all, we are motivated to help other people when our empathy is enhanced. So, what does this mean for your business? Well, it is all about creating an environment whereby trust is high, and this means an environment whereby more oxytocin is created. 

Start by reducing stress

One of the most important elements when it comes to creating reciprocity within the working environment, which of course, enhances productivity is to lower stress . This is because there are a number of neurochemicals that either inhibit or promote the brain’s release of oxytocin. One of the chemicals that inhibits oxytocin from developing is epinephrine, which is a stress hormone. When we are experiencing periods of high stress, epinephrine will spike the blood pressure and heart rate, which stops us from connecting to other people and feeling empathy. Therefore, in high-stress environments, creating the trust that is needed for your business to flourish is impossible. Interestingly, though, oxytocin release increases when there are moderate levels of stress, and so it is all about finding a balance. We like a challenge and we will often turn to others to assist us. If you create a workplace that is challenging without tipping people overboard, you can create the perfect environment for trust. People will feel the need to lean on one another and help one another, which will promote autonomy, which in turn promotes innovation to build a strong team. 

Building a high trust culture

When you take all of this into account, building a high trust culture whereby reciprocity lies at the core of productivity is all about designing a work environment whereby oxytocin can be released a lot of times throughout the day. Therefore, you can put together a set of actionable ways to design a business culture that bolsters and sustains interpersonal trust by understanding the brain circuit that oxytocin activates. This should include the likes of recognizing accomplishments through price, enabling participative decision-making and celebrating mistakes as opportunities to learn, and stimulating oxytocin through timed group challenges.

It does not matter whether you run an insurance company, like West Point Insurance Services , or you have a retail clothing store, you need to make sure that there is trust across your business. Trust will enable other areas of your business to flourish as a consequence. You will find that your workforce is more productive because they will not be second-guessing everything they do. Instead, they will be able to do their jobs with full confidence, and the difference that this can make is truly astounding. 

Remember that trust takes time to build but it can take seconds to destroy

While we are on the subject of trust, it is imperative to realize that while trust can take a while to build, it can also be destroyed in just a matter of seconds. This is why you cannot afford to take your eye off the ball when it comes to this area of your company. No one wants to have to embark on the process of rebuilding trust, as it is definitely not something that is easy to do. 

Final words on the troubling topic of trust in business

All things considered, we hope that this blog post has helped you to get a better understanding of the power of reciprocity in business and workplaces. There is no denying that this plays a critical role. However, trust is something that is incredibly difficult to measure and understand, which is why you need to look at it from a neuroscience point of view. 

Smart Sensors, Smarter Supply Chains: Enhancing Traceability in Food & Beverage

By Julie Starr • June 20, 2025
In today’s competitive food and beverage (F&B) landscape, traceability is no longer a compliance checkbox—it’s a differentiator. The ability to track every step of a product’s journey, from origin to shelf, is vital for regulatory accuracy and to ensure brand integrity, supply chain agility, and consumer trust. Add smart sensors to the mix: the quiet, tireless observers revolutionizing supply chain intelligence. Traceability Has a Data Problem Despite digitization across many F&B operations, most traceability systems still rely on fragmented or manual data inputs. Batch numbers, barcodes, and handwritten logs often stand between a supplier and clarity when things go wrong. This approach struggles with latency and scale. When contamination or delays occur, root cause analysis is slow, costly, and damaging. Smart sensors shift this paradigm by embedding real-time, contextual intelligence into every stage of the supply chain . Whether monitoring humidity in transit or recording fill-level precision in bottling plants, they remove the guesswork by turning physical conditions into structured, time-stamped data. From Passive Monitoring to Active Optimization Sensors used to be reactive tools, alerting operators to anomalies. But smart sensors now play a proactive role in process control. They measure, and they interpret. For example, temperature sensors embedded in cold chain logistics can dynamically adjust cooling systems or flag threshold breaches before spoilage occurs. These advancements reduce waste and loss at a systemic level. In a production facility, smart sensors integrated with PLCs can enforce recipe compliance, verify clean-in-place processes, and detect micro-stoppages in real-time. This enables operations to pivot faster and isolate inefficiencies before they cascade downstream. Trust is Built on Transparency Consumers are paying more attention to what they eat and drink. They’re looking beyond labels, expecting visibility into how ingredients are sourced, processed, and handled. Smart sensors make this level of transparency achievable —without burdening manufacturers with excessive manual oversight. By capturing metadata throughout production and distribution, these sensors create a digital footprint that’s tamper-resistant and instantly accessible. When this data is integrated with a central platform, brands can respond confidently to audits, recalls, and quality assurance challenges with a level of precision that would be impossible through legacy systems. Intelligence Without Infrastructure Overhaul One common misconception is that adding smart sensors requires a top-down reinvention of supply chain infrastructure. In reality, companies can deploy edge sensors in a modular, scalable way. Many modern solutions offer plug-and-play functionality, allowing for fast integration with existing machinery and MES systems. This is where suppliers like alps-machine.com are reshaping expectations. Rather than pushing proprietary ecosystems, they design sensor-ready equipment with interoperability in mind. This future-proofs investment and keeps businesses nimble in the face of regulatory or market shifts. Designing for Data Longevity Sensors are only as powerful as the context they capture. A smart implementation ensures the data collected can be standardized, stored securely, and accessed meaningfully across departments. This means moving beyond local dashboards toward centralized, queryable datasets that inform everything from supplier contracts to marketing claims. As AI and predictive analytics become more accessible, these data-rich environments will unlock new capabilities—such as predicting demand spikes based on real-time freshness indicators or adjusting production schedules dynamically based on in-transit sensor feedback. Final Thoughts: Smarter Isn’t Optional Traceability isn’t solved by more paperwork—it’s solved by embedded intelligence. Smart sensors don’t just help businesses know what happened; they help prevent the wrong things from happening at all. For companies in the food and beverage sector, adopting smart sensors is less about chasing innovation and more about enabling resilience, speed, and confidence in every decision.

Eco-Friendly Garden Prep: Summer Tips for a Greener Business Space

By Julie Starr • June 5, 2025
If you're lucky enough to have a garden as part of your business, taking some time to set it up for summer is a great investment of your energy. Not only will it be ready for your customers to spend time in, but you can also incorporate some eco-friendly elements into it. Many people just think about the property and what eco-friendly updates they can make , but there are plenty that you can implement in your garden. This gives you the best of both worlds. You own a sacred and beautiful place for your customers to spend their summer, and at the same time, you can do your part for a better planet. If this is the route you want to take, then you also need to consider how to do this with the different seasons. To help you on your journey, here are some top tips for preparing your garden for summer. Plant trees and flowers Planting trees and flowers in your garden is a must. It will make a beautiful scene of nature for everyone to enjoy. Trees will provide people and animals with shade, as well as provide a habitat for wildlife. More trees are needed in the world because they purify the air that we breathe. Flowers, especially if you plant with pollinators in mind, can be an excellent way to attract bees and butterflies, which contribute largely to the earth. Use natural pest control When preparing your garden for summer, you can do this more sustainably and kindly by using natural pest control. Simply by planting trees and flowers, you are likely to attract lots of different wildlife, some of which may destroy your efforts. While all wildlife should be considered, you may need to take measures. Some better and more eco-friendly ways you can do this, as opposed to spraying toxic chemicals onto your plants and into the air, you can implement companion planting, using protective nets over your crops, choosing resilient plants, using natural repellents, and encouraging natural predators so nature can do its thing. Maintain your garden Maintaining your garden in itself can make it more eco-friendly. Composting your garden waste regularly, and kitchen waste can help you to reduce overall waste and create nutrient-rich soil. This is a great cycle of sustainability. You can also keep on top of things that need cleaning and replacing, so you can recycle the materials for other garden structures and projects, and repurpose things around your garden before they become waste. If you have features in your garden like a swimming pool, then a regular pool maintenance service is going to be vital in keeping your water consumption to a minimum, as when it is cleaned and maintained, it will need to be drained and refilled less as well as using less energy. You could also consider how you can use natural purification methods to reduce chemical usage and support biodiversity right in your backyard. Your garden is just an eco-friendly project waiting to be built. Use these top tips to help you get started.