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  These are the people worthy of our attention and love. These are the people we must lead, coach and follow.

  We must provide them with a cause,

  a reason to believe, and make them an essential part of our mission.

  We must inspire them with wonder, allow them to be part of our design philosophy and let them carry our message, using it as a way to connect with others.

  Trust is inarguably the most complex and controversial of all five principles. Harder to earn and much easier to lose, building trust requires the investment of time and effort.

  The aim is always to become reliable and maintain values and promises by delivering more than expected. It is a fact that today’s customers tend to be more disloyal than in the past, thanks to a profusion of choices and too little time.

  Moreover, most products filling store shelves have similar qualities and features which are also often inconsistent with their function or market.

  This leaves customers with “price” as their only reliable selection criteria.

  On the other hand, a choice based on trust has entirely different dynamics: our beloved brand must be familiar without being dull, innovative without being risky, and authentic without being inaccessible.

  Inspiration:

  I associate trust with metal (gold) 金. In the same way that a smith handles real metal, we must forge a brand, product or business that never compromises on core values, that remains as untarnishable as pure gold and as strong as steel.

  Metal represents: discipline, solidity, and steadfastness.

  Key Words:

  COMPETENT • HONEST • RELIABLE AUTHENTIC • FAMILIAR

  Building trust is not a single act. It is an enduring process that must be repeated over and over just like a never- ending cycle. Here is one way the trust cycle can be broken:

  A company fails to deliver quality as it chases a greater margin; the public then reacts by choosing the cheapest player in order to reduce risk; that way, if the company doesn’t deliver, at least not much has been lost.

  The company then counteracts and cuts investments to increase profitability and so on and so forth, inevitably creating an endless downward spiral.

  This “cheaper price” war is extremely unhealthy for both industries and consumers. To fix it, we must revert the spiral into a virtuous, empowering trust cycle.

  The single most important question we should ask ourselves is not how to gain the public’s trust, but how to become trustworthy.

  Trust is granted to us by other people. We can’t force anyone to give trust, and we can’t simply state that we are trustworthy. We can only provide tangible evidence to support this declaration.

  A brand, company or product fails to deliver when it doesn’t genuinely intend to express its true qualities and values by demonstrating how the design or product can positively impact the customer’s life and what it enables them to achieve. This can include being the most affordable product on the market; think Best Buy, Walmart or IKEA. Being affordable is part of their DNA.

  That simple change of mindset, going from gaining trust to becoming trustworthy, is the first turning point of the trust spiral.

  People will believe we are trustworthy if we can demonstrate three key qualities:

  Competence: Having the necessary ability, knowledge, or skill to do something successfully;

  Honesty: Acting truthfully, with sincerity and keeping our word;

  Reliability: Consistently delivering both quality and performance.

  To further explain these qualities, I often use a controversial example. To me, McDonald’s is trustworthy, at least in all the ways that matter for their market.

  I don’t trust that McDonald’s will serve me nouvelle cuisine, but I do trust that it will deliver almost the same taste, all over the world, at an affordable price.

  By doing so, their core promises remain clear: Standard Quality, Prime Locations, Affordable Price.

  They also leverage another important attribute of trust, which is familiarity, by dedicating an incredible amount of time and resources towards becoming familiar and accessible.

  It’s true that you can buy familiarity by pushing your image out there. But cold cash alone won’t do the trick.

  The time a company or brand invests in the relationship with their clients in order to reinforce its values is priceless, and this process can seldom be purchased.

  In the field of creativity and innovation, playing is a serious matter. Over the past few years my mission has been to form creative minds and help companies, organisations and entrepreneurs transform ideas into realities.

  Unfortunately, most of the time this process is so mechanized and stiff that we lose the poetry and beauty that comes with the creation of a new product, service or venture. There is a wonderful quote that truly inspires me:

  “The master in the art of living makes little distinction between his work and his play, his labor and his leisure, his mind and his body, his information and his recreation, his love and his religion.

  He hardly knows which is which.

  He simply pursues his vision of excellence at whatever he does, leaving others to decide whether he is working or playing. To him, he’s always doing both.”

  L.P. Jacks

  We tend to forget that at the end of the day, what really matters is not always the winning or losing. In design it’s all about playing the game, and staying in the game for as long as possible.

  Playing the game means constantly advancing ourselves, pursuing our vision of excellence in whatever we do. Our personal advancement will ultimately translate into creating value for our stakeholders.

  Playing doesn’t mean not taking something seriously. In fact, it can mean pretty much the opposite. Even when kids are playing, maybe building a construction, they can take this task very seriously because they want to succeed, not win. They want to advance and learn something new.

  The huge difference between an operational mindset and a playful mindset is the approach to failure. With an operational mindset, failure is shameful, while a playful one gives us the freedom to fail and retry. It gives us permission (confidence and trust) to start over and seek different results.

  Having a playful mindset enables us to improve our skills and performances. Continuous learning is the secret to excelling in something, as well as reducing the probability of error. When we embrace a playful mindset, we consider the error an essential part of learning, not a demonstration of incompetence.

  We will learn in the following chapters that failure is something we must embrace and capitalize upon. This can only be achieved if we understand the power of a playful mindset.

  There are a few simple steps we can take to start changing our mindset from operational to playful.

  I. Understand which game we are playing.

  As brilliantly explained by Simon Sinek in one of his talks, the first step is to understand which game we are playing. In game theory, there are two types of games: finite games and infinite games. A finite game is defined as having known players, fixed rules and an agreed-upon objective.

  Soccer is a good example of a finite game. The players know each other, the rules, and have agreed that whichever team has the most goals after ninety minutes plus extra time wins the game.

  Alternatively an infinite game is characterised by having both known and unknown players, changeable rules and the objective is to perpetuate the game for as long as possible. In an infinite game there is no winner or loser; players only drop out when they lose the will or resources to continue. In other words, finite players are playing to win and infinite players are playing to stay in the game.

  If we are playing a finite game, first of all we must make sure it truly is finite. We must be absolutely certain we master all the rules, know who the players and leaders are, and the ultimate goal of the game.

  If we are playing an infinite game (such as business, or even more so business design), the goal is to stay in the game fo
r as long as possible. We must be mindful of the necessary resources needed to stay in the game and constantly advance, becoming a better version ourself and focusing every day on excelling in our craft.

  II. Run reality checks often.

  A playful mindset embraces reality as is and also understands the need for continuous new input. There will always be something new we need to know about a topic or subject. A good and thorough reality check will help us identify the obstacles we need to overcome and, even more importantly, identify the people or groups we need to work with to achieve our goal.

  III. Change the direction, not the goal.

  To cite Confucius: “When it is obvious that the goals cannot be reached, don’t adjust the goals, adjust the action steps.”

  This leads back to our original topic of failure. It doesn’t matter how challenging our goal is, there will always be a way to achieve it. It may be that the very first approach we take will not be the correct one, but here is where our playful mindset kicks in. We must change our vocabulary to achieve that; problems become challenges, failures become tests, improvements become next steps and perfection becomes excellence.

  These three simple steps are the very foundation of changing our habits and shifting to a playful mindset.

  How do we become trustworthy? The obvious answer is:

  We should try to get as much exposure as possible, because the more people know us, the more products we can sell.

  Being solely visible was a tactic that worked 50 years ago, and it’s no longer sufficient. If we truly want people to trust us, we must give them adequate, useful, and tangible evidence that we are trustworthy.

  We must also be contextually relevant, which means being aware of the underlying culture that surrounds us. We must connect and communicate what is of interest to our target.

  We must understand how and where our message will be consumed, and most importantly, when our audience will be ready to listen.

  There is a host of ways to demonstrate that we are trustworthy, yet so far the most effective one I’ve found is to be open, connected, and vulnerable. Being ready for the possibility of being attacked, criticised or harmed, either physically or emotionally, is a good sign of trustworthiness and confidence.

  This may sound insanely risky, but it’s not. The more relevantly connected we are, the more people will trust us. If we are afraid of connecting or being criticised, it is because we either have something to hide or we don’t believe in what we do. If this is the case, it is time to reconsider our core values.

  When it comes to trust, what we don’t do has just as much impact as what we do. Many companies I have worked with did everything just right. They crafted a good product and image, had a fair presence both on- and offline, yet they still struggled to develop a strong relationship with their customers. Putting all these experiences together, I noticed one common mistake: a narrow focus on only certain activities which can be measured in terms of retention or ROI.

  Some examples include: “If we send this email, how many new subscribers can we get...?” or “If we do this event, how many customers can we engage?” and so on.

  If we give in to this mindset, we will develop a sort of tunnel vision which will limit our ability to discover and evaluate other new and exciting possibilities. So, instead of focusing on how much we can gain, I suggest thinking about the costs of a missed opportunity.

  For example: “If we fail to serve one customer, how many potential customers will this affect?” or “If we don’t have a good functional website, how many netizens are we losing?”

  This approach will drastically change our attitude to how we might develop and market a new brand or design. As we start to look for more viable and valuable solutions, we open our mind to a broader vision.

  This is also great practice to keep our design fresh, while others might struggle to keep up with the increasing pace of the competition.

  THE ESSENCE OF TRUST

  Trust is much more about us than it is about them.

  It’s about giving rather than taking. We don’t take trust from others, we develop and demonstrate that we are trustworthy.

  To do so we must give tangible evidence of trustworthiness.

  We must become familiar and reliable while being clear about what we stand for and never lose a chance to demonstrate that.

  We must keep a playful mindset, focusing on being open, connected and relevant.

  Last but not least, consistency is the place where everything begins and ends. We live in a hectic world, and a single, brilliant idea may not be enough to ensure sustainable, long-lasting growth.

  Rather than rely on a stroke of genius, we must consistently distinguish ourselves from the crowd. To be desirable on different levels, we need to engage the public with a compelling story, make them feel like they are part of the journey, and seek to renew trust by providing evidence of our competence and reliability.

  Consistency means having the ability to be essential, concrete and credible over time, never compromising on our core values and yet always renewing ourselves.

  We must also be able to distinguish between image and identity. The secret to achieving this is to keep all elements aligned and monitored.

  Inspiration:

  Design and business are organic processes, not static ones. They are as fluid as water 水 Water represents: willpower, magnetism, sensitivity, wisdom and persuasiveness.

  Key Words:

  IMAGE & IDENTITY • HUMAN CENTRED • COLLABORATIVE • EXPERIMENTAL • STATUS

  There is a reason why design and branding are such important topics and arguably two of the most significant strategical assets in a company today.

  In the past few years, a social shift has occurred: from an industrial society, where the general public acknowledged the functional value of a product, to a postmodern society, where the general public acknowledges the symbolic value of a product.

  As argued by Alain de Botton in his book Status Anxiety, “Much of the reason we go shopping is unconnected to any urgent material need. [...] We often shop for emotional, rather than practical reasons. A lot of consumption is about acquiring status symbols […] and material objects whose primary use is psychological rather than functional”.

  They are objects that signal to the world we are worthy of dignity and respect. We must embrace and understand this shift, because solely producing products or services is no longer enough!

  We have to start creating status symbols. This means crafting not just the product or service, but the overall culture that surrounds it.

  I believe we (entrepreneurs, design professionals, creative minds) should strive to infuse deep cultural and social value into our work. When crafting something, we must inspire people who interact with our work to know and feel that they are not just buying another piece of merchandise. Instead, they should perceive the acquisition of new knowledge, a fragment of culture.

  Far too many times I have been asked to give the secret recipe for creating luxury brands or award-winning products, when there is none! Most of the time I instead find myself reminding people that how we achieve something is just as important as the outcome.

  There are serious implications that stem from the methods we use to achieve something. Timeless design and brands usually have a specific journey that is as attractive as the actual product or service they present.

  Sometimes it’s their heritage or a particular production process; other times it’s the journey of the founder. Either way, it always comes down to how the customer feels and how they share those feelings with others.

  As we embrace this philosophy, we start to see that the development process is just as valuable as the outcome itself. Big or small, every step changes how we arrive at our destination, and we can learn more from the process than from the outcome.

  Remember, if the process doesn’t add value to what we are doing, then inevitably the outcome will lose value we never even knew it had.

  To m
e, design is far more experimental than it is predefined. I try as much as I can never to fall in love with the very first ideas, as that wouldn’t allow the design process to guide me to the end solution.

  The final outcome might vary or be unsatisfactory due to many variables, and that’s why we must fall in love with the process, not the outcome.

  What is the key to consistent improvement? What are the obstacles we have to overcome to be original and unique? While strolling at the mall or casually surfing the web, I often get frustrated and think, “How is it possible that so many brands produce items with little to no difference between them?” My conclusion is fear. These brands fear failure so much they clone one another, naively thinking this is the safer choice.

  We shouldn’t be afraid of failure. We should accept and embrace failure as an essential part of the learning process. Sustainable failure always identifies the next step. If we haven’t learned anything from our failure (and therefore can’t identify what our next step is), then we are just being incremental, or hoping for a cheap win from a mundane solution. To embrace failure with confidence, we must first identify in which areas we can afford errors, and in which ones we absolutely cannot afford to fail. In Japanese culture there is a fascinating philosophy called Kintsugi (golden joinery). The antique Japanese art of restoring broken or damaged pottery with lacquer dusted or mixed with powdered gold, silver, or platinum. This philosophy treats breakage and repair as part of the history of an object, rather than something to disguise, a perfect example of embracing the beauty of failure.

  A sports analogy we can all understand is tennis: In the first serve, players give all they have, trying to score an ace. If that fails, the second serve becomes much more strategical. Players read the opponent, evaluate weak spots and use a more sophisticated but safer technique to score. They embrace the beauty of sustainable failure.