"zero trust" management

I've figured out one type of person it's not efficient for me to work with : the sort of person who depends on trust, to make themselves feel safer.

You see, I generally don't hire and manage social or commercial partners based on trust. Rather, I prefer to manage talent using protocols. Therefore, one of my optimisation strategies is to test counterparties to see if they can or cannot abide by protocol ... and it turns out that if they are the sort of person who holds trust, i.e. goodwill, above protocol, then they are often likely to pick goodwill over protocol in emergencies, and that's not what I want to be planning my operations around.

Symmetrically, my architectures of protocol over goodwill tend to scare the shit out of a large chunk of the population, potential partners, bosses, staff, whatnot. So it is good for us to run separate operations except when we have identified a more specific area of common interest.

Discussions : 

Been talking about this for years : it's a matter of what is called, in anthropology, high-context vs low-context culture. I just happen to prefer low-context cultures.

Example : it's not law that you have to love my parents, ergo I do not find myself obliged to love my parents, since I don't respect traditions I didn't sign up for.

Example : it's in law that you have to respect the Malay institutions, so to that degree, I find myself obliged to do so.

Example : it's not in law that human rights exist everywhere in the same way ; ergo I do not admit that the intuition that people have about human rights applies everywhere and in the same way.

Example : it's not in the law that bribery is a regulated process. Bribery is very common in Malaysia, but I prefer not to bribe.

A preference, whether inherited or invented, is not a self-enforcing system. You might find that filial-piety or other forms of common sense are self-enforcing "informally, and inconsistently, by the masses". But I find that to be an inferior sort of society, so I don't accord it with much respect 🙂, and I would accord more respect to a society which codifies and enforces by codex the preferences of that society.