The Trust Dividend
For the past two decades, the dominant logic of digital business has been the pursuit of "stickiness." We are taught to prize loyalty, retention, and customer lifetime value. But these metrics often disguise intensely manipulative mechanics. I see it in my own life: friends who are obsessed with liking each other's Instagram posts, not out of genuine appreciation, but in a transactional bid to have their own posts liked in return. It’s a system of manufactured reciprocity, and it’s why I stopped sharing my personal Instagram, turning it instead into a private photo journal. With the rise of AI, the potential to automate and scale these manipulative systems has grown exponentially, making the search for an alternative more urgent than ever.
This conclusion compels me to ask a more fundamental question. Instead of measuring the value a single company can extract, what if we measured the vitality it helps circulate? This is the logic of a living ecosystem, where the success of any single organism is inseparable from the health of the whole.
This is the principle of Relational Resonance. It is a paradigm shift away from a focus on capturing value to a focus on creating it. A fit organization doesn't aim to trap users in endless engagement loops. It seeks to create interactions that leave all participants—customers, employees, and partners—more empowered, more connected, and more alive.
This isn't a new sentiment. In 2019, the Business Roundtable made a famous declaration. This influential group, whose members are exclusively the CEOs of America's largest and most prominent companies, announced a monumental shift from shareholder primacy to a commitment to all stakeholders. Yet, in the years since, has anything fundamentally changed? Cringing at Blue Origin publicity stunts are unsurprising, knowing that its founder, Jeff Bezos, was a signatory of that statement. At the same time his Amazon warehouses faced intense scrutiny over grueling working conditions, his other company was spending a fortune to send celebrities on brief flights to ‘take up space’. This isn't just about one leader's choices; it's a stark illustration of a system where the "stakeholder" who gets a joyride into orbit is valued very differently than the one packing boxes on the ground. To truly move forward, we need more than a new mission statement; we need a new model.
To find that model, we can look to some of the most resilient ecosystems on Earth: old-growth forests. A forest is not a collection of individual trees competing for sunlight. It is a vast, interconnected system. As scientists like Suzanne Simard have discovered, central "mother trees" act as hubs, actively communicating and sharing resources through a complex underground web of fungi. They will even send excess carbon to shaded seedlings of other species, recognizing that the diversity and health of the entire forest is essential for their own long-term survival. The system thrives on reciprocity.
A business that cultivates Relational Resonance operates on this same principle. It understands that its health is inseparable from the health of its entire ecosystem.
Consider Costco. While the company faces valid criticism for the environmental challenges inherent in its high-volume model, its long-term success is built on a foundation of relational resonance. Their relationship with suppliers is not purely extractive; they build long-term, collaborative partnerships. I saw this firsthand. Over 15 years ago, I did some work for the electronics brand TCL and knew the immense challenges they faced entering the US market. Years later, the ultimate proof of their success came when my father—a man meticulous with achieving optimal ‘value-for-money’ —ditched his Samsung TV for a TCL, a brand he had come to trust not when I did work for them, but when it arrived at Costco years later. Costco didn't just give TCL shelf space; they gave them credibility.
A similar dynamic can be seen with Nubank in Brazil. My curiosity about their model was sparked recently while working with Priscila Williams, Design Lead Mexico, on a new course for Colectivo23. Her deeply human-centered perspective was a direct reflection of the company's culture. In a market dominated by bureaucratic and widely distrusted incumbent banks, Nubank built its empire on transparency and respect. Their initial growth was fueled not by massive marketing spends, but by a community of fans who felt seen and respected, creating deep resonance in a market starved for it.
This approach is a sophisticated, long-term strategy rooted in a simple business case: in a noisy, hyper-stimulated world, deep resonance allows a company to plant deep roots. A loyal customer base, committed partners, and engaged employees form a resilient ecosystem that cannot be easily disrupted. This is the trust dividend.
In my next post, we will explore the "biometrics" of Relational Resonance. How do we begin to measure the depth of these interconnected relationships?