Why Slow Processes Feel More Trustworthy

You can’t build trust technology with a “move fast, break things” mindset. ❌ This approach might work when a broken feature only causes temporary friction, not real financial or security consequences. It stops working the moment trust, identity, or security sit at the core of how your business operates. In banks, telecoms, and regulated environments, breaking things does not lead to learning. It creates exposure. When trust is lost, it is rarely a local problem. It affects customers, partners, regulators, and reputation all at once. 💥 I have seen this play out more than once. Teams push for speed, celebrate quick delivery, and only later realize that early shortcuts quietly shaped systems in ways that are difficult and expensive to unwind. What often gets missed is how trust systems actually fail. It is rarely loud or obvious. More often, issues show up in edge cases, fallback flows, and assumptions that were never tested at scale. ⚠️ In practice, a “move fast” mindset in organizations where trust is central often leads to: 👉 progress that looks successful on the surface but hides real risk 👉 ownership becoming unclear as work spans multiple teams and partners 👉 risk being postponed instead of addressed intentionally 👉 processes that work in normal situations but fail under stress The alternative is not moving slowly or avoiding ambition. It is moving with clear intent. Designing with accountability, strong defaults, and the assumption that systems will be tested under pressure, at volume, and across borders. 🔐 This matters most in industries like financial services and telecommunications, where identity and access are tied directly to money, services, and everyday customer trust. 💸 Speed still matters. Shipping still matters. But in trust-critical infrastructure, responsibility has to be part of the design from day 1, not a reaction after something breaks. This mindset may feel slower at the start, but it is the only one that truly scales when trust is at stake. 🎯 #DigitalIdentity #TrustInfrastructure #RegulatedIndustries

Startup founders love to complain that corporations are “old-school.” - Old tools - 15-step processes - Approvals by 5 teams - Compliance And then they walk into an enterprise sales call and pitch some radical new workflow that “replaces everything.” Here’s a reality check for you: Corporations aren’t slow because they’re incompetent or unaware of better ways. They’re slow because 𝘮𝘪𝘴𝘵𝘢𝘬𝘦𝘴 𝘢𝘳𝘦 𝘦𝘹𝘱𝘦𝘯𝘴𝘪𝘷𝘦. For a corporation, 1 wrong decision is worse than 100 slow decisions. A startup can ship a broken page and fix it in 10 minutes. An enterprise ships a wrong product description and suddenly: - Legal - Regulatory - Compliance - Auditors …are all involved. That “little tool” you’re selling might change how information flows inside the company. And that can have real consequences. So enterprises optimize for risk control and coordination, not speed. If you want a long-term relationship with enterprise customers, you have to understand that. You’re not replacing their systems overnight. You’re earning trust inside a risk-averse machine. And founders who understand that win enterprise deals.

𝐀𝐭 𝐬𝐞𝐧𝐢𝐨𝐫 𝐥𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐥𝐬, 𝐩𝐫𝐨𝐜𝐮𝐫𝐞𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐝𝐞𝐜𝐢𝐬𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬 𝐝𝐨𝐧’𝐭 𝐬𝐥𝐨𝐰 𝐝𝐨𝐰𝐧, 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐲 𝐝𝐞𝐞𝐩𝐞𝐧. What looks like hesitation is often stewardship. Early in my career I measured decisions by speed. Close the deal, lock the contract, move to the next objective. As responsibility grew 𝐈 𝐛𝐞𝐠𝐚𝐧 𝐭𝐨 𝐦𝐞𝐚𝐬𝐮𝐫𝐞 𝐝𝐞𝐜𝐢𝐬𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬 𝐛𝐲 𝐰𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐲 𝐦𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭 𝐝𝐢𝐬𝐭𝐮𝐫𝐛 𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐫 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐧 𝐰𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐲 𝐦𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭 𝐝𝐞𝐥𝐢𝐯𝐞𝐫. That shift changes everything. By 2026 procurement is the place where organisational risk first becomes visible. A supplier change touches operations, compliance, cash flow and reputation at the same time. The role has moved from approving transactions to governing exposure, and governance rarely moves at the pace of a spreadsheet. 𝐈𝐧𝐝𝐮𝐬𝐭𝐫𝐲 𝐫𝐞𝐬𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐜𝐡 𝐬𝐮𝐩𝐩𝐨𝐫𝐭𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐬𝐡𝐢𝐟𝐭: 𝐃𝐞𝐥𝐨𝐢𝐭𝐭𝐞’𝐬 𝟐𝟎𝟐𝟓 𝐆𝐥𝐨𝐛𝐚𝐥 𝐂𝐏𝐎 𝐒𝐮𝐫𝐯𝐞𝐲 finds procurement at a clear inflection point where leaders are being asked to deliver resilience, decision governance and risk capability alongside cost outcomes, underlining that the function’s measure of success is evolving beyond traditional KPIs. What looks like delay from the outside often feels like stewardship from the inside. I felt this most clearly during a regional supplier restructuring. On paper the alternative partner was cheaper and faster. In reality the decision touched permits, workforce continuity, customer commitments and relationships built over years. The extra weeks we took were not delay. They were responsibility finding its boundaries. More data has not made decisions easier. It has made them heavier. Dashboards multiply perspectives, not certainty. Senior procurement work becomes less about choosing an option and more about choosing a direction the organisation can live with when conditions change. Leadership alters your sense of time. You stop asking how fast we can move. You start asking how safely we can land. Another truth few people mention is the loneliness of alignment. Finance wants savings, operations want continuity, risk wants caution, the business wants speed. The senior role is to hold those voices in one decision without pretending they are the same. Procurement decisions feel slower because they have become more human. They involve people, factories, suppliers and trust, not only prices. “𝐒𝐩𝐞𝐞𝐝 𝐢𝐦𝐩𝐫𝐞𝐬𝐬𝐞𝐬 𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐥𝐲. 𝐉𝐮𝐝𝐠𝐞𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐩𝐫𝐨𝐭𝐞𝐜𝐭𝐬 𝐥𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐫.” For anyone stepping into a senior seat, the lesson is simple. If decisions begin to feel slower, it may not be a process problem. It may be the first sign that you finally see the full weight of what you are deciding. 𝐖𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐧𝐠𝐞𝐝 𝐢𝐧 𝐲𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐨𝐰𝐧 𝐝𝐞𝐜𝐢𝐬𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐦𝐚𝐤𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐚𝐬 𝐫𝐞𝐬𝐩𝐨𝐧𝐬𝐢𝐛𝐢𝐥𝐢𝐭𝐲 𝐠𝐫𝐞𝐰? LinkedIn LinkedIn News LinkedIn Guide to Creating #Procurement #Leadership #LinkedInNews #SupplyChain #FutureOfWork

Ever waited on a screen and thought, “Is this broken… or still working?” Not errors. Not bugs. Silence. When a product pauses and says nothing, users don’t wait. They assume: - it broke - it froze - they did something wrong And they leave. Here’s the part most teams miss: Drop-off during loading is rarely a performance problem. It’s a communication problem. This is one of the most common patterns I flag when reviewing products. When something takes time, users don’t need it to be fast. They need to know what’s going on. That’s why some products feel calm even when they’re slow. They don’t stay silent. ChatGPT does something deceptively simple during long pauses: it narrates what’s happening. “Thinking…” “Generating…” “Analyzing…” Nothing about the speed changed. The system just stayed present, so the user didn’t feel abandoned. And that changes everything: the pause feels intentional the product feels alive the user feels guided, not abandoned In UX, uncertainty is more stressful than waiting. If your product has: - loading states - background processing - uploads - AI thinking transitions that take more than a moment Silence isn’t neutral. It’s a signal. And users will always assume the worst. Most teams treat this as a UI detail. Experienced teams treat it as a trust problem. Good UX doesn’t eliminate waiting. It eliminates doubt. That’s often the difference between: “This feels broken” and “I’ll give this a second.” P.S. What’s the last product that made you wonder, “Is this still working… or should I leave?” (Repost for others ♻️) #UserExperience #ProductDesign #UXStrategy

Sales tip. Talk slower. More like a TED Talk than a CrossFit instructor. Here’s why. When someone talks fast, it can feel like they’re in a hurry to get something from you. Even if they don’t mean to. The listener doesn’t have time to think, so their guard goes up. Not because the idea is bad. Because the energy feels rushed. Slowing down does the opposite. It says, “I’m not in a rush. Take your time.” That calm is contagious. People relax. They listen. It also quietly signals confidence. If you’re not worried about the outcome, you don’t need to sprint. Talking slower gives your words room to land. Like a good conversation over coffee, not a pitch. Trust isn’t built by speed. It’s built by ease.

If a candidate doesn’t make it past the interview stage, tell them within 24 hours. But yesterday, I had a Zoom meeting with a customer who told me, "Your AI screens applications so quickly... candidates get instant rejection feedback." I said, isn’t that a feature? He said, no that’s a bug. Candidates think something went wrong. So they are reaching out with messages to confirm: did we actually read their CVs, or were we rejected by the algorithm? And he's right, candidates trust the results more when there's a delay. Because they're used to waiting weeks for feedback, sending follow-up after follow-up. And most of the time getting no feedback at all. So sometimes, speed doesn't always equal trust!