MENTAL MODEL · M7548

Trust Battery

BusinessmediumManagement

Included

Updated 2026-08-10

Loading revision record…

INTRODUCTION

English translation pending.

CORE DEFINITION

Proposed by Shopify founder Tobi Lutke, the trust battery holds that trust between two people behaves like a battery. A first meeting may start at 50 percent; every kept promise charges it and every breach or mistake drains it, and a drained battery ends the relationship. With a low charge everything you say is questioned, while a full charge lets you err and still be trusted.

SCAFFOLDING EFFECT

psychology

Reduce cognitive load

- Quantify goodwill: read each key stakeholder's trust level as a concrete percentage you can manage - Charge in small cycles: build the battery with a series of small, kept commitments - Time the ask: never push a major request while the battery still reads low

anchor

Anchor fast decisions

Trust behaves as a nonlinear asset: it accumulates slowly through repeated reliable behavior and collapses fast after a single visible breach, because each kept promise nudges expectations upward while a breach invalidates the whole pattern. The charge governs communication cost, since a listener with a full battery assumes good faith and a listener with an empty one re-checks every claim.

MINIMUM ACTION

In progress 0/1

Practice this model in one real situation:

Track a battery reading for every key stakeholder you depend on 2. Charge it steadily by delivering on a series of small commitments 3. Verify the charge is high before making a major promise or request 4. After a mistake, repair it directly with an apology and restitution 5. Postpone important asks whenever the reading is still low

Check to track your progress (stored locally)

Learning progress0%

account_treeGenealogyexpand_more

menu_bookReferencesexpand_more

Source support: Explicit

link
en.wikipedia.orghttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tobias_L%C3%BCtkeZH · Explicit
verified

RELATED MODELS