Powerful trust emerges through shared experiences in individual enterprises and in a broader community. I stumbled on the importance of trust while coaching my son's soccer team. When the right set of kids were playing together, the team was effective. One bad substitution and things fall apart with players leaving their positions to compensate rather in effectively for the weak player. I’ve seen the same tendency in professional settings.

There is research to support the importance of trust. At the moment, I'm reading Ronnie Lessem's introduction to Executive Leadership a book by Elliott Jacques and Stephen D. Clement. (Thanks to Bernie Daina, Ph.D. for introducing me to Jacques work.) Lessem highlights that the organization development research conducted by Jacques suggests that a “requisite” organization requires four values and begins by discussing trust.

“Mutual trust, confidence, and reliability, embodied in what Jaques terms “mutual recognition units”.

In my view, all of us in Boulder benefit from the trust that we develop and maintain because it makes life better and our entrepreneurial efforts stronger.

So, in the end this seems to be a bit of a chicken and egg quandry. In order to make Boulder/Denver a more vibrant entrepreneurial market what should come first, the money to keep the companies here or the entrepreneurs to stay and fund/mentor the next generation?

I realize that this just ADDS to the problem because it puts one more single-person car on a congested route.

Don't even get me started on the lack of rail into DIA.