Before moving to Chapter 7, complete this 15-minute exercise:
Part 1: Values Clarification
Rank these values from 1-10 in importance to you: - Fairness - Innovation - Profit - Privacy - Sustainability - Efficiency - Transparency - Growth - Security - Autonomy What do your rankings reveal about potential ethical tensions in your work?Part 2: Stakeholder Mapping
For your current biggest project: 1. List all direct stakeholders 2. Identify indirect stakeholders 3. Uncover shadow stakeholders 4. Note whose voices are missingPart 3: Ethical Stress Test
Imagine your project succeeds wildly. Now imagine: 1. How could it be misused? 2. Who might be harmed? 3. What systemic effects might emerge? 4. Which values might erode? 5. What would you regret not considering?Part 4: Principled Pivot Design
Define for your work: 1. Three non-negotiable values 2. Three ethical boundaries 3. Three warning signals of drift 4. Three correction mechanisms 5. One person who'll hold you accountableRemember: In a world of instant scaling, conscience is your competitive moat. The organizations that win sustainably are those that innovate ethically—not because they have to, but because they understand it's the smartest strategy.
As the Volkswagen engineers learned too late, brilliant optimization without ethical innovation leads to catastrophic failure. But as companies like Patagonia, Apple, and CVS Health demonstrate, principled innovation creates value that transcends metrics.
The choice is yours. In the AI age, that choice echoes exponentially.
> "AI scales fast. Ethics scale forever. Choose your moat wisely."
—-
# Chapter 7: Relationship Innovation: The Network Effect of Trust
The email arrived at 3 AM Copenhagen time, but Morten Hübbe was awake, wrestling with an impossible decision.
As CEO of Tryg, Nordic region's largest insurance company, he faced a crisis that algorithms couldn't solve. A massive data breach at a partner company had exposed customer information. Not Tryg's fault. Not Tryg's legal responsibility. Every lawyer, consultant, and AI-powered risk model said the same thing: Distance yourself, minimize liability, let lawyers handle communication.
But Hübbe couldn't shake a different question: What would trust do?
At 6 AM, he made a decision that shocked his board. Tryg would notify all potentially affected customers immediately—not just their own, but their partner's too. They would provide free credit monitoring for everyone. They would take responsibility for a problem they didn't create.
"The lawyers thought I was insane," Hübbe told me. "The algorithms calculating reputational risk went haywire. But I kept thinking about my grandmother, who bought her first Tryg policy in 1952. Insurance isn't about contracts. It's about keeping promises when life breaks them."
The immediate cost: €50 million.
The long-term outcome: Customer retention increased 23%. Employee engagement hit record highs. Competitors' customers switched to Tryg in unprecedented numbers. The company's "trust premium"—the extra amount customers willingly pay for peace of mind—widened to industry-leading levels.
Five years later, that €50 million relationship investment has generated over €500 million in additional lifetime customer value⁷³.
"AI can calculate risk perfectly," Hübbe reflected. "But it can't build trust. In a world where everything is optimized, the organizations that win are those that optimize for relationships, not just results."