Trust Isn’t Measured On a Spreadsheet

Scrolling through X, I saw this tweet: “If a business has a small dish [of candy] by the register it means the company isn’t owned by private equity yet.”

It was a joke, but we all know it’s true.

We’ve all seen companies we like announce they’re “under new management,” promising to “streamline the business.” It’s usually the beginning of the end. Somewhere behind the scenes, spreadsheets get built. Efficiencies get squeezed. The candy dish vanishes along with all the little touches that made you love the place.

Some cuts make sense. But many are sleights of hand: giving you less and hoping you won’t notice.

Why?

Because you can’t measure trust in a spreadsheet—but you can absolutely destroy it with one.

Managers have written more fiction in Excel than most novelists. A tweak here, a cut there, and the candy bowl disappears. The lie the spreadsheet tells: It’s just math. And since there’s no column for “trust,” they assume no one will notice.

Horst Schulze, cofounder of the Ritz-Carlton, put it this way:¹ 

“When the budgets gets tight … the temptation arises to take things away from the customer and hope they won’t notice.

In my field of upscale hotels, a manager will say, “Well, we don’t have to keep buying fresh flowers for the lobby, do we? It’s just a cost we can cut … The soap in the rooms? Let’s make those bars a little smaller. And the towels don’t have to be so soft, do they?”

The crazy thing is, this manager will often be rewarded for cutting costs! … Meanwhile, his customers are beginning to think less of his establishment. Their expectations are no longer being met. His brand is being steadily diminished.”

That was written six years ago before shrinkflation became a household term. But the pattern is the same.

At first, customers don’t notice. They slide a new RITZ crackers box into the pantry—only to spot the old one. The new box is smaller. The label confirms it: less product, higher price.

The result? They feel tricked, cheated, or lied to. 

Not always enough to complain. But enough to make them hesitate next time. Enough to quietly erode trust. And once trust erodes, loyalty follows.

The spreadsheet shows a win.

Margins are up. The initiative gets a name like “improved package architecture” in the manager’s slide deck. 

But the spreadsheet doesn’t measure trust as it bleeds out. 

The Trust or Trick Test 

So what do you do when you need to cut costs but don’t want to cut trust?

Here’s a simple way to tell the difference.

Don’t look at the spreadsheet as a set of cells. Think of it as a window. And on the other side is your customer.

Now imagine explaining your idea out loud to them.

Would they feel tricked?

Or would they trust you more?

If you’re cutting five percent of the product and hoping they won’t notice, that’s a trick.

If you’re making a change for a good reason and can explain it honestly, that builds trust.

This isn’t just a test for products. It’s a test for every business decision.

Trust isn’t measured in a spreadsheet. But it’s why customers stay—or walk away.

1. Source: Schulze, Horst. Excellence Wins: A No-Nonsense Guide to Becoming the Best in a World of Compromise (p. 87). (Function). Kindle Edition.