Trust made the dispute worse.

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Last week, I was speaking on a panel about dispute resolution

A room full of lawyers, procurement directors, and contract managers.
And the very first question came to me:

“Why do disputes still cause so much damage… even when both sides trust each other?”

It’s a good question.
Because we’ve all seen it happen.

Projects going well.
Relationship feels strong.
Then one disagreement lands,
and everything fractures.

Sounds strange, I know.
But I’ve seen this play out in billion dollar deals, internal teams, long-term partnerships.
Every time, it’s the same dynamic:

There was trust.
But it was the wrong kind.
Or it wasn’t built to survive pressure.

Let’s unpack that here.

Most people think trust is one thing. But it’s not.

There are layers of trust. And each one handles conflict differently:

• Competence trust
  “They’ll do the job well” → Usually survives conflict.

• Goodwill trust
  “They have our best interests at heart” → Deepest, but most fragile.

• Contractual trust
  “They’ll stick to the deal” → Can be rebuilt.

• Emotional trust
  “We’ve been through things together” → Takes the longest to repair.

• Surface-level trust
  “We’ve never had a problem” → False sense of safety.

Now imagine a partnership built mostly on goodwill.
Then a dispute hits.

Suddenly, intentions are questioned.
And it doesn’t just feel like a mistake, it feels like betrayal.

That’s the trust–dispute paradox:

Often, what makes it worse is

• Control disguised as collaboration
  Heavy documentation. Checklists. Oversight.
  Looks like alignment. Often signals a lack of trust.

• Power imbalance
  One side “trusts” the process.
  The other side feels trapped by it.

• Silence before the storm
  No signs of trouble. No space to speak up.
  Then conflict hits, and everything comes out at once.

We should aim to build trust that survives disputes

Not by being “nicer.”
And not by avoiding conflict.

Instead, build it with tension in mind.

Here’s what that looks like:

• Make it safe to speak up
  Psychological safety isn’t soft. It’s structural.
  People need to feel safe raising issues early, without fearing it’ll be used against them later.

• Don’t just track delivery. Track relationship health
  Use informal check-ins, feedback loops, and pulse surveys.
  You can’t fix what you don’t know.

• Design contracts for collaboration
  Contracts should lay out how to resolve friction, not just prevent it.
  How to course-correct, not just how to penalise.

• Expect tension

  Say it out loud:
  “We’re aligned now. But if things change, let’s have the kind of relationship that can absorb it.”

  That’s professional trust.
  Built on truth, not comfort.

And when conflict does happen

Here’s what recovery looks like:

• Don’t explain it away. Acknowledge the hit.

• Let everyone speak, facts and feelings.

• Focus on repair, not blame.

• Fix the process, not just the people.

Because if you handle the dispute well?

The relationship doesn’t just survive.

Most relationships break because they were never built to hold tension.

The trust was real. But it wasn’t resilient.

So don’t ask: “Do we trust each other?”

Ask: “What happens when that trust is tested?”

That’s the trust that lasts.

See you in the next issue. 
Until then.

Trust doesn’t prevent tension.
It prepares for it.

Scott

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