Edition 35 | 19 May 2026

Welcome to The Perspective. Each week I share a few reflections on work, leadership, and clarity. Not to add more noise, but to slow things down just enough to think properly. Some ideas are practical, others more reflective, but all are chosen with the same intent: to help us navigate complexity with a steadier hand.

This week's note builds from a session at CFO Day last week, and the LinkedIn reflection that followed. Some ideas benefit from sitting with them a little longer before the line gets drawn.

The Asset That Stays Off the Books

I spoke at CFO Day last week and kept returning to a line that's been turning over in my head since: trust is goodwill.

The LinkedIn post that followed made the structural point. When one company buys another, the premium gets recognised as goodwill: real value, sitting on the balance sheet. The same value, built internally over twenty years, doesn't get recognised at all. The rule is conservative for good reason. But the consequence is that the most valuable asset most companies own is invisible on their own books, and almost nobody manages it on purpose.

The harder question is what managing it on purpose actually looks like.

I've come to think it begins with treating trust the way good boards treat capital. Capital has a cost. It has a required return. It has a discipline around how it gets allocated, deployed, and protected. Trust works the same way. Every decision that builds it takes longer or costs more in the moment. The return shows up later: in negotiations that move faster, recruitment that gets easier, regulators who give you the benefit of the doubt, capital raises that clear more cheaply. None of it appears as a line item. All of it shows up in the result.

Where trust and capital differ is in their asymmetry. Capital lost can usually be raised again. Trust lost almost never returns to its prior level. A reputation built over a decade can be hollowed out in a week, and the version that's eventually restored sits permanently lower than the original. That asymmetry is the part most leaders underestimate, and it's the reason trust deserves more discipline than capital, not less.

The boards and CFOs who get this right are the ones who treat the company's accumulated credibility as something to be allocated, not just accumulated. Who ask what it's being spent on. Who notice when it's being used to chase a deal, defend a mistake, or protect a decision that should have been reversed. Who manage the operations of the business knowing the slow build can be undone by a single fast loss.

None of this shows up in the accounts. It doesn't need to.

The asset stays off the books. The discipline doesn't.

👉 I shared a shorter version of this on LinkedIn last week:

View the full post and comments on LinkedIn

---

Lessons from a Business Mastermind

Episode 8: Time Is The Real Trade-Off

Toward the end of her story, Indra Nooyi reflects more personally, especially on time.

On family. On trade-offs. On moments that don’t come back.

No matter how successful a career becomes, there are parts of life that cannot be outsourced or recovered later.

And that’s where the real cost often sits.

The Lesson:

Success always involves trade-offs. The question is whether you are choosing them consciously.

A full life is not about doing everything, but about not missing what matters most.

---

On My Desk

The Indra Nooyi series closes with this edition.

I read the book in December and started writing this series eight weeks ago. The gap was deliberate. Some ideas need to sit before they're usable: what stays after the reading has cooled is usually what was worth keeping in the first place.

Next on the desk: Whitey Basson's story: Whitey: The Rise and Rule of the Shoprite King, by Niel Joubert. A very different leader, a very different industry. After two American subjects in a row, the story sits much closer to home. Series Four opens next week.

---

Closing Perspective Some things compound quietly. Trust. Standards. Credibility. None of them appear in a report. All of them decide the result. Keep thinking. Move forward. — Yusuf Visit my website

---