Rule 4.3: From Trailing to Co-Motion
The Third Shift: From Trailing to Co-Motion
For decades, service organizations have existed in a trailing motion to the business. The company makes decisions, and then IT, security, compliance, and risk management follow: reacting to, supporting, or cleaning up after those decisions. This structure is not unique to trust-related functions. It is a well-established pattern in corporate operations, where the “business” moves forward while service teams exist to facilitate or protect that movement. But when trust operates in this trailing motion, the consequences are severe.
Business leaders do not think in terms of trust until it becomes a problem. They expand into a regulated vertical before trust teams are aware. They enter high-risk partnerships without verifying and validating trustworthiness. They decide to sell the company before risk and diligence teams have time to optimize trust value and remove acquisition friction. These decisions shape the company’s future, but trust teams are often brought in too late to influence them strategically. At best, they are seen as an operational necessity. At worst, they are an afterthought.
The result is predictable. Security teams scramble to fix issues that could have been avoided. Compliance teams are pressured to make last-minute concessions. Risk teams are caught flat-footed in diligence conversations. And trust professionals, despite their expertise, find themselves forced into a reactive role where they are expected to enable the business without having a seat at the table where those business decisions are made. This is not an oversight. It is a structural failure. And it must change.
Trust operations cannot succeed if they are positioned as a reactive service. Trust must move in co-motion with the business, integrated into its decision-making process, rather than trailing behind it. This is not about making security, compliance, or risk teams more proactive within their existing silos. It is about redefining trust as a go-to-market function. More critically, this shift is also about recognizing that the business has already sold trust as a product whether it realizes it or not. Customers buy with an expectation of safety, reliability, and integrity. Sales teams make implicit commitments about security, compliance, and operational excellence. The market assumes these trust foundations are in place. Yet internally, trust functions still behave as if they are simply supporting roles, not core product enablers. The disconnect is clear: the business is making trust-based market commitments, but trust teams are not positioned to fulfill them. The business is selling a product it does not know it has, and trust teams are being asked to deliver it without recognition that it even exists.
The shift from trailing to co-motion is not unprecedented. The best comparison comes from the evolution of the Chief Marketing Officer (CMO). CMOs were once in a position similar to today’s CISOs. They managed marketing budgets, executed campaigns, and measured success in terms of resource efficiency rather than market impact. Their work was seen as necessary, but not strategic. CFOs controlled the budget, and when revenue performance suffered, marketing was often the first to be cut. This changed when marketing became measurable. When CMOs proved that their work could be attributed directly to growth and value, they earned their place in go-to-market strategy. This shift transformed CMOs from cost centers to growth investments.
The same transformation is now happening with trust.
Like marketing before it, trust has historically been measured in terms of operational efficiency. Compliance checklists, audit scores, risk heat maps. These metrics serve internal purposes, but they do not communicate trust’s value to the business. Just as CMOs had to prove marketing ROI in financial terms, CISOs can now prove trust’s role as a value influencer, driver, enabler, and defender. When trust teams fail to operate in co-motion with the business, they fail to deliver on these market expectations, creating unseen liabilities that surface only when deals stall, relationships erod, or customers question whether their value is safe with your organization.
Moving in co-motion with the business is more than a structural change. It requires a shift in mindset. Data protection leaders must stop viewing themselves as technical service providers and instead own their role as business leaders. A trust organization that trails the business will always struggle for relevance. It will be underfunded, deprioritized, and treated as an operational necessity rather than a strategic advantage. But a trust organization that moves in co-motion with the business changes the conversation. It does not wait to be consulted: it is already at the table delivering stakeholder value. It is about proving that trust is already part of what is being sold and then ensuring that it is delivered as a core product feature.
The shift is already happening. The only question is who will recognize it in time.