The Cold War-era phrase, applied to stakeholder management: don't take a stakeholder's stated position — "yes, I agree," "yes, I support this" — at face value as a predictor of their actual plans or behavior.
The practical move is to independently check a stated agreement against other information sources or other people before relying on it, rather than treating a verbal commitment as the end of the diligence. Related to Alignment Decays Over Time: even a genuine agreement at time of statement can erode, so verification isn't a one-time gate.
Trust-but-verify is the middle point of a three-stage spectrum describing how much autonomy a leader grants an IC or team before acting on their decisions: verify-then-trust (default skepticism, check first) → trust-but-verify (spot-check, mostly rely) → totally trust (act on their call with no independent check). Where a person or team sits on this spectrum should track how much trust they've actually earned rather than being fixed by role or tenure alone — see also Local Boundaries of Trust Despite Broader Org Dysfunction.
Из тем: Stakeholder Power and Trust