Deception is a given precondition.

 “Eat your spinach my boy and you shall be as strong as the invincible sailor.” A retrospective revelation about the spinach myth is a testimony to the fact even well-meant deceptions starts at a very early age; by the people, we love the most. 

Back in 1870 the German chemist Erich von Wolf made a decimal mistake by stating that 100 gram of spinach has 35 milligrams of iron. That gave the impetus to a myth. In reality, however, spinach has only 3.5 milligrams, of iron per 100 gram, and Lemon Grass has twice as much iron per 100 gram.

We have grown to accept deception as part of a give and take ritual. But deception does not start with trading. It starts with the enticement to conceive life and it is not proprietary to mankind. Observe how animals display exaggerated images of themselves in order to attract a mate. In some cases, birds would offer gifts to a mate they are courting. What happens later has little to do with the deceptive promise made earlier.

 We have trained ourselves to subconsciously question any offer. The questions are: How devious, how often and how malicious each deception is and for that there is no reliable benchmark.

 Virtually every marketing offer is deceptive. That is simply because of the marketer’s aim to gain at the expense of the customer.  The rate of success depends on various aspects of an offer.

Customers’ defensive position from the start, is suspicion.  Over the course of negotiations, the two fronts may make concessions until they arrive at an amicable agreement. But the degree of deception may never be known unless the product or the service reveal defaults. There are countless examples in virtually every industry where deception was uncovered by faulty performances later on. Most recently in the car and the electronic devices industry.

So, how is the pervasive issue of deception being overcome?

Appraising. Assessing the relative advantage or disadvantage of becoming a believer happens at a subconscious level. Believers’ Expectations transcend logic.       “Where do you get your opinions from? Are you asking yourself whether you still agree with what you have been told?”                               

But the most powerful conviction comes from the gravitational draw to one another.  It has a profound effect on everything, including on the trust credit that is needed in order to set aside the naturally occurring suspicion. In the process of gravitating towards each other, we also bestow trust credit points. These are usually based on appearance, on credentials and recommendations. Trust is a loan that needs to be reimbursed continuously. In any relationship, you earn trust credit and you make trust debits. Trust becomes the reason to believe that the offer is OK.  

A deeply felt trust is above and beyond any justifications.               But an inkling of false representation is enough reason to raise suspicion.  

There is no unified directive for building trust, let alone how to become a believer based on accumulated trust.  The accumulation of trust credit happens more or less by instinct and indicative signals. Accumulated trust credit can earn “forgiveness credit”

Since it is widely known that anyone can make mistakes, it is important to accumulate “forgiveness credit”. If a trusted credit has been misused, suspicion rises once again and the assessment process starts all over again.

Abandoning the tactics of seeking advantage through deceptive exploitation.   Ethics and integrity should not take the back seat for the sake of soliciting agreements. While change is the continuum, earned trustworthiness through consistency is a precious commodity. We asked ourselves how can we achieve a productive balance between our personal goals and the business objectives we aim to achieve. 

 One way of earning trust credits is by being true to yourself and open-minded towards the values of others. You can't be open-minded and suspicious at the same time. But you can be openly suspicious.