Trust (again)

What is Trust?

Trust is an ethereal quality. Like oxygen or light we notice it only by its absence. Like both oxygen and light it enables us to function in a meaningful, productive way and we generally tend to take it for granted when it’s there. The only way to truly understand something we can neither see nor touch is to formalize its definition and look at some of its most noticeable effects. It is through those effects and what they make possible that we can then begin to understand what trust really is and why we need it so badly.?

The Oxford English dictionary has no fewer than seven distinct, broad categories which help define what trust is. In a page that on the web runs to 520 words, not including countless situational examples that demonstrate the meaning of trust in usage its lexicographers attempt to nail down one of the most elusive of human qualities, explaining it through usage in the hope that they will somehow define its meaning.

Throughout the ages philosophers, generals, national leaders and literary figures have tried to capture the essence of what trust is. The legendary Lao Tzu believed that trust was a reciprocal arrangement, Nietzsche made it evidence-based, J. M. Barrie, creator of Peter Pan thought it was something magical that was either present or it wasn’t, Emerson thought it was conceptual rather than circumstantial and Einstein believed the exact opposite. It is J. K. Rowling, however, who in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets has one of her characters say: “Never trust anything that can think for itself if you can't see where it keeps its brain” that nails it.

In truth, trust is an emergent quality that comes out of cognitive processes that allow us to establish a sense of the world and our place in it. There are several complex elements to it that require an assessment of potential and actual risk to take place, a quantification of value in the proposed exchange (what is to be directly gained from it) and a calculation of intent. And yes, before I forget, empathy plays a role in there too. Before we can truly trust someone we have to understand them and get a sense of their situation. We need to feel that they too are thinking entities like us, and we need to see both the context of their thinking and how they actually arrive at it. Plus we need to feel that in their actions they also share a degree of vulnerability, just like us. We need, in short, to establish nothing less than a human connection we can feel confidence in.

The real problem with trust and the reason Rowling’s description nails it so beautifully is that there is no one type of trust nor one calculation that could tell us how much of it there is and whether the potential exists for more to be created. If that sentence sounds a little loose in its framing consider how trust must have appeared to Kansas University researcher Kim Giffin who in an authored paper in 1967 said: that trust “has been viewed as a somewhat mystical and intangible factor, probably defying careful definition”.

In the intervening years we have got no closer to completely nailing down trust but our awareness of the conditions required for its emergence has grown thanks to an accumulating body of data and better analysis tools at our disposal.?

Why Trust? Why Now?

“The best way to find out if you can trust somebody is to trust them.”?This is an example of reciprocal trust with an element of faith and perhaps even a hint of wishful thinking in it (or desperation if you have no other choice). It’s no surprise that it was said by Ernest Hemingway.

Academic researchers who have spent thousands of manhours looking at how trust is formed in organizational settings are far less sure of its definition as their summation of lengthy papers shows:

“ . . . trust is a term with many meanings.” – Oliver Williamson

“Trust is itself a term for a clustering of meanings.” – Harrison White

“. . . researchers . . . purposes may be better served . . . if they focus on specific components of trust rather than the generalized case.” – Robert Kaplan

If they are confused consider the depths of uncertainty the rest of us must swim in, which helps explain the plaintive note struck by an anonymous user on Yahoo Answers who asks: “Why is so difficult to trust someone?” hoping that somehow the wisdom of crowds will combine with the knowledge that resides in the web and provide an answer that can work in almost any situation.

“Because it is” comes back one of the less sympathetic replies.

Trust is clearly hard to define. But that is no real answer to the Yahoo user’s question. We find trust difficult because we don’t always understand what it is that makes it happen. We don’t know what makes trust happen because we don’t always understand what it is. This is a chain of thought which, when reversed, leads us to conclude that the moment we have a hard definition of trust we can then implement a number of steps to make it manifest. Maybe, but there is a kneejerk and entirely understandable resistance to this thought.

The resistance stems from the notion that trust is at the core of every relational exchange between people. We give our attention to those we have a reasonable expectation to not abuse it. We listen to those we have some expectation will make sense and say something we might benefit from. We interact with those we think are unlikely to hurt us. Without trust nothing would happen. Maybe, we might not even have come out of the caves preferring the misery and restrictions of what we knew to the myriad unknown dangers of the world waiting outside had we not had a sense of trust in our ability to survive through contact with others. ?

If trust is so truly fundamental to the human condition, we then ask, and we deconstruct it, are we then not creating a formula for its automatic construction? And if we are doing that is this not going to rob any human interaction from any kind of authenticity and every kind of spontaneity?

That is a very good question to ask, but before we get to it, it is worth examining why trust has become so very critical to us at this point in time.

In the not too distant past that passes for our pre-digital age trust came inherently attached as an unexamined notion, with every relationship we found ourselves in. In that past we had precious little choice. We found ourselves bound in specific groups and specific communities. Our circle of contacts came from work. Locked in silos from which there was no escape we took trust at face value, did not question it because we could not really change it. Even personal relationships, in that world, happened within reach of the gaze of community, family and friends and were therefore hardly dependent upon our judgement of trust, only.

So, in a way trust was associated with physical perception, aided by non-verbal cues, bound by social guidelines or community mores. We knew whether to trust our boss or not, believe in the minister of our local community, accept the tale that one of our siblings told us, believe the story our friends shared down the pub because we were there. We could see the body language, listen to the tonal pitch of their voices, observe the expressions and pick up on nuanced changes which would tell us if the people we already knew were lying to us or not.?

The digital world and social media have changed all of this. Through the screen of our phones we can find ourselves in contact with people half a world away, active in communities made up by individuals who themselves come from cultures and backgrounds totally different to ours. In this context we actually have a choice. First of all we choose to be there. Our remotely present, digital selves are the result of conscious decisions and conscious choices made with an awareness of at least some form of intent on our part. Second, all the cues and clues we habitually rely on in order to make our subliminal assessment of trust are absent. Communication takes place in poorly constructed sentences and half-formed thoughts, on the fly, in a hurry, asynchronously with cultural references from dozens of countries thrown in the mix and our attention spread over many different tasks.

This robs us of the ability to instantly judge people based upon perceptions, assessing their truthfulness using criteria that we have developed over time, many of which come from direct previous experience from our own social group.

In the digital domain trust is now important not only because we really need to know how to trust people and whom to trust but because we need others to trust us and have to learn how to help them do so. No meaningful social media connection is possible and no digital commercial transaction is feasible without trust being present in the mix. And though there is a strong, logical temptation to think that if we somehow ‘crack’ the trust equation we can then blindly apply it and be done the truth is far from it being so.

Trust has different flavors and types. It changes in every context and each situation even if the participants are the same. As we move forward (as we have already seen in the first part of this book) it is a fluid quality that can be quantified only by its effects. It is as much a part of authenticity as being human and though both authenticity and being human can be faked these days, they cannot really be convincingly faked for very long.

Actions stem from intent. Intent is fashioned from awareness and ethics (which mark the choices we make). Awareness and ethics stem from knowledge and understanding of both content and context. All of this, together, form the stamp that says “Human” and though they can be emulated piece-meal by very clever algorithms, they cannot yet be sustained for any length of time.

The key is consistency. It is consistency that in the past, in the pre-digital world let us know when someone we knew (and understood) was being less than honest, had a hidden agenda or was trying to hide something by telling partial truths. Consistency is hard to achieve because the variables that must be juggled each time are way too many to accurately calculate or even handle, and they themselves are fluid. Mistakes will be made.

So, knowing how trust is formed and how it can be maintained is not quite the same with knowing how to trick people into trusting you when you’re not really worthy of that trust.

The Definition of Trust

As we go through this book we will look at quite a few definitions of trust which will depend upon the situation, its participants, their relationships, their corresponding intent, their reputations and the subject matter. We shall see trust examined as an internal and external force, as a social construct and as an article of faith. There will be degrees of trust being measured in situations where trust appears to have been established but which are still differentiated from other, ‘trusted’ situations by variables that depend upon expectations, experience and the perception of symmetry in the power coefficient that exists in the relationships between all the different participants.

Depending on how you measure it trust can be psychological, attitudinal, transactional or social. It can be quantified as organizational trust that is very specifically circumscribed or situational trust that knows no boundaries. Its very fluidity is what makes it so versatile and ubiquitous in almost every situation involving people and relationships.

Ultimately however each and every definition of trust can be boiled down to one specific thing: Confidence. Trust is key to our survival and as such it is an emergent phenomenon that springs from some very basic instincts. Those instincts are there to determine one thing for us and one thing only: is a situation we are about to enter, safe? Do we have confidence that once we launch ourselves in it we will come out the other end relatively intact and capable of going on? ?

The way we define, establish, calculate and maintain trust then is nothing more than a complex, roundabout, risk-assessment exercise we undertake in order to know what we are letting ourselves in for. If you remember this about trust then you will also realize than no matter how complicated a situation may be, ultimately, the emergence of trust within it springs from the same thing every time: the answer to the question, for the participants in the situation of “is it safe?”

Summary

Trust is noted by its effects and its absence rather than its presence. Researchers agree that it is a necessary part of the human condition. We all intuitively understand the need for trust and have some, unarticulated, idea of its value. None of us want to consciously choose to live in a state of low trust for any length of time. Trust seems then to be almost instinctive in the sense that just like we are hardwired to move away from pain and move towards anything that makes us feel good, low-trust environments make us feel uncomfortable and high trust ones make us feel good.

Five Key Questions To Answer

1.?????? How do you create a sense of trust (and safety) within your organization?

2.?????? How do you then create a sense of trust (and safety) for your customers?

3.?????? How do you reply to questions where a lack of trust is evidently an issue?

4.?????? From a scale of 1 to 10 (with 10 being the highest) rate the trust you have in your employees.

5.?????? From a scale of 1 to 10 (with 10 being the highest) rate the trust you think your organization projects to your customers. ??

Extract from: The Tribe That Discovered Trust: How trust is created lost and regained in commercial interactions (You can download a free PDF copy of the book, no-strings whatsoever, here.)

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