Trust

In the opening chapters of my 2015 book, “The Tribe That Discovered Trust” I use the narrative device of a tribal reconnaissance party that is forced, through an encounter with a group of strangers, to make the decision whether to fight them (a natural inclination driven by the fear response) or take a leap of faith and see if their more open, friendlier approach will be reciprocated.

The book itself deals with the nature of trust based on societal studies, psychology and neuroscience, but it is in those opening chapters and the narrative device employed that some of the more powerful observations are made, including two that are consider central to the concept of work and the concept of being: Namely that “Trust is what monetizes the attention economy.” and that “Trust cannot, in the real world, be just a matter of personal choice.”

Just the other day in a rare moment, for this platform, a discussion ensued over change, reform, empathy and trust. The thread, for reference, is linked to here and I am linking to it because it is in the comments of those who engaged with it and then talked to me that the real value of my post surfaced.

There are many things I need to unpack to help you better understand the importance of what took place and its value to us as a lesson we can apply in business and, hopefully, our own lives.

First, let’s start with the obvious that in the seven years between the writing of “The Tribe That Discovered Trust” I have written four more books, two of which, “The Sniper Mind” and “Intentional” entailed three years of writing and research each, some 10,000+ hours of research papers study and hundreds of hours of taped interviews with neuroscience researchers and behavioral psychologists.

In that time my own approach to how search, marketing and selling work in an operational environment framed by a business and its need to remain viable, has undergone a dramatic shift. Selling requires trust. Marketing is messaging. Search is behavior. Search is also marketing which makes messaging part of our behavior. Behavior then is predicated on beliefs and values. It is these beliefs and values that create the perception that leads to trust. Without trust nothing can happen.

The posts I put out, each time, come from a need to serve. Without that need I, personally, lose focus and with the loss of focus I soon lose my sense of purpose. We all need both focus and purpose to retain the meaning of what we do. We need meaning in what we do for our physical and mental health but also for the sustained viability of our actions.

This means I think carefully before I post something and I make sure, even if it is a promotional post, that I pack as much value to it for those who see it, as I can. The post above, which we are discussing now, is no exception. Yet, despite, all my apparent knowledge in this sphere of marketing and messaging and my detailed understanding of trust and the importance of intentionality in our actions, not once have I written or, indeed, said, anything about “intentional vulnerability”. The willingness to take an intentional risk in order to achieve a reward (a connection) that will be mutually beneficial.

The honor of that observation lies with Christina Blount whose comments in that thread are so loaded with insights and the careful deliberation of complex issues that they bear analysis, examination and deeper thinking at every sentence.

But Christina, is not a stranger to me. I’ve known her since the early days of G+ (which remained my favorite social network right to the end) and I had interacted with her many times before. As it turns out Benjamin Bar whose comments actually kicked off the whole discussion in that thread has also been on G+.

Both Benjamin and Christina took my original post and observations and added their own opinion, thoughts and ideas. Their action transformed my own post into something much smarter, coherent and valuable than I had managed to put out. But it took trust, from each of us to get there. Benjamin trusted that I wouldn’t overreact when he suggested that “empathy” was missing from my list of ingredients for a successful transformation. Christina trusted that we’d each take what she said as a contribution worth considering. I trusted that no one who came to the thread was going to see it as an opportunity to pick holes in my argument with the intent to diminish me so they can appear smarter.

In that thread, busy and distracted as each of us might have been by real world events and consumed by our own struggle to do what we do, we were also willing to be open, honest and vulnerable. The result is that the thread that was ‘mine’ now became, fully ours. I was humbled by the willingness of others to be as open and thoughtful as Benjamin and Christina proved to be. It also served to remind me of what I frequently say: “The value of an idea that appears to us to be brilliant is only tested when it is shared.”

Digital interactions make everything a commodity by lowering the initial cost of access. It is within the digital domain then that: “… 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.”

It is that simple. And that difficult at the same time. Amazon’s return policy is “intentional vulnerability”. Airbnb designs for trust.

Organizations need trust inside and out to survive and thrive.

Truly, “Trust is an ethereal quality. Like oxygen or light we notice it only by its absence.”