We don’t need the truth, we need trust

The video of Kate Middleton explaining her illness seemed real to me. I've also read dozens of comments saying it's not real. In these days when the bond between reality and illusion is about to be broken, the question in my mind is: why do we need the truth?

Let me share a personal observation: most of the people around me use the new information they acquire to strengthen their own opinions. Am I vegan? Here's some new information to back me up. Am I anti-vegan? The result of this research is perfect for me. Our relationship with accurate information has turned into collecting points instead of searching for the truth.

Another observation: Whether or not the people around me support my idea depends mostly on the trust they have with me. People who trust me are quick to buy even my information that is unlikely to be real. In cases where we do not have a trustworthy relationship, every new information I provide seems to require a new bibliography.

To reach the truth, we spend hours in data, fact checking, confirming from multiple sources. What about gaining trust?

Earning trust in corporate life

I used to think that corporate life was based on data rather than trust and belief. Almost every crisis moment showed that this idea was incomplete and inadequate. It is important to have enough data to make decisions and to have pieces of reality to test hypotheses, yet the lifting force that keeps the ship of truth afloat is trust. Even for business teams with conflicts of interest? Yes. Even in sales processes that are based on convincing each other? Yes. With only one condition: as long as you evaluate your success in the long term.

Getting out of some meetings by losing and ending the meeting with a waiver on your part is one of the most important ways to establish trust. I'm not talking about a show-off sacrifice; if you have the same vision as the other person, do not damage the relationship of trust with the desire to win that moment. Stay away from bargaining that gets stuck in a single meeting. Spend time defining concepts as if you were creating a new language together. What is the success criteria for you in this meeting, how do you see the other party, is there an aspect that you should appreciate but have missed so far?

There are many parameters that companies follow to determine employee satisfaction, and I suggest adding an employee trust index to these. Do different teams trust each other when working together? What are the factors that harm the sense of trust in company processes? In an environment where the only truth for companies is growth, if there is no trust between the people and teams that achieve this target, the sense of truth cannot bring peace.

Our individual truth and self-trust

The dilemma I shared does not only exist in institutions, but also in our own lives. Let's look at the situations in daily life that we assume are our reality: economic situation, our relationships, the social environment around us and the family we grew up in. Most of the time, we think about these things in a vicious circle. The problems we see in these areas first damage our confidence in ourselves and then in our environment.

Can't we establish this relationship in reverse? I observe that self-trust and open communication can transform truth that is considered bad luck.

The concept of truth is being deconstructed; the situations that we see on the screens today, maybe with our own eyes tomorrow, and that we can perceive with our 5 senses may have been manipulated. The only way to prevent this from turning into a mis-information dystopia is to establish trust in relationships from the individual to the society. Let's think about a mother's motivation when she says "my child won't do it." Or what gives us this confidence in situations where we say "I wouldn't believe it if I saw it with my own eyes"? The concepts of belonging to someone and believing in a common future come to my mind as an answer.

The last question I ask myself is this: the feeling of trust has a weakness, such as giving our will to someone else and ignoring flaws. How can we face with this vulnerability? Maybe this can be the subject of another article, but I would like to end with this comment:

The origin of the word "trust" comes from the word traustr, which means strong. Isn't it surprising that the concept of trust we use today is naive and fragile? Trust between two people does not require covering up faults, hiding weaknesses, or defending each other unconditionally. You should give strength to people you trust, sometimes it requires telling them about their mistakes, sometimes pushing them to improve, sometimes by pulling them from situations where they are lost.

May the trust be with you.

"Luke, you're going to find that many of the truths we cling to depend greatly on our own point of view." Obi-Wan Kenobi / Return of the Jedi