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Why Hard Trust is Gained from Soft Skills

I was in Toronto. Barely glancing at a $10 bill, I thought, “Ha—they misspelled the word ‘dollar,’ those silly Canadians.”

An instant later, I realized the fault was mine, not Canada’s. But before that realization happened–I had made a judgment. And much trust works that same way.

Think hard data causes trust? Think again. Hard trust is gained from soft skills.

The Myth of Rational Trust

Based on 14,000 takers of the Trust Quotient self-assessment test, we can confidently say most businesspeople overrate the importance of credibility in establishing trust. In practice if not in theory, they believe they can induce trust through PowerPoint. The fact is, more expertise ≠ more trust.

Most also believe that trust takes a long time to build and only a moment to destroy. In fact, trust takes about as long to destroy as it took to build—the time for each is a function of the depth of trust involved.

Both these beliefs—over-stating credibility and misunderstanding the speed of trust—are part of what I’ll call the Myth of Rational Trust. Simply stated, the myth says:

“The decision to trust is a conscious and cognitive process of weighing risks and returns, seeking the option most suited to increase the present value benefits of the one potentially doing the trusting.”

And monkeys fly.

How People Really Trust

People make decisions to trust, or not to trust, well before cognition can show up on the scene. Consider my immediate judgment that the Royal Canadian Mint had neglected to use spellcheck on its currency.

We make many trust decisions not on the basis of analytical criteria, but on the more autonomic instincts of whether something accords with deeply ingrained habits. Is he frowning or smiling? Is he holding out his hand to shake mine? Is ‘dollar’ spelled with one L or two?

Who was I to believe—my spelling instincts, honed since elementary school, or the Canadian government, with whom I have far less experience?  It was, pardon the pun, a no-brainer. I’m a very good speller; and I trust my instincts. Just like you do.  And if that meant Canadians couldn’t spell, I was for an instant willing to conclude that must be the case.

That is how the brain comes to trust.  In the case of currencies, the rational mind can quickly step in and say, “Wait a minute, are you kidding–how likely is that!? Does not compute. Hey, lying eyes, go take another look at that loonie bill.”

Easy enough when it comes to currencies.  But what happens when it comes to more complex phenomena? How do we come to trust in nurses, in salespeople—in politicians and institutions?

Lessons for Trusting

I recently saw an online comment to an economist’s article.  It started out, “I am open-minded, but when I got to your second sentence about the Bush tax cuts I quit reading—you are obviously a fool.”

Not open-minded at all—but neither are most of us.  We all have opinions on the issues du jour, and we dangerously tend to read only those who agree with us.

Which suggests that very few people’s minds are changed by confrontation with disconfirming data.

Instead, they are changed by the deeply-ingrained instincts we have come to rely on.

Personal Trust

In the personal-trust arena, our TQ research shows that the “intimacy” factor is the strongest of the four in the trust equation. Whether someone feels safe and secure sharing information with you is more powerful than your hard-won credentials, fancy slides and long list of past clients.  The saying, “People don’t care what you know until they know that you care” is not some idle sales line; it is deeply grounded in psychology.

A recent Wired story (Why Brains Get Creeped Out by Androids) suggests that we may trust robots doing people tasks, and we may trust people doing people tasks, but we get deeply suspicious if we see robots who look like people doing people tasks.  It has nothing to do with robots or tasks, but simply to an incongruity (“Wait, they’re not supposed to look like that, what’s going on here!?”)

How to be trusted? It lies in connection, focus, good will, hand shakes, empathy, listening, caring, bedside manner.  The road to hard trust is paved with soft skills.

Social Trust

How can Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation regain trust? Not by hiring a PR firm.  How can the US Congress recover from the debacle of its recent circular firing squad exercise? Not by more speeches.

The decision to trust often happens in an instant.  But that instant is just the reaction to a lifetime of conditioning experience.  If we are conditioned to think that all politicians are self-dealing bloviators, we didn’t get there overnight.

Trust takes as long to lose as to gain; and as long again to get it back. The answer to low trust in our companies and our institutions will not be found in quick hits, PR campaigns, new ideologies, changed incentives or new leadership.

It will come about as a natural result of sustained, across-the-board changes in beliefs, attitudes and behaviors. Companies actually have to behave responsibly; Congress actually has to make things work; advisors actually have to have their clients’ best interests at heart.  There is no quick fix. There is no reason to trust someone if they have created a history of being in it for themselves and untrustworthy.

But it can be done. Institutions used to be more trusted than they are now. We un-did that work, we can re-do it again.  And if we do, the instinct to trust can work as quickly as the instinct not to.

Who’s a Poor Murdoch to Trust?

Gregory (Scotland Yard detective): “Is there any other point to which you would wish to draw my attention?”

Holmes: “To the curious incident of the dog in the night-time.”

Gregory: “The dog did nothing in the night-time.”

Holmes: “That was the curious incident.”

Silver Blaze, The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle


Murdoch: This is the most humble day of my life…we have broken our trust with our readers…

Q: Do you accept you are ultimately responsible for this whole fiasco?

Murdoch: No.

Q: Have you considered resigning?

Murdoch: No. Because people I trusted let me down…and I am the best person to clean this up.

Mr. Rupert Murdoch, 19 July 2011, before a British Parliament Committee, ABC News


Rupert Murdoch claimed in his July 19 2011 British Parliament Committee appearance that “people he trusted” were responsible for the News of the World phone hacking scandal.

Can you say ‘cognitive disconnect?’ Few people in the word can simultaneously believe that a) Murdoch was not responsible for the hacking fiasco, b) he was done in by those whom he trusted, and c) that he nonetheless remains the best person to clean things up.

I sincerely doubt that Murdoch himself believes all three of those propositions.

And so we have yet another trust-destroying scandal, the principals posturing and spinning, and the public left asking, where is Sherlock Holmes when we need him–to ask why there was no barking dog at the scene of the crime.

And the answer is–just like in the Holmes story–because the watchdogs were very familiar with the crook whodunit.

The News Corp.hacking scandal has three points in common with most systemic failures of trust–think Enron, Watergate, and the recent financial crisis:

  1. “Leaders” who have a tendency to blame and an inability to confront;
  2. Corporate cultures based on secrecy and rules, not on virtues and values;
  3. The compromise of a social institution key to social trust.

Phony Leaders

Let me propose two ironclad indicators of bad leadership. First, one of my favorite gems from Phil McGee—most management problems, he feels, stem from a tendency to blame, and an inability to confront.

Rupert Murdoch’s brazenness of blaming, even in today’s climate, I still find breathtaking. It was “others” who betrayed him. Not his direct reports, of course, whom he says he trusts with his life. But “others.”

This is not new. Ken Lay and Jeffrey Skilling at Enron didn’t blame themselves, it was “others.” Ditto for Abu Ghraib in Iraq, Nixon at Watergate, and so on. Maybe the original blamethrower was King Henry II, who famously shouted, “Will no one rid me of this troublesome priest?” meaning Thomas Becket.

Someone of course did, and the King was conveniently left with what came to be known as ‘plausible deniability.’

When a “leader” moans that he has broken his public’s trust, and that this is the humblest day of his life—wait, wait for it—and then blames someone else, well, you’ve got an untrustworthy leader at the top.

The other indicator is the presence of the phrase “career-limiting move.” If that phrase is current in your company, it’s a canary in the mine for a lack of transparency. People get fired for saying or doing things they are “not supposed to say.” That is, the norm is silence, and the implied threat for speaking up is your career.

And if your company acronymizes it to CLM, double-trouble for you.

Bad Corporate Cultures

The best way to spot an untrustworthy corporate culture is to look at how it tries to be trustworthy.  If it relies on secrecy and threats, well, enough said.

But in addition, a culture that relies on laws, procedures, processes, rules and compliance—and little else—is in trouble.  Trustworthiness and ethical behavior are viewed in such cultures as just another set of rules to be gamed.  There’s a very thin line between “keep your nose clean” and “just don’t get caught,” and that line has a way of breaking down.

A corporate culture that fosters trust, by contrast, is almost certainly one that relies on virtues and values, and that preaches them all the time.

How does News Corp. stack up? Listen to this description from Andrew Ross Sorkin’s Dealbook column:

“This is a board that qualifies for an ‘F’ in every category,” Nell Minow, a member of the board of GovernanceMetrics International and founder of the Corporate Library, a governance firm, said without any hesitation. “It is the ultimate crony board.”

Transparency? Values? I don’t think so.

Which brings us to the third trait: a threat to societal institutions of trust.

Compromised Social Institutions

Watergate is, of course, the gold standard of corruption, the poster child for scandals.  How does the News Corp. scandal measure up?

Surprisingly well. That is, bad. Watergate compromised the US Justice Department, the White House, a major political party, and ultimately a President. But there was sort of a hero in that story—the press.

In the Murdoch case, the press is itself on trial.  And–so is Scotland Yard.  Right there, the players are bigger than in Watergate.  When the cops and the press are in cahoots, you have muscle backing up politics.  The rule of law is at stake.

Think I’m kidding?

Think about your perception of this case to date–even from media other than News Corp. I’ll bet your image is loaded with thrown pies, hacked phones, and trophy wives.  Speculation in the US media is focused on whether it will turn out that 9/11 victims’ phones were hacked.

Meanwhile, did you know that News Corp.’s News America Marketing subsidiary has paid out $655 million dollars to settle charges of corporate espionage and anticompetitive behavior—in the US?  Do you think Rupert Murdoch didn’t know about more than a half-billion dollars paid out that way?

Did you know that:

News America was led by Paul V. Carlucci, who, according to Forbes, used to show the sales staff the scene in “The Untouchables” in which Al Capone beats a man to death with a baseball bat.  Mr. Emmel testified that Mr. Carlucci was clear about the guiding corporate philosophy.

According to Mr. Emmel’s testimony, Mr. Carlucci said that if there were employees uncomfortable with the company’s philosophy — “bed-wetting liberals in particular was the description he used” Mr. Emmel testified — then he could arrange to have those employees “outplaced from the company.”

You might wonder what became of Mr. Carlucci? Rupert Murdoch appointed him head of the New York Post, calling him “without peer in the consumer advertising and marketing industry.” You know the New York Post: they’re the Murdoch paper that branded a New York hotel maid a hooker on the front page.  The story was hugely helpful to one Dominique Strauss-Kahn, but has not been verified by any other newspaper to date.

But I digress.  The problem is that the press wields enormous power, even in allegedly educated and refined countries.  So do the police.  And when Scotland Yard’s leadership, and even Downing Street appear compromised by an evil corporate culture like News Corp.’s, there are serious implications for society’s ability to trust anyone.

Who’s a poor Murdoch to trust? That’s what Rupert Murdoch would have you ask.

And if you can believe the nerve of his News Corp. empire and its culture, check this clip from Fox News.

Syndicated columnist Cal Thomas explains the phenomenon as “piling on…the left has been itching to get after News Corp. for years.”

Just another witch hunt, going after poor Mr. Murdoch. Makes you wonder if he paid the guy with the pie.

For the rest of us, keep your ears open. Emulate Sherlock Holmes.  Look for the barking dog, and when you don’t hear one—cry bloody murder, because someone has to.

Greed in the Social Networking Space

It took the advertising industry about 150 years to get to the point of putting ads on the inside of bathroom doors. It took considerably less for the commercial vultures to zero in on the social network phenomenon. Except this time, it’s an inside job.

First, MySpace. In July of this year, Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation bought MySpace, making a few more mega-zillionaires out of kids who were in it for kicks.  Murdoch knew better, and immediately set about “monetizing” his investment.

How’s it going for his target audience?

In the words of a college freshman, Marshall Green:

MySpace is going to end up just like Friendster.  Except for bands, some high school kids I know still use it but the trend has shifted to Facebook.

I think the main reason is the site design. MySpace just has a terrible interface that continues to deteriorate as the developers tack on extra features that Facebook integrates better.

The thing that Facebook does well, finding other people you know and connecting with them, are more of an afterthought on MySpace.

Instead of using AJAX and web 2.0 technology to update the page without reloading the whole thing or taking you to a new page, MySpace makes you jump through a bunch of screens to do simple things like leave comments. This is basic stuff that MySpace has neglected to do because they are lazy!

What’s worse is the amount of ads. Most ads on MySpace are sketchy, and in the past have linked to adware and spammers. Half the time when you visit their front page, the entire background is a giant ad for a Fox TV show or movie. It’s obtrusive and detracts from the experience.

It all gives you the sense that the company doesn’t care about delivering a good experience, they just want to make a lot of money with as little work as possible. The interface was never spectacular, but I noticed more ads and a slowdown in new features following the Fox takeover.

(Full disclosure: I am related to young Mr. Green by marriage; his mom’s to me).

That was several weeks ago. On November 6, the “good guys” in this space—Facebook—announced their new approach to incorporating advertising into that ostensibly wholesome society.

The gist of Facebook’s idea is to allow Big Advertisers in to make “friends” of existing users, and to build their reputation by demonstrating the “trust” that one’s “friends” have in the product being advertised.

As one wag put it, “so it’s like spamming your friends?”

You know you’re in for it when language gets reinvented, a la doubletalk like this from Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s CEO and new gazillionaire:

Q: “Are you worried this will make Facebook too commercial?”
Z: “Actually I think this will make it less commercial because the ads now are [more generic].”

For a deliciously cynical take on this, see Nicholas Carr’s blog .

Marshall’s view?

If I start seeing notifications and friend requests everywhere from Coca Cola and Exxon Mobil, then Facebook will be on the way out for me. There are already some sneaky ads that masquerade as friend notifications. They trick you and I’ve nearly clicked on them several times before realizing they were ads.

If it gets as bad as MySpace people will find something better. There will obviously be another new trend in social networking sites in the future anyhow.

It’s been clear for centuries that you can always find success by going more down-market in taste than the last guy; more negative in political advertising than the other guy; and more overtly commercial than your competitor.

The question is: where’s the bottom?

When trust is just a tactic, “friends” are not what they seem, and social networks are flipped into cynical mouthpieces for corporate America, it feels like we’re pretty low.

Maybe Marshall’s right in thinking his generation will reject the hype.

But as H. L. Mencken said, “Nobody ever went broke underestimating the taste of the American public.”

I wouldn’t short Murdoch and Zuckerberg just yet.