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How to Trust and Be Trusted with Rachel Botsman · Revisionist History

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Speaker 1: Pushkin.
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Speaker 2: Hello, Hello, Revisionist History listeners, malcome here today we have
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Speaker 2: a special guest in the house, Rachel Botsman. Rachel is
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Speaker 2: a lecturer at Oxford University and a world renowned expert
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Speaker 2: on the topic of trust, and importantly, not most importantly,
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Speaker 2: but importantly, she's the author of a new Pushkin audiobook,
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Speaker 2: How to Trust and Be Trusted. After more than fifteen
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Speaker 2: years teaching trust to CEOs, entrepreneurs, world leaders, and all
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Speaker 2: kinds of students, she's now sharing these powerful lessons with
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Speaker 2: you in her new audiobook. You're going to get a
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Speaker 2: chance to hear one of her lessons from that audiobook
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Speaker 2: in just a moment. But first I want to speak
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Speaker 2: with a woman herself, Rachel Botsman, Welcome.
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Speaker 1: To Revisionist History. Tell me a little bit.
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Speaker 2: About your interest in trust.
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Speaker 1: How did you come to this subject.
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Speaker 3: It's a funny subject to study because it's really intangible trust.
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Speaker 3: But it came from a fascination in human connection. So
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Speaker 3: I've always been interested in why we're attracted to some
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Speaker 3: people and we repel from others. I've always been interested
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Speaker 3: in what holds groups and teams and society together, and
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Speaker 3: the force, the social glue is trust, And what I
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Speaker 3: realized is that in the field of trust you sort
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Speaker 3: of have people who study like cells and negotiations. So essentially,
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Speaker 3: how do you manipulate trust to get something from someone,
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Speaker 3: or you have the other end, which is like the
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Speaker 3: ester perel end, which is like the therapist. Let's repair
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Speaker 3: trust when it breaks down. Now, wasn't a lot in between,
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Speaker 3: which I found fascinating.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, and we you were drawn to this because is
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Speaker 2: this something we do naturally well or something that we're
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Speaker 2: bad at.
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Speaker 3: It's a good question. We do it. Most of us
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Speaker 3: trust naturally. It's a very intuitive thing. Most of us
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Speaker 3: do it badly because we rely on intuition and not information,
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Speaker 3: and especially in high stakes situations or high risk situations,
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Speaker 3: we're not really taught how to trust well, how to
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Speaker 3: give our trust to the right people and products and information,
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Speaker 3: which is a big one. And everything about our society
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Speaker 3: and technology now is speeding up those decisions, so our
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Speaker 3: trust making is getting worse, not better.
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Speaker 2: What would be some of the most common mistakes we
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Speaker 2: make when we're trying to kind of make a trust evaluation.
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Speaker 3: Well, speed is the enemy of trust, so making it
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Speaker 3: too quickly or under pressure is a really big one.
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Speaker 3: So most big decisions we have to make because we've
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Speaker 3: got to hire someone or whatever that might be. So
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Speaker 3: that's number one. The second is intuition over information. So
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Speaker 3: I still believe in trusting your gap, but what is
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Speaker 3: the information. There's a lot of evidence around charisma and
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Speaker 3: confidence of awaiting capability, and I think we're seeing that
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Speaker 3: play out in sort of leaders that are getting elected.
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Speaker 3: So those that seem like bold and disruptive versus steady
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Speaker 3: and capable and maybe even bland that really influences trust,
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Speaker 3: they'd be my top three.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm reminded of years ago I read this study
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Speaker 2: of student evaluations of professors and how the evaluation a
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Speaker 2: student makes after like, you know, five seconds is the
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Speaker 2: same as their evaluation they make at the end of
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Speaker 2: the term. And they're clearly not making a reasoned decision
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Speaker 2: about whether they you know, whether this isn't it, whether
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Speaker 2: this teacher is good, or what they should trust this information,
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Speaker 2: or they never get beyond the initial question of do
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Speaker 2: I like this person? The snap judgment, yeah, the snap judgment.
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Speaker 2: Never they never transcend the snap judgment.
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Speaker 3: And sometimes it's not even like it's does this person
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Speaker 3: feel familiar? Like they can't even get beyond that. And
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Speaker 3: it's the person that feels strange or unfamiliar that sometimes
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Speaker 3: we just can't or choose not to trust, and that's
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Speaker 3: that's a real problem.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, you spend a lot of time on the question
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Speaker 2: of transparency. You talk a little bit about what do
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Speaker 2: we gain from adding transparency into these and what do
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Speaker 2: you mean by transparency in this context.
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Speaker 3: Or what do we lose as well lose? Yes, I
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Speaker 3: think it's one of the biggest myths around trust that
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Speaker 3: needs blowing up. So well. Transparency. I always think of
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Speaker 3: disclosing information, right, so disclosing lots of lot of information
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Speaker 3: so you understand why something is happening, or or good
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Speaker 3: transparencies understanding the context behind a decision, so why did
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Speaker 3: you choose to do that thing? But transparency in practice
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Speaker 3: and feel like surveillance. So if you think about transparency,
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Speaker 3: you're trying to get visibility into something. You're trying to
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Speaker 3: understand where someone is by tracking them maybe on their phones.
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Speaker 3: You're trying to understand what they're up to and what
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Speaker 3: they're doing. And that is the very opposite of trust.
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Speaker 3: So the way I define trust is a confident relationship
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Speaker 3: with the unknown So if you think, Malcolm, of people
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Speaker 3: in your life, your professional or your personal life that
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Speaker 3: you deeply trust, you don't need to know where they are,
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Speaker 3: you don't need to know what they're up to. It's
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Speaker 3: that visibility is a form of control, and that control
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Speaker 3: can be a sign of lack of trust. So I
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Speaker 3: think it's I'm not saying transparency is completely a bad thing,
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Speaker 3: but this idea that you fixed trust issues, systemic trust issues,
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Speaker 3: trust issues in an organization, even in a relationship, by
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Speaker 3: making things transparent. It has a backfire effect where it
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Speaker 3: might work initially because you think, oh, that person's being
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Speaker 3: more open or I have more visibility into that situation
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Speaker 3: and therefore more control, but over time it actually leads
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Speaker 3: to less trust.
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Speaker 2: But does that you know when you said earlier that
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Speaker 2: one of the things we need to do is to
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Speaker 2: not make decisions quickly and gather more information, what's the
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Speaker 2: difference between gathering more information and transparency.
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Speaker 3: It's a great question. So it sounds like semantics, but
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Speaker 3: there's a difference between openness and transparency. So if I
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Speaker 3: came to you and said, I'd really love to know
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Speaker 3: why you chose to put me on your podcast, Malcolm
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Speaker 3: and you said, sure, I'll share that information. That's being open.
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Speaker 3: But if equal if you said you know what, you
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Speaker 3: don't really need to know or I can't really explain why.
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Speaker 3: If I really trusted you, I wouldn't need to know.
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Speaker 1: Oh, I see, yeah, do you.
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Speaker 4: What I mean?
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Speaker 3: So the problem is with transparency is when leaders promise
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Speaker 3: it and then an employee goes to them that says, well,
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Speaker 3: I really understand what that person's being paid, or how
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Speaker 3: the bonus structure works, or why you've changed the pricing
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Speaker 3: mechanism or whatever it may be, and then the leader goes, hmm,
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Speaker 3: I can't tell you that. Well, you promised to be transparent. Yeah,
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Speaker 3: So there's this difference between like being open and being
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Speaker 3: visible and promising for transparency.
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Speaker 2: What are so what if you do just put us
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Speaker 2: in the context of leaders who are managers trying to
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Speaker 2: create high trust teams? What advice do you give people
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Speaker 2: who are trying to do that.
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Speaker 3: Well, the first thing of the some people are trying
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Speaker 3: to create high trust teams because they're trying to be innovative.
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Speaker 3: They're trying to get those teams to be able to
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Speaker 3: tolerate uncertainty. So high trust teams and creative teams. There's
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Speaker 3: a real correlation there. So one of the things actually
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Speaker 3: say is don't mistake reducing risk for increasing trust. So
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Speaker 3: what a lot of teams do is they figure out
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Speaker 3: all the bad things that go wrong right at the beginning,
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Speaker 3: and it's a mindset. It's like, we'll just figure out
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Speaker 3: how to mitigate risks before they've even happened. And if
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Speaker 3: you create those kind of cultures in your teams, your
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Speaker 3: trust mindset, your tolerance for uncertainty and the unknown actually reduces.
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Speaker 3: So one of the really powerful things to do is
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Speaker 3: actually go, Okay, how does this team expand their capacity
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Speaker 3: to be in the unknown and to be in that
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Speaker 3: creative space versus how much of our culture is actually
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Speaker 3: wired to measuring and managing risks. That's a really big one.
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Speaker 3: Another one that I mean, that's harder to do because
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Speaker 3: I don't think many organizations think they think they're thinking
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Speaker 3: about trust, but they're actually thinking about risk. So that
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Speaker 3: shift is quite tricky. An easier one that you can
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Speaker 3: put into practice tomorrow is to become a better expectation setter.
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Speaker 3: So so many trust issues and I think many managers
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Speaker 3: and leaders are really bad at doing this is how
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Speaker 3: you set clear expectations that allow people to be empowered
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Speaker 3: and to sort of live and work in the unknown.
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Speaker 3: So it's like, this is what I expect of you
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Speaker 3: within this timeframe, within these boundaries. Now go play and
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Speaker 3: go and do it. But we're often really bad at
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Speaker 3: setting expectations.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, so tell me. We're about to listen to a
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Speaker 2: chapter from your book or an excerpt from your book.
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Speaker 2: Can you tee it up first? What are we about
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Speaker 2: to hear?
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Speaker 3: You're about to hear the introduction or chapter one, which
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Speaker 3: really lays the foundations on what trust is and how
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Speaker 3: it works in our lives. And I find it fascinating
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Speaker 3: and also a beautiful thing. That trust has more definitions
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Speaker 3: than love, so it is the most debated sociological concept
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Speaker 3: in our lives. And so in chapter one, we really
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Speaker 3: dig into this understanding of what trust is and how
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Speaker 3: it works, and how it influences your decisions and decisions
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Speaker 3: and choices in ways that you may be aware of
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Speaker 3: or may never have thought about before.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, wonderful, Rachel.
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Speaker 2: This has been really fun, and I I think I
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Speaker 2: speak for all of my listeners when I say that
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Speaker 2: we are looking forward to hearing what follows.
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Speaker 3: Yeah, I hope it. I really hope it change the
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Speaker 3: way people think about trust. That's the reason for doing this.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, and the name of your book.
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Speaker 3: Is it's called How to Trust and Be Trusted intentionally
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Speaker 3: a two way title because trust is something that you
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Speaker 3: give and something that you earn, and we have to
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Speaker 3: think about both those things in our lives.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, thank you so much, Rachel.
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Speaker 3: Thank you Malcolm.
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Speaker 2: How to Trust and Be Trusted by Rachel Batsman is
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Speaker 2: available on pushkin, dot Fm, Audible, Spotify, and anywhere you
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Speaker 2: get audiobooks. Keep listening for a preview of the audiobook.
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Speaker 3: Chapter one, how to give your Trust to the right people.
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Speaker 3: Have you ever trusted the wrong person? In this chapter,
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Speaker 3: I'm going to teach you a really important workplace skill,
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Speaker 3: how to give your trust to the right people, because
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Speaker 3: we can all learn how to make better trust decisions.
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Speaker 3: I know firsthand about bad trust decisions because when I
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Speaker 3: was five years old, my parents put their trust in
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Speaker 3: the wrong person, a nanny. Hello Dad, alright, I called
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Speaker 3: my dad to ask him more about it.
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Speaker 5: So I'm calling about the nanny. Mm hmm, you know
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Speaker 5: which nanny?
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Speaker 6: I think I know which nanny is.
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Speaker 3: And nanny are called Doris. It's hard to ever forget Doris.
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Speaker 5: What was your first impression of her? Sure, what do
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Speaker 5: you remember when she came into the house.
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Speaker 6: She was very unimpressive, which is quite a good feature.
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Speaker 5: No, pair unimpressive. What do you mean by that?
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Speaker 6: Well, she was so she was a bland person. It
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Speaker 6: was just inconceivable that somebody like that could do those
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Speaker 6: sorts of things.
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Speaker 3: Oh, yes, bland old Doris got up to all sorts
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Speaker 3: of things. The nanny my parents trusted to take care
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Speaker 3: of me and my brother turned out to be very untrustworthy. Indeed,
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Speaker 3: she forged my dad's signature to get a loan for
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Speaker 3: a car, She stole from us in the most brazen ways,
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Speaker 3: and she was even running a drugs ring. Really, deciding
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Speaker 3: whom to trust can be pretty complicated. Okay, so not
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Speaker 3: everyone has put their trust in a drug dealing nanny. However,
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Speaker 3: we all know how bad it feels to make a
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Speaker 3: poor trust decision. But I want you to be able
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Speaker 3: to make good trust decisions, because being able to trust
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Speaker 3: people is a positive thing and it will make you
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Speaker 3: better at your job. So I'm going to tell you
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Speaker 3: why we sometimes trust the wrong people like Dodgy Doris,
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Speaker 3: and I'll teach you how you can fix this problem.
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Speaker 3: So let's start by unpacking what trust actually is. It's
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Speaker 3: a word we use a lot in our lies. But
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Speaker 3: if I asked you to write down one word to
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Speaker 3: describe trust, what would it be. Maybe you're jotting down confidence, faith,
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Speaker 3: or perhaps risk. Some people think of trust as a state,
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Speaker 3: as an outcome, or a feeling, but trust is a belief.
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Speaker 3: It's your belief about how someone will behave or how
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Speaker 3: something will turn out. To go back to my definition
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Speaker 3: of trust, it's a confident relationship with the unknown. So
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Speaker 3: what does that mean in the workplace? Let me give
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Speaker 3: you an example. Trust is a belief that when someone
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Speaker 3: is working from home and you can't see what they're
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Speaker 3: up to, they will behave in a way that you expect.
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Speaker 3: They can be trusted to be productive and not let
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Speaker 3: you down. If you need to know exactly what someone
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Speaker 3: is doing and are constantly checking in and monitoring them
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Speaker 3: and asking them for updates, that's not trust, it's control.
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Speaker 3: Once you see trust as your belief lens, it can
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Speaker 3: have a profound impact on the way you make decisions
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Speaker 3: and how you behave at work. Trusting another person is complicated.
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Speaker 3: There's a whole host of factors that determine when and
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Speaker 3: how trustforms. For instance, how long you've known them, what
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Speaker 3: is the thing you're trusting them with or for, and
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Speaker 3: how bad would it really be if they let you down.
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Speaker 3: Stamford Business School professor Roderick Kramer found that eight out
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Speaker 3: of ten executives report being burned at least once because
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Speaker 3: they trusted the wrong person at some point in their career.
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Speaker 3: People tend to make poor trust decisions because they don't
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Speaker 3: understand how trust dynamics really work. So let me give
16:53
Speaker 3: you a simple framework to help visualize how trust happens
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Speaker 3: between two people. In any relationship, there are two players,
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Speaker 3: the trust giver and the trust receiver. Let's start by
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Speaker 3: focusing on what it means to be the trust giver.
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Speaker 3: A trust giver is the person that is deciding whether
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Speaker 3: to trust someone a boss, a colleague, a friend, or,
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Speaker 3: in my dad's case, the nanny. As the trust giver,
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Speaker 3: we have an important choice, do we trust them or not.
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Speaker 3: What influences our choices and decisions is called a trust signal.
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Speaker 3: Trust signals are small clues we knowing me or unknowingly
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Speaker 3: used to decide whether another person should be trusted. How
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Speaker 3: someone speaks, the questions they ask, who they're with, what
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Speaker 3: they're wearing, and even how they say hi, how are you?
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Speaker 3: These are all trust signals. In other words, the way
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Speaker 3: we make a trust decision is based on pieces of
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Speaker 3: information we pick up from another person. The tricky thing
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Speaker 3: is we don't always look for or interpret trust signals
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Speaker 3: in the right way. Some trust signals are way louder
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Speaker 3: than others because often we are knowing need tune into
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Speaker 3: the signals that we want to see that are familiar
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Speaker 3: to us. Becoming aware of the trust signals you're tuning
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Speaker 3: into is the first important step in making smarter trust decisions.
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Speaker 3: Here's a simple exercise to try the next time you
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Speaker 3: meet someone for the first time, trying to stay aware
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Speaker 3: of what you're tuning into. Is it their voice, their clothes,
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Speaker 3: their demeanor, or their posture. Similarly, what questions do you
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Speaker 3: ask them in the first few minutes. Just becoming aware
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Speaker 3: of how you're looking for things that are familiar can
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Speaker 3: be powerful. Making trust decisions based on familarity is a
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Speaker 3: tricky behavior to change because our assumptions about whom to
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Speaker 3: trust are deeply wired. They're often biases that have been
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Speaker 3: with us since we were very young.
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Speaker 4: When you're about three months old, you start trusting people
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Speaker 4: who look like your parents more than other people.
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Speaker 3: Maria Konnikova is a psychologist and author who's written a
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Speaker 3: lot about distrust. She's an expert in the ways trust
19:40
Speaker 3: is exploited by everyone from con artists to poker players,
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Speaker 3: and she happens to be a champion poker player herself.
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Speaker 4: We trust people who seem like us, who look like us,
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Speaker 4: who sound like us, much more than we do people
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Speaker 4: who don't. That's something that con artists, by the way,
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Speaker 4: manipulat all the time as well. Oh you know, you're
20:00
Speaker 4: from New York. I'm from New York And they might
20:02
Speaker 4: not have ever been to New York, but they try
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Speaker 4: to get those little superficial similarities so that we have
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Speaker 4: a basis for trust.
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Speaker 3: There's a fascinating study on the link between trust and familiarity.
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Speaker 3: The study, done by a professor named Lisa D. Bryan
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Speaker 3: from the University of Glasgow, showed how facial resemblance enhances trust.
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Speaker 3: Participants in an experiment were shown faces of strangers to
20:27
Speaker 3: be potential playing partners for a game. When the face
20:31
Speaker 3: of the stranger was similar to the face of the participant,
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Speaker 3: they were more likely to trust the unknown person. Take
20:41
Speaker 3: a moment to think about that. Have you ever trusted
20:46
Speaker 3: someone just because they felt familiar. Maybe they went to
20:52
Speaker 3: the same school as you, like the same sports team,
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Speaker 3: or maybe, as in the study, they even looked a
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Speaker 3: bit like you. Familiar trust signals are often the loudest
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Speaker 3: because of what's known as confirmation and desirability bias. We
21:09
Speaker 3: used them to confirm our own ideas about how someone
21:13
Speaker 3: or something should be, or how we want them to be.
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Speaker 3: That's what happened with my parents and Doris the nanny.
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Speaker 3: She showed up wearing a navy colored uniform complete with
21:28
Speaker 3: a bonnet hat. She had a mop of curly hair
21:32
Speaker 3: and large steel rimmed glasses. She even played the tambourine.
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Speaker 3: I'm not joking. What a trustworthy person she must be.
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Speaker 3: And even when some major red flags started popping up,
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Speaker 3: my parents let the familiar trust signals override their better judgment.
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Speaker 3: There was the time Doris wanted to get away for
21:53
Speaker 3: a weekend, so she said her uncle Charlie had died
21:58
Speaker 3: and she needed to go to the funeral. My dad
22:01
Speaker 3: found out this wasn't true. When he called Doris's mom
22:04
Speaker 3: to express his condolences, and Doris's mom said, but Uncle
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Speaker 3: Charlie is just fine. Doris must be confused.
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Speaker 6: You can't be confused about what I'm gone dead. At
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Speaker 6: this point, being quite quick to grasp things, I thought
22:27
Speaker 6: all was not well.
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Speaker 3: But you know, even after Uncle Charlie, she came with
22:31
Speaker 3: us on a holiday to marlbea well.
22:33
Speaker 6: That was very convenient.
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Speaker 3: Yes, even though we were only five and eight, my
22:40
Speaker 3: brother and I could see how Doris was well different
22:44
Speaker 3: when my parents were around. It was all an act,
22:48
Speaker 3: and eventually even my dad couldn't ignore what he was seeing.
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Speaker 3: At the height of suspicion, he did something he'd never
22:55
Speaker 3: done before. He searched Doris's room. He found a bag
23:00
Speaker 3: of money under her bed, quite a lot of foreign currency,
23:05
Speaker 3: and it happened to be from countries Dad had been
23:08
Speaker 3: traveling to for work.
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Speaker 6: I did question her, and she told me that she'd
23:18
Speaker 6: found the money under a tree in the park.
23:23
Speaker 5: And we still didn't get rid of her.
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Speaker 6: No, And when I found more money in her room,
23:30
Speaker 6: she said she'd gone back to the same.
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Speaker 5: Tree, same tree.
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Speaker 3: I want to know where this tree is dead, and
23:38
Speaker 3: still Doris stayed with us. That was until my dad's
23:42
Speaker 3: car went missing and he finally kicked her out, called
23:46
Speaker 3: the police, and sat guard outside our front door with
23:49
Speaker 3: a baseball bat. I imagine the Doris saga was in
23:55
Speaker 3: part how I first took a deep interest in understanding trust.
24:01
Speaker 3: Thinking back on it, my dad told me the decision
24:04
Speaker 3: to trust Doris came down to convenience. My parents were
24:08
Speaker 3: busy people with busy jobs. It was more convenient to
24:12
Speaker 3: keep Doris than to find a different solution. It's easy
24:17
Speaker 3: to dismiss or laugh at my dad's reasoning, but haven't
24:21
Speaker 3: we all done that. Not hire a dodgy nanny, of course,
24:26
Speaker 3: but make a trust decision or continue to trust someone
24:29
Speaker 3: based on convenience, Like when you tell yourself, I know
24:35
Speaker 3: that company isn't entirely ethical, they don't treat their employees well,
24:40
Speaker 3: but their service it makes my life a little easier,
24:43
Speaker 3: so I'll just carry on using them. Or perhaps you're
24:47
Speaker 3: under pressure to get something done, so you conveniently delegate
24:51
Speaker 3: a piece of work to a person when you know
24:54
Speaker 3: they shouldn't really be doing it. Convenience so often Trump's trust.
25:00
Speaker 3: Understanding the power convenience has over trust has been one
25:03
Speaker 3: of the most important things I've learned about being a
25:07
Speaker 3: trust giver. Let's try another exercise. Think of the last
25:16
Speaker 3: time you made a poor or very bad trust decision
25:20
Speaker 3: at work. Did you blame it on the character of
25:27
Speaker 3: the other person They turned out to be unreliable, incompetent, dishonest,
25:35
Speaker 3: or you fill in the blank. Someone's character plays a
25:42
Speaker 3: critical role, but what we often overlook is the importance
25:47
Speaker 3: of having the right information. As the social scientist Diego
25:52
Speaker 3: Gambetta puts it, trust has two enemies, not one bad
25:57
Speaker 3: character and poor information. So the next time you find
26:03
Speaker 3: yourself making an important trust decision, I'd recommend asking yourself
26:08
Speaker 3: these three questions. What what trust signals? Am I tuning
26:14
Speaker 3: into Two? Am I trusting this person out of convenience?
26:22
Speaker 3: And three? Am I making this trust decision too quickly?
26:28
Speaker 3: Now let's look at something else that influences what trust signals.
26:34
Speaker 3: We pay attention to our gut. My dad's gut told
26:40
Speaker 3: him that a nanny who's seen bland was a safe one.
26:44
Speaker 3: His gut told him that blandness was a good trust signal.
26:48
Speaker 3: But our gut feeling or intuition is rarely the source
26:53
Speaker 3: of trustworthy decisions. For Maria Khonnikova, the expert in distrust,
26:58
Speaker 3: there's a common saying about this that's a real pet peeve.
27:03
Speaker 4: Trusting your gut. I hate that phrase, and I think
27:06
Speaker 4: it's very misleading and very bad at because here's what
27:10
Speaker 4: we know from psychology. Our quote unquote gut has very
27:14
Speaker 4: strong reactions, and they're sometimes correct and sometimes wrong, and
27:20
Speaker 4: our ability to distinguish the two is at about fifty
27:25
Speaker 4: to fifty, so a chance we have very little ability
27:29
Speaker 4: to be able to figure out which our gut feelings
27:33
Speaker 4: are correct and which are not correct.
27:40
Speaker 3: So let me share with you something from my research
27:43
Speaker 3: that has made me think differently about the role of
27:45
Speaker 3: gut feeling in giving trust. Gut feeling is not the
27:50
Speaker 3: decision maker, but a decision driver. So use your intuition,
27:56
Speaker 3: but challenge it with other information to make sure it's accurate.
28:01
Speaker 3: Here's how this might come up in your job when
28:05
Speaker 3: you're thinking about how to have a difficult conversation with
28:08
Speaker 3: a colleague, or when you're taking a brief from a
28:11
Speaker 3: potential client and you're not entirely sure what they do,
28:16
Speaker 3: and of course when you're hiring someone new. Don't let
28:21
Speaker 3: your gut make the trust decision.
28:33
Speaker 4: Throw your gut out the window. You don't know. You
28:36
Speaker 4: are relying on people perception that is most often wrong.
28:40
Speaker 4: That is why so many hiring decisions are so terrible,
28:43
Speaker 4: because people go with those feelings. And we know that
28:47
Speaker 4: those thin slice judgments are made within the first few
28:50
Speaker 4: seconds of meeting someone, and that's when you're hiring decision
28:53
Speaker 4: is made. And that's just crazy. How can you base
28:56
Speaker 4: someone you're going to hire into your organization based on
28:59
Speaker 4: two seconds, ten seconds, it doesn't even matter, twenty seconds.
29:03
Speaker 4: Anything that has seconds after it should not be a
29:06
Speaker 4: basis for such an enormous decision.
29:09
Speaker 3: Instead of making important trust decisions in seconds, Maria recommends
29:14
Speaker 3: going by the old mattra that former President Ronald Reagan
29:17
Speaker 3: was so fond of trust. But verify.
29:22
Speaker 4: Our default has to be trust. Right initially, you have
29:26
Speaker 4: to believe the things you hear, believe the people you meet.
29:29
Speaker 4: You're not going to be able to go through life
29:32
Speaker 4: if every single moment you're doubting everything, and it's completely impractical. However,
29:38
Speaker 4: you have to have that second verification stage. Verify, Verify
29:43
Speaker 4: everything that's important, and verify even when you don't really
29:47
Speaker 4: want to.
29:48
Speaker 3: Nobel Laureate Daniel Carneman's definition of a gut feeling is
29:52
Speaker 3: spot on. He says, a gut feeling is thinking that
29:56
Speaker 3: you know without knowing why you do. Even though I've
30:01
Speaker 3: studied the ins and outs of trust for over a decade,
30:04
Speaker 3: I have still gone with my gut countless times. Sometimes
30:10
Speaker 3: things have gone right and other times things have gone
30:14
Speaker 3: horribly wrong. So let me share with you a useful
30:18
Speaker 3: tool that will help you better read trust signals. It's
30:22
Speaker 3: called a trust pause. A trust pause is a healthy
30:27
Speaker 3: hesitation where we question if a person, a product, or
30:31
Speaker 3: a piece of information is worthy of out trust. If
30:35
Speaker 3: you find yourself wanting to make a trust decision quickly
30:39
Speaker 3: from your gut, take a trust pause and ask yourself
30:44
Speaker 3: the following questions, where is this confidence coming from? Am
30:50
Speaker 3: I seeing or hearing something I want or need to
30:55
Speaker 3: believe to be true? Is it because this person feels
30:59
Speaker 3: familiar or similar to me? And a really important question,
31:05
Speaker 3: what information do I still need to make a relation
31:09
Speaker 3: liable decision? When you put these questions into practice, they
31:15
Speaker 3: will intentionally slow you down. Now, I know that in
31:20
Speaker 3: a world that's so driven by efficiency. This might sound counterintuitive,
31:25
Speaker 3: but speed can be the enemy of trust. I'm not
31:31
Speaker 3: suggesting you overthink every single trust decision. I mean, you'd
31:36
Speaker 3: never leave the house, But if it's something important, take
31:40
Speaker 3: a trust pause. For example, if you have some sensitive
31:46
Speaker 3: or confidential information to share with your boss, take a
31:49
Speaker 3: trust pause before speaking to them. If you're going for
31:53
Speaker 3: a new role in an organization, take a trust pause
31:56
Speaker 3: to speak to someone in a similar position. If you're
31:59
Speaker 3: starting an important contract with a new supplier, take a
32:03
Speaker 3: trust pause to speak to some other customers. Are you sure?
32:09
Speaker 3: Are you sure? That's at the heart of a trust pause.
32:14
Speaker 3: It might feel like you're wasting valuable time, but otherwise
32:19
Speaker 3: you may be left wondering why you didn't pause for
32:22
Speaker 3: a bit longer before giving your trust. Because once trust
32:27
Speaker 3: has been given, it's in the other person's hands to
32:31
Speaker 3: take care of or break. My dad could have taken
32:37
Speaker 3: a trust pause with Doris and it would have saved
32:41
Speaker 3: a lot of anguish and his vovo. Of course, there
32:46
Speaker 3: are regrets, but after everything, it hasn't really changed my dad.
32:53
Speaker 3: He just tends to trust people.
32:56
Speaker 6: I have run my life on the basis of trusting people,
33:02
Speaker 6: and I've found that generally that has worked out for me,
33:07
Speaker 6: and has that trust been abused a bit, But I
33:11
Speaker 6: think that what I've gained from trusting people is more
33:14
Speaker 6: than if I've been constantly look here at my shoulder,
33:17
Speaker 6: not trusting people, and by and large that worked out.
33:20
Speaker 3: Okay, some people trust too much and too readily, Like
33:26
Speaker 3: my dad, they have what psychologists call a hyperpensity to trust.
33:31
Speaker 3: They assume they won't be taken advantage of.
33:34
Speaker 4: Human beings are wired to trust. Trust as our default state,
33:39
Speaker 4: and the only reason society exists and all of our
33:42
Speaker 4: institutions exist and just the world functions is because of trust.
33:48
Speaker 3: Here's something else Maria helped me rethink the existence of
33:52
Speaker 3: con Artists like Doris actually says something very good about
33:57
Speaker 3: humanity that may sound strange, but the only reason they
34:02
Speaker 3: succeed is because as people, for the most part, we
34:06
Speaker 3: are trusting. As the late master magician Ricky Jay once said,
34:12
Speaker 3: you wouldn't want to live in a world where you
34:14
Speaker 3: couldn't be conned, because it would mean you're living in
34:18
Speaker 3: a world where you never trusted anyone or anything.
34:22
Speaker 4: And that to me just gets at the heart of it.
34:25
Speaker 4: You know, the fact that I can get conned is
34:28
Speaker 4: the flip side of the fact that I believe in things,
34:31
Speaker 4: I believe in people, and that's beautiful.
34:35
Speaker 3: There's no one size fits all approach to trust giving. Ultimately,
34:41
Speaker 3: trust is a choice. It's yours to give or not.
34:51
Speaker 3: So let's just recap the four main ideas about giving
34:54
Speaker 3: trust that you can now put into practice.
34:58
Speaker 4: One.
34:59
Speaker 3: Be aware of the trust signals you're tuning into by
35:02
Speaker 3: remembering that we tend to trust what's familiar. Two, recognize
35:09
Speaker 3: when you're allowing convenience to trump trust. Three, reframe your
35:15
Speaker 3: gap feeling as a decision driver, not the decision maker.
35:21
Speaker 3: And finally, four speed can be the enemy of trust,
35:26
Speaker 3: So take a trust pause to get the right information.
35:32
Speaker 3: I'm going to leave you with a question to think
35:34
Speaker 3: about as we head into chapter two. How do you
35:38
Speaker 3: get someone else to trust you?