Speaker 1: Pushkin. Welcome back to Risky Business, a show about making
Speaker 1: better decisions. I'm Maria Kanikova and today I am flying solo.
Speaker 1: Nate is away, but I am so thrilled to welcome
Speaker 1: on Rachel Batsman, who is someone who I met what
Speaker 1: is it now, Rachel six or so years ago? Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: and we ended up having so much in common, so
Speaker 1: many interests in common. Rachel is an amazing writer speaker.
Speaker 1: She was the first ever Trust Fellow at Oxford University's
Speaker 1: Said Business School. An incredibly impressive woman who now has
Speaker 1: a new audio book out called How to Trust and
Speaker 1: Be Trusted. Rachel, Welcome to Risky Business, and let's talk
Speaker 1: about trust.
Speaker 2: I'm so excited to be here, and I'm so excited
Speaker 2: to talk to you in particular about trust and risk
Speaker 2: because I don't often get to have this conversation, so
Speaker 2: it's a treat.
Speaker 1: It is a trick for me as well. There's a
Speaker 1: question that I wanted to start off with, but before
Speaker 1: we get into that, I think we should probably lay
Speaker 1: the groundwork and give your definition of trust, because I
Speaker 1: think it's a beautiful definition and something that will set
Speaker 1: the stage nicely.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's been one of the hardest challenges actually coming
Speaker 2: up with the definition that works across all the different
Speaker 2: context that trust functions in. And my definition of trust
Speaker 2: is that it's a confident relationship with the unknown. And
Speaker 2: the reason why that ties so beautifully with risk is
Speaker 2: that the greater the unknown, the greater the answeraint you're,
Speaker 2: the higher the risk in any decision, choice or situation,
Speaker 2: the more trust that you need. And it's kind of
Speaker 2: the antithesis of how a lot of trust theories think
Speaker 2: about trust, because they'll say trust is knowing exactly what
Speaker 2: to expect or knowing what the outcome is, and that's
Speaker 2: always struck me as strange, because if you know how
Speaker 2: things are going to turn out, then you don't need
Speaker 2: a whole lot of trust.
Speaker 1: I'm happy to hear that because it is one of
Speaker 1: the important themes right of trust is control and it's
Speaker 1: something that really resonated with me as someone who studies
Speaker 1: kind of risk and has you know, my PhD, I
Speaker 1: studied the illusion of control, kind of the need for
Speaker 1: control and how important it is for people to feel
Speaker 1: like they're in control of events, in control of the environment.
Speaker 1: And so as I was listening to your audiobook, that
Speaker 1: actually that was a theme that kept coming up, right,
Speaker 1: that one of these major issues in trust is control,
Speaker 1: when we have it, when we don't have it, How
Speaker 1: we can give it up, to whom we can give
Speaker 1: it up when we give it up. I'd love for
Speaker 1: you to talk a little bit more about that and
Speaker 1: about kind of the risk calculus. How does that decision
Speaker 1: making process work when it comes to trust.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and there's so much underneath this. I don't think
Speaker 2: we often think enough about the relationship between trust and control.
Speaker 2: So on a basic level, when you need to control
Speaker 2: things or you need to feel like to your point,
Speaker 2: the illusion of control, it's often a sign of lack
Speaker 2: of trust that you're not dealing with uncertainty very well.
Speaker 2: And this can look like all kinds of things. So
Speaker 2: during the pandemic, or during a political period of term,
Speaker 2: or like all the time, or during a serious environmental
Speaker 2: crisis like the wildfires, the need to not just find information,
Speaker 2: but find information that makes you feel a little bit
Speaker 2: more in control. So, oh, the air quality is actually okay,
Speaker 2: so I'm going to go outside. Those things really set
Speaker 2: off our control alarms all the way through to recognizing
Speaker 2: that when you don't trust someone, you tend to become
Speaker 2: more controlling, you tend to become a micromanager, and that
Speaker 2: plays out at work big time, in partnerships and relationships,
Speaker 2: but also in friendships and as a parent. To make
Speaker 2: this roll, I have two children, thirteen and eleven. The
Speaker 2: eleven year old can be trusted to do her homework,
Speaker 2: she's the girl, and not to make gender stereotypes. Then
Speaker 2: not so much. So he has to do it at
Speaker 2: the kitchen table with this dot clot with me watching
Speaker 2: him or working alongside him. That's very controlling right now.
Speaker 2: If I trusted him, he could do upstairs in his
Speaker 2: bedroom without me watching him and me not have to
Speaker 2: ask him the questions. So control is a sign of
Speaker 2: lack of trust in ourselves, in others in the external.
Speaker 2: And I'd love your take on this, but one of
Speaker 2: the things that worries me is that in the age
Speaker 2: that we live in, this illusion of control I think
Speaker 2: is sort of going up. So even if you think
Speaker 2: about health monitoring, I'm running a marathon a few months
Speaker 2: and I cannot believe how much data there is available
Speaker 2: to tell me what's going on in my body. And
Speaker 2: all of a sudden, there's quite enjoyable thing where I
Speaker 2: shouldn't really worry about the outcome. I should just enjoy
Speaker 2: the journey. It's like you become a control freak around
Speaker 2: this data, and the reality is I'm not in control
Speaker 2: as to whether I get injured. I'm not in control
Speaker 2: whether it's hot or freezing cold on that day. And
Speaker 2: so I feel like this illusion of control, largely created
Speaker 2: through technology, is reducing our tolerance to friction. And this
Speaker 2: is really a crisis in many ways because you throw
Speaker 2: people into situations not of uncertainty, just of malfriction. They
Speaker 2: have no patience, they're in tolerant, and I think it's
Speaker 2: sort of a hidden issue that isn't being spoken about enough.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that's I think that's a really important point,
Speaker 1: because you do mention in your book. But I think
Speaker 1: we are in a time where there is kind of
Speaker 1: this crisis of trust, right, trust in so many things,
Speaker 1: trust in institutions and expertise in leadership and all of
Speaker 1: these different things. But this is the other side of it.
Speaker 1: On the other hand, like we do have this then
Speaker 1: desire to hyper monitor, which might not necessarily be the
Speaker 1: best thing. I actually always tell people, you know, stop
Speaker 1: stop wearing those devices, stop monitoring yourself. You know, it's
Speaker 1: actually it's not good. It's not healthy, and you're probably
Speaker 1: losing more than you gain, especially sleep devices. Don't get
Speaker 1: me started, But I think that you're pointing out something
Speaker 1: really important, which is that we are becoming in some
Speaker 1: ways less tolerant of uncertainty, less tolerant of the unknown.
Speaker 1: And there is this relationship. You know, how tolerant you are,
Speaker 1: how much you can embrace it, and both how much
Speaker 1: you trust and how trustworthy you are right yourself. And
Speaker 1: there's something that you said that I found really beautiful.
Speaker 1: You said you know, nothing new happens in the node,
Speaker 1: which I think is such a lovely thought. So I'd
Speaker 1: love to talk a little bit about that and about
Speaker 1: how kind of because this is something that I think
Speaker 1: a lot about right, how embracing risk, right, embracing uncertainty
Speaker 1: can actually be very liberating and can actually help you
Speaker 1: make better decisions as opposed to being afraid of it.
Speaker 2: And I think this idea that nothing new happens in
Speaker 2: the non is it's so powerful to think about your
Speaker 2: own life as to how much of your life. And
Speaker 2: some people really enjoy being in this space and that's fine,
Speaker 2: but it's safe and familiar and repetitive, even like when
Speaker 2: you get to a certain point in your career and
Speaker 2: I started to feel this way, You're like, this is
Speaker 2: relatively easy. I'm not really taking risks anymore. And maybe
Speaker 2: that fatigue is because I'm not in the unknown enough. Right,
Speaker 2: Like I'm going to go into a classroom, I'm going
Speaker 2: to get on stage, I'm going to write a piece
Speaker 2: and I kind of know how it's going to turn out,
Speaker 2: and so that takes effort, and that takes work to
Speaker 2: shake that up. So just a personal example, I've I
Speaker 2: used I see myself as an artist and I've always
Speaker 2: made art, and I was like, right, I'm going to
Speaker 2: go back to this because that is a world where
Speaker 2: I don't speak that language and I have no connections,
Speaker 2: and I am a beginner. I am starting again. I'm
Speaker 2: very much in the unknown, and I've found that risk
Speaker 2: taking that it's so energizing. Yes, it is frightening, but
Speaker 2: you just feel that capacity expanding again. Like it's like
Speaker 2: it's more than the curiosity that you have when you're
Speaker 2: a child. It's like you can hold more. It's you know.
Speaker 2: Keats uses that wonderful phrase of negative capability, and I
Speaker 2: think sort of the opposite of risk taking is all
Speaker 2: the positive capabilities, right, the skill, the competence and knowledge,
Speaker 2: And what we're missing is that negative capability, that ability
Speaker 2: to hold much and to be in the unknown. And
Speaker 2: to do that you have to take risks. You have
Speaker 2: to be a beginner, you have to try new things.
Speaker 2: And it's so easy to forget that as especially when
Speaker 2: you get later on in life.
Speaker 1: Yeah, no, I think that's that's crucial, and that's that's
Speaker 1: actually how I approach almost all new projects. Right, Is
Speaker 1: this something that scares me? Is this something where I
Speaker 1: feel uncomfortable? If the answer is yes, great, If the
Speaker 1: answer is no, you know, is it really worth it? Right?
Speaker 1: You know, you and I have talked about familiarity and
Speaker 1: that you know, that was part of your part of
Speaker 1: your book on trust, how familiarity breeds trust. But also
Speaker 1: you know, it can be a false sense of security.
Speaker 1: And I think that's true on all levels, both being
Speaker 1: you know, doing something that's just easy and familiar, and
Speaker 1: also kind of on on a level of trusting someone
Speaker 1: just because they seem familiar. It's something that makes you
Speaker 1: feel secure. But that's not necessarily good, right, And that's
Speaker 1: not necessarily the correct basis on which to trust, which
Speaker 1: I think brings us to kind of one of your points,
Speaker 1: one of the lessons from your book, which is, you
Speaker 1: know the fact that like who do you trust? Who
Speaker 1: don't you trust? Is a bad question, right, and you
Speaker 1: have to then say to do what? Yeah, and what
Speaker 1: what are you actually basing this on? And it's all
Speaker 1: it all has to do with context. Let's talk a
Speaker 1: little bit about that and tell us a little bit
Speaker 1: about your nanny as well, because it's such a great
Speaker 1: illustration of a lot of these themes and brings us
Speaker 1: back to you know, who you trust, why you trust them?
Speaker 1: Is familiarity good or bad? You know, all risk, all
Speaker 1: of these things, risk versus comfort, all of these things.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and also you know this shift between sort of
Speaker 2: what people say and how they say it and all
Speaker 2: these things that are happening in society right now. And
Speaker 2: so just to sort of talk about a fundamental point
Speaker 2: which you mentioned that is often missed, is that trust
Speaker 2: is highly contextual. So the reason why I say it's
Speaker 2: off the missed is when you look at the way
Speaker 2: people talk about trust in the media, or I don't
Speaker 2: trust that politician, or I don't trust that platform, or
Speaker 2: it's spoken about in very generalized terms, and that is
Speaker 2: problematic because blanket trust is a very bad thing. You
Speaker 2: don't want to be trusted to do everything. And one
Speaker 2: of the ways to improve your own trust skills is
Speaker 2: to understand where you are trusted and where you're not,
Speaker 2: and that's the trust gap. The nanny story or I
Speaker 2: won't tell it all because it's quite long, and so
Speaker 2: what happened was when we were around five. My dad
Speaker 2: my mum were very busy. They were both entrepreneurs and
Speaker 2: they were traveling a lot to America. We live in
Speaker 2: the UK, and so they needed to hire a nanny
Speaker 2: to look after my brother and I and they hired
Speaker 2: this woman. I think I changed her name to Doris
Speaker 2: or stick with her, okay, And I'll never forget the
Speaker 2: day she walked in our house because she had this
Speaker 2: very thick Scottish accent, and my name is Rachel, so
Speaker 2: every time she said my name, you know, she rolled
Speaker 2: her arms and she had one of those really ruddy
Speaker 2: Scottish faces, like like they've been for a long walk
Speaker 2: over the highlands and then they're going to have a
Speaker 2: nice cup of tea and a biscuit and she was
Speaker 2: always baking as well. I remember that. But the day
Speaker 2: she walked in, she was wearing a uniform, and the
Speaker 2: uniform she was wearing was for the Salvation Army and
Speaker 2: she was carrying at tambourine, which I thought was immensely
Speaker 2: exciting as a four or five year old. The point was,
Speaker 2: that's why my parents hired her, because they told her
Speaker 2: my parents. She told my parents that she was belonged
Speaker 2: to South Asian Army. They now realize how influential the
Speaker 2: Scottish accent was because of course there was no email,
Speaker 2: there was no video conferencing. It was all done by phone,
Speaker 2: so those trust singles were really important. Well, listeners will
Speaker 2: have to listen to the book to hear the whole story.
Speaker 2: But she lived with us for nine months and it
Speaker 2: turned out she was running a massive drugs ring in
Speaker 2: North London and then she disappeared and she used our
Speaker 2: family's Volvo Silva Volvo as a getaway card an armed robbery.
Speaker 2: I mean, like, so I don't know where if that's
Speaker 2: my fascination which rus came from that.
Speaker 1: I was like, it's a good origin story, Rachel. You
Speaker 1: should have.
Speaker 2: Raised it, should raise that orangent story. But I remember
Speaker 2: thinking as a child like and even when they found
Speaker 2: out she stolen loads of money and she told them
Speaker 2: she found it under a tree in a park.
Speaker 1: This is this is one of my favorite details.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I remember asking my dad about this and he's like, oh,
Speaker 2: these things can happen. And I'm thinking, what in Broomfield Park,
Speaker 2: like the magic faraway.
Speaker 1: Tree is going to Have you seen the movie Fargo?
Speaker 1: You know sometimes you find large amounts of cash by
Speaker 1: the side of the road, I swear.
Speaker 2: And then they still kept her, and she came on
Speaker 2: a holiday with us to Spain. And this is such
Speaker 2: a random detail, but I remember she went to the
Speaker 2: Queen concert and she loved Freddie Mercury and they were like, wow,
Speaker 2: she loves Queen, right, so she must must be But
Speaker 2: she was not good. She was very, very bad. So yeah,
Speaker 2: so that is a really good example of a bad
Speaker 2: trust decision. And I think the part that's stuck in
Speaker 2: my head as to why my parents kept her was
Speaker 2: it was too much effort someone else.
Speaker 1: Yeah, aside when he said that, it was you know,
Speaker 1: it's one of these things.
Speaker 2: When you said it, I was like, this is so true.
Speaker 1: I think the way you phrased it, because I have
Speaker 1: it in quotes, and I know it says convenience trump's trust, right,
Speaker 1: And that is I think such an important point because
Speaker 1: we make decisions all the time based on convenience and
Speaker 1: based on lower friction and inertia and being like, it's
Speaker 1: just too much effort to do X or y. When
Speaker 1: your nanny had more money, she said she found it
Speaker 1: under the same tree again, right, this tree just happened
Speaker 1: to be a money tree and there was more money
Speaker 1: under it. And the fact that you know, if you
Speaker 1: think about it logically, right, you're your father's a smart man, entrepreneur,
Speaker 1: Like you just have to say, huh, what is going
Speaker 1: on in the brain of this incredibly intelligent person. And
Speaker 1: it's one of these things where you know, I've written
Speaker 1: about con artists a few books back, and you know,
Speaker 1: you see these patterns of smart people, people who know better,
Speaker 1: and yet they end up in these situations where they
Speaker 1: keep trusting, they keep ignoring red flags because it's convenient, right,
Speaker 1: And and it also it also says something about you, Right,
Speaker 1: you don't want to be the person who left your
Speaker 1: kids with a drug dealer, right, So it's easier to
Speaker 1: say no, no, she really is trustworthy. Those things aren't true,
Speaker 1: even though it's your kids, right, and if there's any
Speaker 1: chance that this person is going to be involved in
Speaker 1: an armed robbery, get your kids the fuck out of there.
Speaker 1: But it's just all of these computing computing things, which
Speaker 1: is huge.
Speaker 2: And you know, it's funny. Like I was thinking, I
Speaker 2: love your book, The Confidence Game, and I was thinking about,
Speaker 2: you know, on the chapters and I can't remember which
Speaker 2: how you frame it. It's not the road but denal,
Speaker 2: like the power of denal, because it's your identity and
Speaker 2: that I think it explains so many reasons why people
Speaker 2: don't quit and they don't get out of bad decisions,
Speaker 2: even when they know the client isn't trustworthy or the
Speaker 2: investment isn't good or the nanny isn't like. Why we
Speaker 2: can't extricate ourselves from that situations. I think it's just
Speaker 2: a fascinating human flaw.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it really is. It really is. And you know
Speaker 1: everything ended well right.
Speaker 2: Here, you are nice.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know the other details of the story are
Speaker 1: fascinating and everyone should listen to it. But yeah, it is,
Speaker 1: you know, it is a really interesting part of human nature,
Speaker 1: right The way that we trust how we make those decisions.
Speaker 1: And you know when you when you said Scottish accent
Speaker 1: right for the nanny. This is something you and I
Speaker 1: have spoken about, which is kind of your your gut feelings,
Speaker 1: your your gut instincts, Oh, I like this person based
Speaker 1: on what right?
Speaker 2: Why?
Speaker 1: Why is that the case? And as I've as I've
Speaker 1: told you, that is not a good way to make decisions.
Speaker 1: You know, my gut said so we're very bad at
Speaker 1: figuring out whether the gut is correct or not, and
Speaker 1: so asking that question why is crucial over and over
Speaker 1: and over.
Speaker 2: Now you and can I just say, I don't know
Speaker 2: if you find this, but when I challenge, because I
Speaker 2: like to believe I'm an intuited person, right, and I'm
Speaker 2: still kind of figuring out what that means. I think
Speaker 2: it means that I'm good at reading the room and
Speaker 2: I'm good at reading energy versus predicting how things are
Speaker 2: going to turn out, which I think is what people
Speaker 2: think intuition is, right, It's more of a I see
Speaker 2: it as more reading the state someone is in and
Speaker 2: how engaged they are with you versus what's going to happen.
Speaker 2: And when I challenge people to say, look, it's not
Speaker 2: the intuition is a bad thing, particularly in situations where
Speaker 2: you recognize that pattern. It's the lack of information. So
Speaker 2: when you rely on the intuition and you just don't
Speaker 2: have enough reliable information, people hate this idea that they're like,
Speaker 2: this flies in the face of emotional intelligence, and this,
Speaker 2: you know, this is going to slow down decision making
Speaker 2: and what do you expect that we're going to get
Speaker 2: all this information about people? And how do we know
Speaker 2: if the information is really liable? And I find it
Speaker 2: really interesting that it sparks something so visceral and deep
Speaker 2: in people that they rely on the intuition.
Speaker 1: So Heavenly, yeah, people really don't like to hear that.
Speaker 1: I find that. I find that as well. And it's
Speaker 1: very funny because you know, I play poker as well,
Speaker 1: and there are a lot of poker players who are
Speaker 1: very mathematical, right, like, very quantitative. They use Solber outputs,
Speaker 1: it's all very you know, very precise. And yet when
Speaker 1: I say something like you should not trust your gut,
Speaker 1: you should not trust they get so upset, right because
Speaker 1: even someone's so mathematical to them, it seems like there's
Speaker 1: you know, the sixth sense, there's something else that like
Speaker 1: that you know has to be has to be there,
Speaker 1: And I have to say, well, sometimes your gut is right, right,
Speaker 1: but you need to ask, like, what is it based
Speaker 1: on where's the information coming from? Do I have expertise
Speaker 1: in this right? Is this something that is just unconscious
Speaker 1: expertise or is it something that is just a feeling
Speaker 1: based on who knows what? Right? And it could be
Speaker 1: very good pattern recognition, or it could be bullshit, but
Speaker 1: people really do not like to hear that, and it's
Speaker 1: it's that's a I think that's such an interesting point
Speaker 1: about trust.
Speaker 2: And I think it's I'm doing this interesting thing tomorrow
Speaker 2: on gen Z. This is the biggest study done in
Speaker 2: the UK on how they trust and how they think
Speaker 2: about the truth. And one of the things that I've
Speaker 2: been thinking about related to this is how much they
Speaker 2: not just gen Z, but rely on feelings over facts
Speaker 2: to make a decision. And that is so much to
Speaker 2: do with sort of the invisible hand of algorithms, So
Speaker 2: the vertical nature of fees where you can find things
Speaker 2: to validate how you're feeling, not even that day, that moment,
Speaker 2: that then becomes the way you make a decision, and
Speaker 2: that really frightens me. This idea of feeling your way
Speaker 2: through a decision versus looking for reliable information.
Speaker 1: That's incredibly scary that you know, I think that that
Speaker 1: is something that is the opposite of what your whole
Speaker 1: book is about about trust, right, and the opposite of
Speaker 1: everything that I've tried to do, because feelings are sometimes
Speaker 1: integral to a decision, but usually they're incidental. Right. There's
Speaker 1: a whole area of psychology that talks about how poor
Speaker 1: our decision making ability is when we rely on feelings
Speaker 1: because most of the time they have nothing to do
Speaker 1: with the decision at hand. And there's even a term
Speaker 1: called mood as information when we use kind of the
Speaker 1: mood we're in as information when we shouldn't. Right, it's
Speaker 1: a it's a major fallacy, and it really influences decisions
Speaker 1: in a negative way. Let's talk about something a little
Speaker 1: bit more positive, because you you in reviewed some really
Speaker 1: interesting people who have used trust in really interesting ways,
Speaker 1: and I was, you know, some very inspiring people like
Speaker 1: the Spanish teacher ms rad right, who who is Well,
Speaker 1: why don't you tell us a little bit about her?
Speaker 1: And about this distinction which I think is really really
Speaker 1: nice that you make between earning trust and building trust.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Miss rad Oh, she was. I shouldn't pick favorites,
Speaker 2: but it really was incredible. She's was a Teacher of
Speaker 2: the Year in Illinois, and I think the thing that
Speaker 2: really struck me about her is that she's working in
Speaker 2: a pretty tough environment and she's working with often with
Speaker 2: children that have never learned how to trust anyone. They've
Speaker 2: never learned how to trust a teacher, a parent, a custodian,
Speaker 2: a friend, and she feels like she's teaching them Spanish.
Speaker 2: But actually the outcome of the year is that they've
Speaker 2: learned how to trust someone and that someone trusts them.
Speaker 2: And there's so much to the things that she does.
Speaker 2: But what I realized, we're listening to listen to it again.
Speaker 2: First of all, everything she does is free, like it's
Speaker 2: not big gestures, they're really small things. So she makes
Speaker 2: sure before the first day of term she knows every
Speaker 2: child's first name and last name, and not only that,
Speaker 2: she knows their interests. She speaks to the other teachers.
Speaker 2: She finds out what they enjoy, where they're struggling, even
Speaker 2: where they like to sit in the classroom, and so
Speaker 2: you know, when they walk in, they're like, Oh, this
Speaker 2: person cares. They took the time to understand all these things.
Speaker 2: She works on the premise that she's a giver of trust,
Speaker 2: so they don't have it, and so many teachers don't
Speaker 2: do this right. Like it's like you have to prove
Speaker 2: yourself to me, and that proving yourself to me is
Speaker 2: such an old way of thinking about power, which, to
Speaker 2: your question, is tied to this distinction between how do
Speaker 2: I build trust versus how do I earn trust? When
Speaker 2: you say how do I build trust, that is like
Speaker 2: I'm going to behave in a certain way and then
Speaker 2: I expect you to follow me. I expect you to
Speaker 2: do something for me, versus what miss Rad was demonstrating
Speaker 2: is that actually, you know, you have to continuously earn trust,
Speaker 2: and the best way to do that is to give
Speaker 2: it first, and then it becomes this really powerful loop.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I think that a lot of bosses and business
Speaker 1: leaders should listen to your lesson with miss Rad because
Speaker 1: it seems like it would really improve a lot of
Speaker 1: office cultures, because you do talk about this about kind
Speaker 1: of the flip side. When you do have cultures where
Speaker 1: there isn't trust right, where people micromanage, where you feel
Speaker 1: like you're you're not being empowered, and then people do
Speaker 1: all sorts of shit to you know, when they feel
Speaker 1: like that, when they're like, fine, you don't trust me.
Speaker 1: You know, you have the example of it Spencer reports, Right, Okay, fine,
Speaker 1: like how do I expense this bottle of wine? Like
Speaker 1: how do I figure out a way to screw you over?
Speaker 1: Because you don't trust me?
Speaker 2: Right?
Speaker 1: And I have actually found that. So my next book
Speaker 1: is about cheating. But you find that when you have
Speaker 1: these kinds of things and people feel like they can cheat, right,
Speaker 1: they feel like and they can feel like they can
Speaker 1: do things like take office supplies home, take stuff from
Speaker 1: the fridge that was brought from the office and just
Speaker 1: take it home, and they don't feel like that's stealing,
Speaker 1: even though it is right, that's not why it's therefore,
Speaker 1: but they're like, well, you know, if you're if you're
Speaker 1: not trusting me, if you're doing all of these things,
Speaker 1: then I'm going to act accordingly. And in this classroom,
Speaker 1: you see, you know, students who misbehaved and who were
Speaker 1: problems students suddenly become leaders and really promising students because
Speaker 1: of this trust dynamic shift. And I think that this
Speaker 1: is just such a powerful and wonderful lesson that we
Speaker 1: can use in a lot of different cultures. Right your school,
Speaker 1: even though I think it's incredibly important in the classroom,
Speaker 1: but I think it's important as we think about corporate
Speaker 1: cultures all the way up. And it's it's a point
Speaker 1: that I think people don't necessarily understand because sometimes they
Speaker 1: think that, well, you know, you need to kind of
Speaker 1: you need to urge, you need to you need to
Speaker 1: kind of micro manage and do these kinds of things,
Speaker 1: because well, who are they, right, I'm the boss.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And it's it's it's such an obvious thing to say,
Speaker 2: but we take trust for granted until it's gone, and
Speaker 2: then it brings out the very worst behaviors, whether that's
Speaker 2: cheating or survival. So I had a student she put
Speaker 2: this so well because she was saying, like, you know,
Speaker 2: why don't want we talk about trust? Do we so
Speaker 2: often talk about mistrust or distrust or a lack of trust?
Speaker 2: And then she admitted she didn't really understand the difference
Speaker 2: between those things, which is interesting in itself mistrust, distrust,
Speaker 2: lack of trust. But then she said, you know, do
Speaker 2: you know what to me, like when I've been in
Speaker 2: a work environment and you can just feel like someone
Speaker 2: took the plug out and the trust is seeping out
Speaker 2: that organization. She said, you know, you owned a goldfish,
Speaker 2: and you can imagine like she's doing this in an
Speaker 2: NBA lecture hall. It's about one hundred and twenty students,
Speaker 2: and I'm like, yes, I owned a goldfish and it
Speaker 2: was called Flash Gordon. I'm trying to give her permission
Speaker 2: to tell the story here, and she's like, your goldfish
Speaker 2: was called Flash Gordon. I was like, could we get
Speaker 2: to the mesophor so. Then she says, you don't only
Speaker 2: own a goldfish, and you're not a particularly responsible pet
Speaker 2: owner golfish owner, and you don't fill the bowl up,
Speaker 2: and gradually, over time the water goes down and you
Speaker 2: don't really notice the water going down until one day
Speaker 2: you come home. And she did this with actions. The
Speaker 2: fish is gold ping like like like it can't breathe,
Speaker 2: it's suffocating, and the fish is about to die. And
Speaker 2: she said that's what I think happens to trust, is
Speaker 2: like it just dissipates until people feel suffocated. So I
Speaker 2: think this is It really struck me because the Edelman
Speaker 2: Trust Barometer just came out, which bigs feelings about and
Speaker 2: gallop at the same time the biggest trust surveys, and
Speaker 2: both of them showed that the lowest the highest trust falls.
Speaker 2: So the biggest difference in trust points it's not in
Speaker 2: politics or media, it's in employees. It's like a ten
Speaker 2: point four in employee engagement and trust. And that's that's
Speaker 2: very right. It's huge right that you always be with
Speaker 2: disengaged and or they are not behaving well, and that
Speaker 2: is that is toxic for both sides.
Speaker 1: The equation that is that is concerning. And you talk
Speaker 1: about distrust, right, and you and you talk about I
Speaker 1: think the goldfish story is a great one. You know,
Speaker 1: you talk about kind of the three d's, right, the defensiveness, disengagement, disenchantment,
Speaker 1: and how you don't always see those happening. It's very
Speaker 1: easy to miss. It's very easy to not have the
Speaker 1: communication infrastructure needed to kind of have those cycles not
Speaker 1: take place, and then you end up like a gold
Speaker 1: being goal fish and you're not quite sure how to
Speaker 1: fix it, and then you get a consultant in there,
Speaker 1: and you end up refilling the water tank without actually
Speaker 1: addressing any of the issues that made the water go
Speaker 1: down in the first place. So you know, maybe you
Speaker 1: refill the water, but you know that goldfish is not
Speaker 1: going to do well.
Speaker 2: Why wasn't anyone watching the boat? Why did no one care? Why? Like,
Speaker 2: why was no one nourishing these more things? So I
Speaker 2: do think it's a really good metaphor to think about
Speaker 2: workplace culture.
Speaker 1: Now, you know, let's turn this positive again. You you've
Speaker 1: talked to people who actually have very good workplace culture.
Speaker 1: But let's start with a hotel hospitality. You talked to
Speaker 1: someone you Jane you right, who's the CEO of the
Speaker 1: Dorchester and he well, tell me a little bit about him,
Speaker 1: and tell me what you learned from him about trust
Speaker 1: and kind of good ways to have that rapport because
Speaker 1: he's very good not just a building trust, but at
Speaker 1: repairing trust.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so I'm fascinated by hotels. I don't know about you,
Speaker 2: but like, it's not I want to go into hospitality,
Speaker 2: but they just I'm always like the theater and how
Speaker 2: they run and what goes on behind the scenes. So
Speaker 2: for listen, you don't know the Dorors to collection, it's
Speaker 2: it's it's some of the nicest hotels in the world,
Speaker 2: like it's the bel Air and the Beverly Hills and
Speaker 2: that that really fancy one in Paris. The hotels are incredible,
Speaker 2: l Maurice Maurice right. And I did get to stay
Speaker 2: in one as a work project, which was a real.
Speaker 1: Rachel, can I do a work project hotel?
Speaker 2: It was so fine. It was one of those trips
Speaker 2: where I digressed, but I said to him, I really
Speaker 2: don't want to go. And then I got there and
Speaker 2: I was like, this is the best work trip ever
Speaker 2: because this link to the story. The way they make
Speaker 2: people feel at home, and the way they recognize guests
Speaker 2: and not in like chocolate on your pillow ways I'd
Speaker 2: never experienced, not seen. I'd never experienced that feeling before,
Speaker 2: and so I was like, how do they do this?
Speaker 2: And they're so good at doing it that they run
Speaker 2: a training program where they don't just train their own staff,
Speaker 2: they train British Airways, Marks and Spent, all these companies
Speaker 2: around the world train on culture because they know how
Speaker 2: to do it. And the thing that struck me was that,
Speaker 2: first of all, he'd worked in every single department of
Speaker 2: the hotel. He'd even like been on the roof or
Speaker 2: repaired the air conditioners. You know, he'd been in the
Speaker 2: wash and not like for the day, you know how
Speaker 2: some of the CEOs do it for an hour like
Speaker 2: a rotation. He understood the hotel like a body. He
Speaker 2: understood the nervous system, He understood the components, and he
Speaker 2: knew how all of this was interconnected and if one
Speaker 2: thing went down, how it impacted others. So that was
Speaker 2: just like, wow, how many leaders understand the whole ecology
Speaker 2: and cultural system of their business. The other thing that
Speaker 2: I thought was just incredible was how much he empowered
Speaker 2: his team to do the right thing. And you know,
Speaker 2: this wasn't like the mised alarm call. He spoke about
Speaker 2: a lot because that's a big thing, and that if
Speaker 2: they missed an alarm calls. I mean people still use
Speaker 2: alarm calls, which I find strange that the personal reception
Speaker 2: has the autonomy to book another flight a business class
Speaker 2: fight without any kind of approval, regardless of the cost.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that was absolutely crazy. I was like, well, yeah,
Speaker 1: that is the way to remedy it, right, Like if
Speaker 1: you make me miss my float because you screwed up up,
Speaker 1: then you know, and he says, you know, if it
Speaker 1: costs ten thousand dollars, doesn't matter, right, Yeah.
Speaker 2: And now this is an elite I mean, this is
Speaker 2: a privilege, right, this is an incredible hotel where people
Speaker 2: a pay an absolute fortune. But the point of the
Speaker 2: story was that the apology has to match.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I think that Eugenio has a really good
Speaker 1: rubric for it, you know. Basically, I think the to me,
Speaker 1: the most important point of how you know he speaks
Speaker 1: about this is that trust is going to be broken, right,
Speaker 1: Like we have this illusion that like, oh, this is
Speaker 1: a trustworthy person, this trustworthy institution, trustworthy blah blah blah.
Speaker 1: So I can trust a blanket, right, shit goes wrong? Yeah, right,
Speaker 1: that's life. It happens all the time. People are going
Speaker 1: to break your trust on an individual level and on
Speaker 1: an institutional level. How do you respond to that?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 1: How do you repair it? How do you actually make
Speaker 1: it so that the trust doesn't go away, right, so
Speaker 1: that it becomes stronger. I think that that is the
Speaker 1: crucial thing here, Right. It's not like there's this beautiful
Speaker 1: thing and you can trust this and you can't trust this.
Speaker 1: That is not how it works. It is much more complex.
Speaker 2: I think to your point, what's so powerful by his
Speaker 2: story is that he says it happens like a hundred
Speaker 2: times in a day in a hotel. More like he's
Speaker 2: constantly repairing trust. And there is a distinction between those
Speaker 2: most moments and what people would call a trust crisis,
Speaker 2: you know, so a trust crisis like an AWE spill
Speaker 2: Cambridge Analytica, that's how people tend to think of trust
Speaker 2: breaking down. And yes, of course those things are going
Speaker 2: to hur and there's a lot of repair to be
Speaker 2: done there, but it's it's micro moments that often, particularly
Speaker 2: if you're in a customer centric or even just an
Speaker 2: employee centric company, they're the things that people don't think about,
Speaker 2: like how do you empower people to repair those those things?
Speaker 2: And then the other key thing tied to risk, which
Speaker 2: I thought was really key, is he doesn't want people
Speaker 2: to be risk adversed. He doesn't want his employees to
Speaker 2: be risk adverse. So it's how does he set the
Speaker 2: boundaries and be really clear about expectations so that they
Speaker 2: can play and they can delight, and they can do
Speaker 2: things still following service protocol. And I think that was
Speaker 2: just amazing to learn how they do that.
Speaker 1: I think that that is a really crucial point. You
Speaker 1: have to empower people to take risks because a lot
Speaker 1: of times, you know, trust gets broken and things go wrong,
Speaker 1: and people, you know, you've created a culture where they
Speaker 1: will be punished, right if they if they go and
Speaker 1: do something else. And I think this is actually a
Speaker 1: huge organizational problem, at least in the United States. I
Speaker 1: don't know if it's the case in the UK as well,
Speaker 1: where businesses say, oh, you know, we love risk taking.
Speaker 1: You know, we want our employees to be creative and
Speaker 1: innovative and blah blah blah. But it didn't work out,
Speaker 1: Oh you're fired. Right, What kind of a culture are
Speaker 1: you actually creating where you pay lip service to this
Speaker 1: but you don't actually inspire that kind of behavior because
Speaker 1: people are scared. They know that if you take a
Speaker 1: risk and it doesn't work out, that that's not good
Speaker 1: for you.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and it's it's something I mean, I'd love to
Speaker 2: ask you these questions because I've often wandered like it's
Speaker 2: taking risk of privilege.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that taking risk is a privilege because
Speaker 1: you know, I've written about this and I've thought a
Speaker 1: lot about this, you know, a really nice way of
Speaker 1: thinking about it. Is you know, when you're looking at
Speaker 1: all of these classic biases that Danny Kahneman talked about, right,
Speaker 1: risk aversion, loss of version, all of these fallacies of
Speaker 1: the human mind, right where you prefer the certain outcome
Speaker 1: over the gamble, even though the gamble has a higher
Speaker 1: expected value, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, they become
Speaker 1: completely correct and not fallacious if you can't afford to lose. Right,
Speaker 1: if you are someone who you know you need this
Speaker 1: money to pay the rent, you need this money to
Speaker 1: get medicine, even though the risk might actually the expected
Speaker 1: value might be like millions, right, and you can get
Speaker 1: a sure thing of however much it is, you will
Speaker 1: take the shore thing or if the loss right, if
Speaker 1: you gamble and you could potentially make a lot, but
Speaker 1: you could also lose something that's going to affect your
Speaker 1: ability to pay for your for your livelihood. You shouldn't
Speaker 1: take that gamble, right, because you should actually take the
Speaker 1: sure thing always. And so you see how all of
Speaker 1: these quote unquote fallacies can be completely correct depending on
Speaker 1: who you are, what risk context you're coming from, and
Speaker 1: so absolutely risk taking is a privilege. It means you
Speaker 1: can afford to lose. Right, you can afford the risk
Speaker 1: of ruin and some people can't. And sometimes you don't
Speaker 1: understand why someone doesn't take a risk, and you have
Speaker 1: to ask, well, okay, what is it about their background?
Speaker 1: And this I think we've come full circles of trust.
Speaker 1: What is it about the trust kind of the support
Speaker 1: and everything about them that can enable them to take
Speaker 1: these sorts of risks And you know, something that you
Speaker 1: end with which I think is a good place for
Speaker 1: us turned And this is where it's going with trust sleeps,
Speaker 1: right and confidence in the unknown. And I think trust
Speaker 1: sleeps are also a privilege, but I.
Speaker 2: Think so too so a trust sleep is whenever you
Speaker 2: take a risk to do something new or to do
Speaker 2: something differently in your life. But actually writing the book
Speaker 2: made me think about them really differently, because if you
Speaker 2: think about going back to wonderful miss rad and it
Speaker 2: made me think, you know, trust sleeps are a privilege,
Speaker 2: but they're also permission. What made me realize is like
Speaker 2: often people go, okay, well you need to provide security,
Speaker 2: and you have to provide that's usually financial the way
Speaker 2: they think about it. And what she does is she says, actually,
Speaker 2: a trust sleep is when the child says the first
Speaker 2: word in Spanish, because when you speak in and the
Speaker 2: language and there's a risk that everyone is going to
Speaker 2: laugh at you in that class, like that's actually taking
Speaker 2: a risk, and that what she has to do is
Speaker 2: create the comfort and the security that no one's gonna
Speaker 2: laugh and there's gonna be no repercussions. And the thing
Speaker 2: that they think about is like when those kids say
Speaker 2: the first word and everyone sort of looks at them
Speaker 2: with admiration, and then they start saying a whole sentence.
Speaker 2: That's the permission piece. That's what I mean by like
Speaker 2: if you think if listening says going, well, I'm just
Speaker 2: not very good at taking risks and I really don't
Speaker 2: enjoy them, and I don't even know how to take
Speaker 2: a trust leap. Start really small, right because it's forward momentum,
Speaker 2: like once you feel it and you're like, oh no,
Speaker 2: I'm speaking a whole paragraph in front of the class.
Speaker 2: And I think a lot about those children when I'm
Speaker 2: trying to encourage people to take trust leaps. They don't
Speaker 2: have to be enormous physical feats. They don't have to
Speaker 2: be leaving your job and starting a new company. They
Speaker 2: don't have to be taking a math bet or leaving
Speaker 2: your partner, whatever it may be, and she some of
Speaker 2: the most powerful trust leaps are really really small, where
Speaker 2: they get higher high, and they give you permission to
Speaker 2: discover something else about other people, about yourself, about your community,
Speaker 2: or about the world.
Speaker 1: Look at us ending on such a powerful and positive
Speaker 1: and inspirational note. I think I think that that actually
Speaker 1: is such a great message to hand done right, that
Speaker 1: these don't have to be huge things, and that everything
Speaker 1: about trust you can start small right and build on that.
Speaker 1: And I think that that's very empowering. And I hope
Speaker 1: that people do listen to your full audiobook because I
Speaker 1: think you'll learn a lot. I learned a lot about
Speaker 1: the nature of trust and how we can be more
Speaker 1: trustworthy and also create more trust in the world, which
Speaker 1: I think is crucially important.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I can't wait to read more about cheating,
Speaker 2: which is always fascinating me. So it's always a delight
Speaker 2: and pleasure. And thank you for appearing in the book
Speaker 2: as well. You did a joke.
Speaker 1: So of course, thank you so much for joining me.
Speaker 1: I could always talk to you four hours, and I
Speaker 1: appreciate you taking the time to talk about trust and
Speaker 1: risk and all of it. Let us know what you
Speaker 1: think of the show. Reach out to us at Risky
Speaker 1: Business at pushkin dot fm. And by the way, if
Speaker 1: you're a Pushkin Plus subscriber, we have some bonus content
Speaker 1: for you. We'll be answering a listener question each week
Speaker 1: that's coming up right after the credits.
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Speaker 3: for listening across Pushkin's entire network of shows.
Speaker 1: Risky Business is hosted by me Maria Kanakova.
Speaker 3: And by me Nate Silver. The show is a co
Speaker 3: production of Pushkin Industries and iHeartMedia. This episode was produced
Speaker 3: by Isabelle Carter. Our associate producer is Gabriel Hunter Chang.
Speaker 3: Sally Helm is our editor, and our executive producer is
Speaker 3: Jacob Goldstein. Mixing by Sarah Bruguer.
Speaker 1: If you like this show, please rate and review us
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Speaker 1: for tuning in.