How Trust is Built, Broken, and Repaired
Guest Speaker Dr. Peter H. KimIn this episode of WiseTalk, CEO and Executive Leadership Coach Sue Bethanis hosts the world’s leading expert in the rapidly growing field of trust repair, Dr. Peter H. Kim.
Dr. Kim is a Professor of Management and Organization at the University of Southern California’s Marshall School of Business. He received his Ph.D. in Organizational Behavior from Northwestern University’s Kellogg Graduate School of Management. His research concerns the dynamics of social misperception, with a particular focus on the violation and repair of trust. This research has been published in the world’s leading scientific journals across management and psychology. It has received ten national/international awards from organizations, including the American Psychological Association, the Academy of Management, and the International Association for Conflict Management. This work has also been supported by multiple funding sources, including the National Science Foundation, the State Farm Foundation, and the Kellogg Dispute Resolution Research Center.
Dr. Kim has also drawn on his expertise to develop and teach some of the most highly rated M.B.A. courses and executive training programs at his University. Popular accounts of his research have appeared in The Atlantic, New York Times, Washington Post, The Economist, and National Public Radio. His first book, How Trust Works: The Science of How Relationships are Built, Broken, and Repaired, is based on two decades of his original research on trust repair.
Listen to the full episode here:
Listen on: Apple | Spotify | Google
In this episode, Sue and Peter discuss the disposition to trust, its impact on professional relationships, and the crucial role of trust in fostering collaboration and innovation within organizations. Peter explains the fundamental importance of trust and how it affects all our relationships, whether personal or professional. Whether you’re a naturally trusting individual or more skeptical, the evidence presented challenges common assumptions and provides valuable insights into the dynamics of trust.
Some key take-aways from this talk:
- Peter explains how we have a natural predisposition to trust, which is fundamental to building relationships with others, engaging in collaboration, and operating in our society. Being trusting is a positive trait that is associated with happiness and creates a reciprocal effect in others. (3:44 & 9:16)
- A key part of building trust is through communication. Peter suggests offering small gestures of your own trust to others to initiate a cycle of trust-building, especially with those who seem less trusting themselves. (18:35)
- Within the workplace, trust serves as a catalyst for constructive actions and creating a positive and innovative culture. On the other hand, violations of trust within a company can severely impact team morale, productivity, and employee retention. (31:36)
- A violation of trust is incredibly dependent on the individual and the values they perceive to be important. Within the workplace it is vital to effectively communicate intentions and expectations to foster a culture of trust. Aligning expectations between leadership and teams is essential to prevent unnecessary trust violations, particularly during periods of organizational change. (35:16)
Trust is not merely an abstract concept but a powerful tool that can shape your personal and professional relationships. Whether you’re a leader seeking to inspire trust in your team or an individual navigating the nuances of workplace relationships, this talk offers valuable insights into the disposition to trust, its impact on organizational outcomes, and practical strategies for building and repairing trust. As you apply these insights, remember that trust is not just a virtue; it’s a catalyst for positive change and collective success.
“People who are predisposed to trust are generally happier and wind up better off in life, and that’s for a host of reasons….Evidence indicates that actually, when we trust people, their inclination is not to exploit us, but rather to prove us right, to actually treat that trust as a resource that’s precious to preserve for the future.” (3:44)
“Trust is vital to enable cooperation in contexts where people might have an incentive to also look out for themselves to the detriment of the collective.” (7:23)
“There’s research that shows we may have the same set of fundamental values, but we prioritize those values differently. So, in a situation where tough choices have to be made, you might make one set of choices that you think is right in the situation, but other people might make different choices.” (35:16)
Peter H. Kim:
Website | LinkedIn
Book: How Trust Works: The Science of How Relationships Are Built, Broken, and Repaired
Sue Bethanis 0:03
Welcome, everyone to WiseTalk. This is Mariposa’s monthly podcast, we provide perspectives on leadership. Today, we’re excited to welcome Dr. Peter Kim. Thanks, Peter, for being with us. Appreciate it.
Peter Kim 0:14
It’s a pleasure to be here. Thank you, Sue.
Sue Bethanis 0:16
Great. Peter is a professor of management and organization at the University of Southern California’s Marshall School of Business. He received his PhD in organizational behavior from Northwestern Kellogg Graduate School. His research concerns the dynamics of social misperception with a particular focus on the violation and repair of trust. I can’t wait to get into this subject. He has received 10 national international awards from organizations including the American Psychological Association, the Academy of Management, and the International Association for Conflict Management. His research has also appeared in The Atlantic, the New York Times and Washington Post, The Economist and National Public Radio, his first book, How Trust Works: the Science of How Relationships are Built, Broken and Repaired, is based on two decades of his original research on trust repair. So I’m so excited to talk about this, especially with what we’re in right now, COVID, climate change, all of it. So before we get into some questions, I read your bio, obviously, lots of accolades, based on research, but what prompted you to want to write the book like what was the personal reason?
Peter Kim 1:27
Well, one somewhat unusual feature of my background is that, before I started as a faculty member here at USC, I had moved every four years or less in my life, that includes my early formative years. And that exposed me to this constant need to expose myself to people I had never met before, enter and exit communities, and gain the trust of others. And in those experiences really underscored how often we need to make those judgments in general, and how important those judgments are, and how often we get those judgments wrong. Because as I moved through these different communities, it became quite clear to me that so many of these judgments were made based on superficial aspects of, you know, what, what they saw, first impressions, what I represented, what my parents did for a living, where we lived, and so on. Things that had very little to do with me as a person or how trustworthy I might have been. And I inevitably would do that for others as well. This is a fundamental feature of how we navigate the world, and so that’s what really underscored the importance of this topic to me.
Sue Bethanis 3:05
Interesting, I actually think one of the most interesting things about this subject is that there are certain people that are more trusting of others, I’ll put myself in a category, I tend to be very trusting of others. And they have to really blow it for me to not trust them. So talk to us a little bit about that, in terms of what’s the percentage even and there’s probably some data on this, percentage of people who tend to trust people more, and why is it that we trust, have that sort of feeling of trusting until someone screws up? So talk to us about that a little bit?
Peter Kim 3:44
Well, I don’t have that precise data. That’s sort of the realm of personality psychologists, which is not my area of expertise. But what I can tell you is that there is a disposition to trust that can separate some of us who are more trusting from those that are not. And we might be inclined to infer that that is a bad thing, that it makes us gullible and naive and so on, I would place myself in the category of trusting others, too. But the evidence indicates that it’s actually a good thing. People who are predisposed to trust are generally happier and wind up better off in life, and that’s for a host of reasons. One of the biggest reasons is that we assume that it’s better and more prudent to not trust others unless it’s proven. But that’s based on the notion that other people are in general, opportunistic, trying to pull a fast one, and so on. And the evidence indicates that that’s not really the case. So there’s plenty of work based on that assumption, to the extent that that’s true that these are things that you might do to protect yourself. But the evidence indicates that actually, when we trust people, their inclination is not to exploit us, but rather to prove us right, to actually treat that trust as a resource that’s precious to preserve for the future. And, so that makes us more attractive relationship partners, with both trusting and non trusting others. And it also enables more constructive actions. So we’re more willing to engage in these, you know, take advantage of opportunities to collaborate with one another. And others see that and when we trust people, we treat them better. So they are inclined to reciprocate that behavior. So all of that combines to make trust, initial trust in others. A good positive.
Sue Bethanis 6:09
And what’s the relationship between again, this might be out of your area too, but it’s making me think about it. What’s the relationship between confidence in yourself and trusting of others? Is there a relationship with that?
Peter Kim 6:22
I don’t know of any research that’s really looked at that. And so I guess one way of thinking about it is research on people who have positive outlooks on the world in general. And so that then might include yourself, as well as your views of others. And consistent with the findings about trust, the evidence indicates that when you have positive outlooks in general, that is very helpful. There’s even research, looking at the opposite side of the coin, so if you tend to be depressed, you tend to be more accurate. So there’s actually a negative association between accuracy and happiness in that respect.
Sue Bethanis 7:11
Interesting. Okay. This is fascinating to me. Okay. Your books called how trust works. So why do you think it’s important for people to understand how it works? Tell me a little bit about the background on that.
Peter Kim 7:23
Now, if I were to ask you or anyone about the importance of trust in your life, I have no doubt you would say it’s vital. I mean, it is a fundamental ingredient in society. And it’s because social interaction, we can see social interaction is essentially being about how we relate to one another in mixed motive situations, where everyone does have this incentive to look out for themselves. But there is also an incentive to work together, because when we do, things turn out better. And that kind of perspective can help frame, the way we work together, how we treat one another in all sorts of situations. And so trust is vital to enable that kind of cooperation in contexts where people might have an incentive to also look out for themselves to the detriment of the collective. And because that kind of situation is so common in the world, the more we can nurture Trust, the more we can navigate those situations more effectively.
Sue Bethanis 8:43
So outline for us a little bit about how you see trustworthiness, some criteria you address in the book that’s important and how trust works. So let’s go through those.
Peter Kim 8:55
Well, the are you asking about how trust develops? How we make decisions to trust one another?
Sue Bethanis 9:05
Yeah, I mean, there’s three things that you talk about here, built, broken and repaired? So do you want to start with how trust is built to start with that?
Peter Kim 9:16
Sure. So one of the assumptions we tend to have is that trust starts at zero, and only builds gradually over time as we get to know one another. And again, this is consistent with that notion that other people are opportunistic, they’re looking to take advantage of us and so on. So why would we expose ourselves to others if we don’t know more about them? But it turns out that that’s not the case. We trust quite willingly and often in general, and this is not only because of the personality differences that we talked about, but also for other reasons. So, for example, societies have various rules, laws, norms, and institutions that promote trustworthy action. So you may not know the other person, but you may know that there are laws in place such that if they lie, or steal or do something bad, that’ll catch up to them. And so just inferring that they are not so irrational to make themselves worse off or to want to do that will give us enough of a basis to assume that most people on the whole will try to toe the line and do the right thing. And then there are these cues that we referred to earlier, these very quick first impressions that we might have one another. And oftentimes, those first impressions are very helpful, because they allow us to infer that, oh, I don’t know this person, but they seem very articulate and bright and thoughtful, that we know the same people, they went to the same school, all these different cues, can be helpful in terms of elevating the baseline level of trust from zero. And it’s not a perfect signal, as we discussed. But even though it’s not perfect, well, it’s better than the default assumption that everyone’s untrustworthy all the time. If that were the case, we wouldn’t be able to leave our homes.
Sue Bethanis 11:31
Yeah, exactly. Paranoid. Thanks for that, let’s talk about this idea of when trust gets broken and then need to repair, to me that’s about communication. It’s hard to not put trust and communication together, two sides of the same coin. So let’s just talk about behaviorally. Like what do you suggest around once trust is broken, how to repair it?
Peter Kim 11:56
One of the issues with trust violations is that we are so attuned to that happening, that we are inclined to believe any allegation, even unfounded allegations that are coming from a source we don’t know that, you know, allegations that we can’t verify, and so on, just the allegation itself is enough to lower trust. And for this reason, a lot of times trust is broken for unjustified reasons. It’s not warranted this kind of violation. And so part of the communication task, may be to articulate whether or not this actually is warranted or not, right. In some cases, you may articulate that this, in fact, is not true and provide evidence and all that. So that part is straightforward way.
Sue Bethanis 12:57
Harder in PR, yeah. harder if it’s public.
Peter Kim 13:02
Yeah. But the other element of communication stems from the fact that most of the focus of communication is on what is the response, in particular, whether the accused offers an apology or not. And so that sense, you know, sort of dominates a lot of the focus of the media, for example, and so on. And sometimes the accused won’t offer an apology for one reason or another. And so that’s the dominant focus. But just as important, is the question of how the violation is viewed. Because that interpretation of why things happened is just as important. And yet, we often overlook that really critical aspect of the communication. It’s almost like if you’re driving on the road, trying to avoid traffic accidents, and only looking straight ahead, right, ignoring the cross traffic, that cross traffic really matters. And if you ignore it, it can result in the exact same response, sometimes being very effective, and sometimes making things much worse. So then that very narrow approach to communication can really lead to surprises. If you’re not really cognizant of how the situation is being viewed and interpreted.
Sue Bethanis 14:32
You sort of picked up a little bit on social media. Well, you didn’t say social media, but you’re inferring I think, with like believability. I mean, I have a 17 year old and he constantly come up with things and I’m like, where did you get that like, so he’s, well it’s not that he’s gullible, but he’s just like, you know, he’s reading constantly and he’s seen this stuff, and the first thing I ask him, I’m like, Well, Where are you getting that? And I think that, unfortunately, it’s not anything against Facebook, per se, but it’s perpetuated this sort of hive mentality where you pull the hive mindset, where you know you’re seeking out, Facebook itself is you’re seeking out like minded people, that’s kind of what it does, it only allows you to see certain people and it’s tends to like, keep perpetuating the same thing. And that means that there’s more and more polarization. So they’re pleading to polarization and then, you know, then a mistrust of other people. How do we? Oh, gosh, this is a huge question. I mean, how do we coach, teach, parent, I mean, in business? How do we avoid this or diminish it, if you will, this hive mindset?
Peter Kim 15:38
It is a huge question. And it gets to some fundamental aspects of how we process the information. When we’re part of groups, and we’re assessing our own groups and other groups. It also gets to another misconception that we have well, it’s not necessarily a misconception, but it adds a wrinkle to a common view that more heads are better than one, right? When you have more people chiming in about something that it leads to better judgment. The problem is that with things like social media, what it does is it doesn’t allow for the full spectrum of perspectives to allow for that convergence on the appropriate answer. It leads everyone to self select and filter their views to make it easier to spotlight a particular view. And with that being spotlighted. Everyone who is part of that media stream or communication, they believe that well that that must be the correct view. And it exacerbates the confidence in that view that people become more extreme and holding that view and so on. And then there’s this other element, this group dynamic, where we, as human beings are inclined to believe that our own groups are better than other groups. So this classic inter group distinction is important because we would like to believe that those in that particular media stream are like us, we favor them, and we think they’re more likely to be right. And those in other streams are not right. They’re not good. They’re not worthy of having an opinion and so on. And so that exacerbates the problem. So we become more extreme in our views as a result of this unidimensional perspective. And they do as well. And then each side starts pointing fingers.
Sue Bethanis 17:46
Right, right. Yeah, I can see why it can bubble, snowball. So let me take a break for a second. And I want to talk about hybrid. So Deborah, any questions you have, you want to pop in here at all? I’m gonna give you a chance to do that right now.
Deborah 18:02
Yeah, I’m enjoying it immensely. And it’s giving me a lot to think about. I’m thinking particularly about the range of trustworthiness, so to speak, that may or may not be innate, but certainly is pretty characteristic of people. And you talked about the advantages of being more trusting, do you have anything to say about ways to specifically invite people into being at least that much more trusting than they are in any given setting or situation.
Peter Kim 18:35
One way you might go about it, is it comes to mind because they’ve been teaching courses on negotiation here for quite some time, and it really gets to this idea of reciprocity. And so one thing you could do is demonstrate that you trust them, with little gestures. And so I’m reminded of George W. Bush, who, you know, putting politics aside, he had this interesting technique of bringing people into the fold, which is he would share a little secret with them, but not a huge secret, nothing too consequential, but he would include them in his confidence. And that was a way of showing them that they were trusted. And you know, I’m sure it wasn’t 100%, that they will reciprocate by not divulging or so on. But that little gesture can be a way of of starting the cycle. And one another way you might add to that is by asking a question along with after you’ve shared a little bit about yourself. You might ask something about them. And so you are in a way, signaling that, I’d like to start this cycle of trust, and through that, start building it.
Deborah 20:09
Thank you, I definitely fall on the more trusting side of the spectrum so that when I’m working with people who fall pretty far the other way, you know, but you kind of trust people who are like yourself, where you kind of like them, I often don’t know where to start. So those tips are really useful in terms of coaching people, for ways that they may get better outcomes.
Peter Kim 20:32
Sure, you know, it’s funny when I too often encounter people that say something to the effect of I don’t trust anyone, and we might be having a meal together at a restaurant. And I look at their plate. And I think, do you know how many people you’re trusting at this moment by eating off this plate? A lot. So they’re not even thinking about that. And maybe what they mean is that they don’t trust anyone 100% or you know, their thinking about the closest relationships in their lives. But I think part of my goal is to just make clear to people that we’re trusting people all the time, even when you drive to work, that people stay on the right side of the road.
Sue Bethanis 21:24
It is amazing. Like, yeah, there really is a lot of trust. Yeah. True. Deborah do you have a follow up?
Deborah 21:31
No, just that I was thinking before, you mentioned driving on the road, I was thinking I’m actually less trusting on the freeway than I am in most other situations.
Peter Kim 21:42
Yeah, well, I think one of the things that raises is risk, right, our awareness of the risk in these decisions. And that certainly matters, and so we’ll always be calibrating based on our sense of that risk. And sometimes it’s more salient to us than others. Right? I mean, there’s certainly a high level of risk when we eat at restaurants, we’re just not aware of it. You know, I think there’s a recent story in the news about some people dying in Washington state from eating a milkshake. And if I were to share a personal story, I came back from Mexico City earlier this year, when I had been infected with three kinds of E. coli and a norovirus from that trip, I was deathly ill. And you might think that this was a foolish decision to have this orientation to trust others and eat in this country. But if I were to put this in perspective, I have been eating in restaurants all around the world for decades. And this is only the second time this has ever happened in my life, the first time actually happened at home when I was a child. So this is the first time it’s ever happened at a restaurant. And if I were to deny myself, those experiences as a result of not trusting, my world would have been so much smaller. And I think that’s the issue with these trust decisions, there are inevitably going to be times when our trust is violated, but if on the whole decision makes us better off, we can’t preclude ourselves from engaging in that trust. It’s almost like people who don’t invest in their 401 K’s in the stock market, because it goes up and down sometimes, but on the whole in over time, it’s a good move.
Sue Bethanis 23:42
Thanks, Deborah. So let’s talk about corporations. So, Mariposa, we work with mostly tech firms probably 90%. And we don’t have the exact data, because it changes so much, but I’d say that probably like 60 70% of those companies are fully remote. There are lots of companies, though, that aren’t tech companies and some tech companies who are suggesting that either they’re either requiring people to come back, or they’re encouraging. So those are very different. And I’m wondering, in your work, if this idea of requiring is based in a wanting of cooperation and collaboration and engagement, or is it more of a trust issue, or is it both?
Peter Kim 24:34
That’s a good question. I would imagine that this is the fork in the road that a lot of companies are facing and it does stem from this question that you’re raising. And sometimes there is a legitimate need for kind of collaboration, spontaneous conversations in the hallway and so on. In a lab that can be essential for innovation, but a lot of times, it’s the result of the perceived need to monitor the employees. I know so much of HR is about, reducing risk and making sure that people toe the line, and so on. And so many systems are designed to ensure that, and the problem there is that they can become a bureaucratic nightmare and especially as companies grow. And so the question becomes at moments like this, after COVID, when people have had to work at home is how much of that was really necessary or not. I’m reminded of telemedicine that’s emerged after COVID. And suddenly, this has become a much more accepted practice, and it’s made our lives a whole lot better.
Sue Bethanis 25:54
Oh, much easier. Plus, we’re not gonna get sick going into the hospital or the place, like, Oh, good, I’m gonna get sick from going in there.
Peter Kim 26:03
Exactly. And so this is a case of an external shock, forcing a change, and then our realizing, Wait a minute, this is a good thing, you know. And so for some companies, I would imagine that would be the same, to the extent that a lot of this sort of ‘come into the office’ culture was based on the notion that people wouldn’t get work done if they didn’t come into the office, right? If that’s not changing, and maybe that’s changing now, and maybe what needs to change, if there is some sort of sacrifice, is this question of: are the incentives properly aligned now? Do we need to adjust so that we have as much productivity when people are working from home by focusing maybe on the output rather than the hours spent at the office and things like that?
Sue Bethanis 26:59
Which is so hard to do, so hard to figure that out. It’s so hard to measure that, right? Absolutely. So I think that there is some sort of trust. And again, going back to transparency, communication, it seems to me, as a CEO, who’s encouraging or requiring, either one really, they better have some damn good reasons for why they’re bringing people back. And there needs to be some intentionality around when they are bringing them back. You know, what’s happening? Like, oh, we’re gonna bring everybody back and they’re gonna be on Zoom. I mean, that doesn’t make a lot of sense. At least for you know, not the whole day. So I think, again, it’s hard to separate the trust and the communication, because there isn’t enough demonstration of, okay, fine, we’re requiring it, but we need to understand there’s a purpose for that. And because certainly you can, I mean, I can look at it either way, I can certainly make a case for coming back and I can certainly make a case for not coming back. I mean, as long as the case is clear. And I think that that’s what we’re dealing with, with our clients, you gotta make it clear. So I don’t decide which way you’re going and it’d be better if you had a committee that decided rather than you, that would be better. But like, you know, if you’re gonna bring people back once a week, then great, but then have a reason.
Peter Kim 28:22
I think that’s right. And that I think, really touches on how, COVID and that shock, to how we’re getting things done, has required us to reexamine and perhaps renegotiate our contracts with people, you know, not only these formal contracts of how much you get paid, and so on, but how work might get done, and what’s really necessary and what’s important. And maybe that will mean that there will be some misalignment between what the company ultimately decided it needs and what the employees want. So some might leave, but I think you’re right, they need to be clear about what that new contract is going to be, and why they need it so that those who are questioning can make that decision. And I think that would be a good thing to do.
Sue Bethanis 29:20
Yeah, well, we’re seeing as well, similarly is that people that are used to being remote, now have left that job for whatever reason, or they were laid off. And now when they’re looking to get a new job, they’re saying, like, I want to be remote, or I want to have the choice and so then it’s come up again. And so the companies that are requiring people to come in are gonna have a harder time recruiting. Because, once you let people have more freedom, it’s really hard to put it back. I don’t know. I mean, I’ve had the freedom for 30 years as a consultant. So I mean, I get it, I was young when I got to do it. And so it’s like, once you get that freedom to like go the doctor, or go to the store, or whatever you’re doing, walk the dog work out in the middle of the day. I mean, it’s like, why would you want to not do that anymore.
Peter Kim 30:11
Yeah, absolutely. It’s same with faculty.
Sue Bethanis 30:14
Yeah.
Peter Kim 30:17
Right. Yeah. So I think being clear about that, I think is important. And maybe, you know, this is a function of the labor market being so strong and people feeling like they have options and right. So, yeah, so I think that just needs to get sorted through and maybe they’ll come to the realization that some of these employees that, you know, if they can have that freedom, but if it means that 30% cut in pay to go for a job that is less attractive to them, then maybe that’s not worth it. So, I think we’re all sort of readjusting to these expectations.
Sue Bethanis 30:58
And similarly, we have had a lot of layoffs, especially in tech lately. And that certainly contributes to the milieu around trust, especially if a company says we’re not going to do it, and they do it. Although that’s honestly the case, I think that the case has been lately with tech is that, you know, some big companies do it and then other little companies can say that they have like the jurisdiction to do it now. And that erodes trust. I mean, I think it does. So what are some ways that again, people, leaders can be communicative in terms of not eroding trust, keeping morale up, even though people are getting laid off?
Peter Kim 31:36
So this goes back to the issue I raised about how the violation itself is viewed. And so one of the things that I found through my studies is that it makes a big difference, whether you see the incident as a matter of incompetence or integrity. Is it something that wasn’t a mistake, is something that they just could not foresee? Or is it something that really involves an intentional violation of principles we consider important. And to the extent that you allow people to make that latter inference, there’s very little you can do to overcome it. And this gets to things in our mental basements that really lead us to view positive and negative information about incompetence and integrity very differently. So what does this mean? It means that if you’re a company and there are layoffs that are necessary, it really behooves you to make clear that this was not some arbitrary decision on your part, that it was necessary, it’s beyond your control to some extent, that the economy mandates it, the situation mandates it. And so that becomes a task because those who are on the other side, can very easily make the inference that this was not necessary, that this was an arbitrary decision. And when they make that attribution, then the company’s in trouble, suddenly loyalty to the company, or the willingness of those who remain to go the extra mile for the company drops through the floor. And so the company needs to provide signals, so this gets to the communication part, how does the company conveyed these signals that it was not something that they’re doing willfully and arbitrarily. And it reminds me of cases where, you know, many times companies will lay off employees and yet give their executives, big bonuses that year, that is the worst set of signals.
Sue Bethanis 34:01
Yeah, it’s so bad. So bad. Okay. So let’s get into like even a micro level in terms of just, I’ve always felt strongly about – Well, I was doing design thinking way before it was called design thinking and in terms of participatory organizational teaming, we called it many things 30 years ago, but the main thing there is that you’re building trust through empathy and you’re basically assuming that decision making could be at the group level, not at the boss. So whatever you want to call that, I don’t care what you call it. But the basis of that is that you build trust through participation. And, I mean, it’s democracy, I guess at its core, but talk through the research on that mean in terms of just how we can distill that more. It’s really important for the boss to be clear and the boss to be a leader, but at the same time, so much of what they’re doing needs to to ensure that they’re involving people in decisions, involving people in both small and big decisions., and that participation is what builds trust.
Peter Kim 35:16
Yes. So there are a couple of ways in which this is important. First, the first element is that we need a collective understanding of what happened and why things happen before we can overcome these kinds of incidences, if violations occurred. And this requires that we move beyond what people might refer to as personal truth, you know, their own way of seeing the situation, to get to what we might call a social truth, a collective understanding. And because if you don’t do that, then you you’re just gonna be talking past one another. And then the other element that this raises is, but if we were to go back to this concept of integrity, principles that you consider important, well, it turns out that different people prioritize different things. So there’s research that shows we may have the same set of fundamental values, but we prioritize those values differently. So in a situation where tough choices have to be made, you might make one set of choices that you think is right in the situation, but other people might make different choices. And so in a diverse group, with people from different cultures and perspectives, you can easily get into a situation where you believe that what you’ve done is the right thing. And other people believe that, actually, no, you’ve committed an integrity based violation, because you didn’t do exactly what they would have done in that situation, and that gets to the finger pointing and so on. So, this is where that dialogue is so important, so that we can reach that common understanding of how we are all trying to do the right thing in a difficult situation and through this recognition that we may have these different priorities, that can spur a discussion of how to maximize those priorities for everyone, how best to serve these common goals. Because if you don’t do that, then what you are left with is not dialogue, but domination. Right? You are imposing your views on other people, and they’re trying to do the same thing on us.
Sue Bethanis 37:38
Right, right. Well, and I was also referring to, you were talking about what you do after violation, I’m actually talking about before there’s even any violations, how you build a team even. Or how you make a decision on something, on a vision of something or budget, anything, any decision has to be made. The trust that you need of each other to do the right thing, and to be coming out of integrity can be built because the leader isn’t dominating by ensuring everybody has a say, that sounds like so basic, but I mean, this doesn’t happen. I mean, most of what I deal with, with my clients with SVPs, VPS CEOs is this right here, is that the people want to preserve their part of the pie. And to ensure, that can be both monetarily and figuratively, and they don’t invite others to make decisions with them. And then those who do get kind of shit on because they’re doing the right thing. But someone else kind of usurps down. So this is influence right, negotiation. And this is what I talk to people about all the time, and doing the right thing, or someone having the right integrity kind of doesn’t always work, unfortunately.
Peter Kim 39:08
Right, right. And this gets to people’s expectations, the importance of expectations in determining whether or not people believe that their trust has been violated. So doing this before an action is initiated, it’s important to align those expectations, to be aware of what those expectations are. So you’re not unnecessarily violating those expectations, and maybe having a conversations about a conversation about what those expectations should be. Because, you know, otherwise people are making very different assumptions about what should happen.
Sue Bethanis 39:43
Right? For sure, for sure. This has been great. Do you have any last things you want to say? I’m gonna do all your plugs here.
Peter Kim 39:52
Well I think broadly, I would just say that, you know, we’ve touched on a few issues that my book covers. But, you know, the broad point of the book is that we’d like to think that trust is important for us and yet, if it is so important, why are we so bad at managing it. And the book raises a variety of issues that hopefully will help us get better at it. And this is not a quick fix, you know, this will take hard work, and challenging our own assumptions. And so a lot of the book is about those assumptions, and whether they’re right or wrong. But it’s doable, and if you can get that right, you’re gonna reap the benefits of both yourself and for your organization.
Sue Bethanis 40:47
I don’t know if you’ve read David Brooks new article in The Atlantic about why America got mean, have you seen that? I think your book would be an antidote to it. I mean, like, help what he’s trying to say, talking about moral education, and he’s talking about moral education without being too moralistic, which is good. And he can, he can thread that pretty well, he’s pretty moderate in that regard. But there was some amazing stats in there about how 50 I think it was like something like 50% of people don’t have a great friend in their life. And, you know, if that’s what you’re dealing with it’s hard to trust, if you don’t have that. So I think you’d find it interesting. I did, and I think it’s related to what we’ve been talking about.
Peter Kim 41:34
I look forward to reading it, I’m a big fan of his.
Sue Bethanis 41:38
Yeah, totally. So am I. So everybody, this is Dr. Peter Kim. His book is How Trust Works, the Science of How Relationships are Built, Broken and Repaired. Get seeing him on LinkedIn, of course, and then the website, at marshall.usc.edu and you can look him up particularly. I thank you again, so much, Peter, for being with us. I really enjoyed it and I’ve learned a lot so thank you.
Peter Kim 42:05
It was a pleasure chatting with you Sue.
Sue Bethanis 42:07
Aloha, everybody. If you’re listening to this, you’re not seeing me because you’re gonna still have the audio but I’m wearing my Aloha shirt here. Sunny aloha to Maui, and to all of our friends there and hoping that they can recover as quickly as they can. So thanks again, Peter. We’ll see you next time. Bye.