I recently posted an article on Censemaking on trust and how I believe it will be the most significant thing we’ll design into our organizations moving forward into the coming years. I think the concept of trust design is something that is going to be a thing.
Maybe by writing it here, I’ve made it so?
The proliferation of tools and media to support misleading or outwardly false information has exploded and will only worsen. It is more challenging that even legitimate organizations create a distrusting climate through their behaviour without AI added in. Consider the mass layoff by Zoom phenomenon.
Or consider how CEO’s and senior managers in organizations — private, public, for-profit and non-profit - make anywhere between 10 and 200 times (or more) what their average staff member makes. Does that build trust?
What about organizations that claim to care about health, only to work staff to exhaustion without reprieve or adequate concentration (I’m thinking particularly of you, healthcare).
Or how about the environmentally conscious statements that accompany massive expenditures in air travel for staff trips abroad, environmentally unsustainable procurement policies, and bringing people into the office (and their commutes) when there is no evidence to support it? (I’m okay with bringing people together — it’s a great idea if you know what you’re doing when you do that and design for it. Many organizations don’t).
Trust: Design it in.
Suppose we trust our peers, our organizations, and our colleagues and project trustworthy behaviour outward based on integrity, values, and demonstrated practices. In that case, we will have created an island of trust in a sea of falsehoods.