Leadership needs to lead with Trust Intelligence (TI)

The global pandemic triggered by Covid-19 presented the world with the ultimate test of leadership across industries and geographies. From health care to government, school systems to non-profits, almost every organization has experienced unprecedented challenges over the past few months that have tested the values and skills of its leaders. Navigating this uncertainty requires mental and emotional stamina, courage and compassion.

I have written on the subject of the balance between IQ vs EI, ‘Why emotional intelligence is leadership, team spirit and company culture’, ‘Emotional Intelligence and Your Survival through the 4th Industrial Revolution‘ and more recently ‘The four Intelligences; IQ, EI, SI, DI and why we need Wisdom Intelligence (WI)‘.

In our company Douglas and I often debate the importance of the intelligences – the very reason ‘The four Intelligences; IQ, EI, SI, DI and why we need Wisdom Intelligence (WI)’ was written, was based on why as human’s we need a balance of skill, competence, moral and ethic behaviours to be truly effective in this new world, our conversations continue as whilst trust is not a new subject, there are just a few elemental forces that hold our world together. The one that’s the glue of society is called trust.

As Douglas Lines once said: “The importance of trust, integrity and experience has always been critical at IBEM, in my experience, this is ethically and morally important, but it is also our business mantra.”

His Holiness the Dalai Lama once said ‘“To earn trust, money and power aren’t enough; you have to show some concern for others. You can’t buy trust in the supermarket.”‘

Trust in a leader allows organizations and communities to flourish, while the absence of trust can cause fragmentation, conflict, and even war. That’s why we need to trust our leaders, our family members, our friends and our co-workers, albeit in different ways.

Trust is hard to define, but we do know when it’s lost. When that happens, we withdraw our energy and level of engagement. We go on an internal strike, not wanting to be sympathetic to the person who we feel has hurt us or treated us wrongly. We may not show it outwardly, but we are less likely to tell the formerly trusted person that we are upset, to share what is important to us or to follow through on commitments. As a result, we pull back from that person and no longer feel part of their world. This loss of trust can be obvious or somewhat hidden, especially if we pretend to be present but inwardly disengage. And those who have done something to lose our trust may not even know it.

On the positive side, trust makes people feel eager to be part of a relationship or group, with a shared purpose and a willingness to depend on each other. When trust is intact, we will willingly contribute what is needed, not just by offering our presence, but also by sharing our dedication, talent, energy, and honest thoughts on how the relationship or group is working.

The dynamics of trust are delicate in important relationships, and the loss of trust can be costly — not only psychologically, but also financially and in terms of work and livelihood. What’s helpful to remember is that trust is an ongoing exchange between people and is not static. Trust can be earned. It can be lost. And it can be regained.

Trust is the new disruptor, one that businesses must master to realize the full power of data and new intelligent technologies.

Markets face complex and accelerating change. This is fuelled by “intelligent technologies” such as robotic process automation and artificial intelligence (AI), including speech recognition, natural language processing, and computer vision based on machine-learning algorithms and enabled by limitless cloud-based computing capacity.

The proliferation of inexpensive sensor technology has generated massive amounts of data, which AI consumes to learn from experience, make decisions, and deliver enhanced insights. But can this intelligence be trusted?

Those able to exploit how new intelligent technologies use data are gaining a competitive advantage. But they also face a new set of risks. For some, the mode and speed at which intelligent technologies digest and act on data are creating unexpected outcomes — fracturing trust with customers, markets and across ecosystems. For example, would you use online banking if you didn’t trust the bank? Would you get into a self-driving car you didn’t trust?

A key question for executives has emerged: can you trust the intelligence driving your enterprise?

We are living in a time of increasingly intelligent technologies when an organization’s ability to be trusted really matters. But the way data and intelligent technologies such as AI are being used is creating significant trust gaps. For example, the public feels that intelligent technology is moving too fast and that regulators can’t keep up, as documented in the 2020 Edelman Trust Barometer.

There are plenty of high-profile examples of data misuse and unintended outcomes from AI usage that have contributed to these gaps. One small example took place this June when an AI tool to reconstruct pixelated photos turned a photo of Barack Obama into a white man. It became a matter of hot debate in the AI community: was the bias towards creating more photos of white people than people of colour the result of incomplete data or indicative of the racial bias baked into AI from non-diverse datasets and development teams?

Trust gaps have reframed the question of “Can tech do this?” into “Should tech do this?” It’s no longer about capabilities. It’s about trust in the intelligence that a business uses, and that customers, markets, regulators and ecosystems rely on. Can companies and government organizations ensure the outcomes of their technologies? Do they have reliable methods for identifying, tracking and correcting unintended outcomes? Without trust, the ability of an organization to operate and innovate is reduced and slowed down.

In low-trust environments, you’ll see low morale, disengagement and a lack of commitment. You’ll also see people manipulating, distorting facts and withholding information. There will be resistance to new ideas, blame culture, finger-pointing, overpromising, underdelivering, and, often, tension and fear. Everything will take longer to do and everything will cost more.

Increase trust within your team: Stephen M. R. Covey

The converse in high-trust cultures is equally true. When the trust goes up in an organisation, the speed will go up and costs will come down. Your ability to collaborate goes up, as does your ability to attract, retain and engage people. When trust goes up, you’ll see people sharing information, not being afraid to make mistakes, more creativity, higher accountability and greater energy and satisfaction. When you move the needle on trust, you move all kinds of other needles with it.

As businesses and governments transform to meet new challenges, it’s essential to embed Trust Intelligence into the core of their operations.

Enterprises powered by trust will be able to deliver on all three transformation drivers: people, technology and innovation. They’ll be able to leapfrog their competitors. To shape new markets.
To lead into better futures.

It’s hard to quantify exactly how important trust is for a business. For business owners, a lack of trust is your biggest expense. It may take years for a manager or an executive to develop the trust of his or her employees, but only moments to lose. Without trust, transactions cannot occur, influence is destroyed, leaders can lose teams and salespeople can lose sales. The list goes on.

Trust and relationships, much more than money, are the currency of business.

Trust is the natural result of thousands of tiny actions, words, thoughts, and intentions. Trust does not happen all at once; gaining trust takes work. It might take years of calling on a certain client to break through and fully gain their comfort and trust. Yet in spite of the importance of trust in the business world today, few leaders have given it the focus and nurturing it deserves.

Business strategist and author David Horsager speaks internationally on the bottom-line impact of trust. He has developed a system with which he teaches leaders how to build the Eight Pillars of Trust:

• Clarity – People trust the clear and mistrust the ambiguous
• Compassion – People put faith in those who care beyond themselves
• Character – People notice those who do what is right over what is easy
• Competency – People have confidence in those who stay fresh, relevant, and capable
• Commitment – People believe in those who stand through adversity
• Connection – People want to follow, buy from, and be around friends
• Contribution – People immediately respond to results
• Consistency – People love to see the little things done consistently

Finally, it is crucial to understand that trust is fundamental to the genuine success of any kind. The trust you have with your team, colleagues or family, traditionally, businesses have relied on a “command and control” management style, focusing on rigid hierarchies and compliance from employees.

We must shift from a “command and control” to a “trust and inspire” leadership model.

Trusting and inspiring your team is defined by the commitment from both sides, with a focus on effectiveness and fostering a growth mindset. It is based on the belief that employees are creative, collaborative, and full of potential; through trust, you can inspire them to do their best work, and reinforce the need for trust.

Thomas Jefferson was an American statesman, philosopher, who served as the third president of the United States, once said:

‘Sometimes it is said that man cannot be trusted with the government of himself. Can he, then be trusted with the government of others? Or have we found angels in the form of kings to govern him? Let history answer this question.’

The influence of Trust on Regulation

Massive amounts of data used by intelligent technologies such as robotic process automation, artificial intelligence (AI), and blockchain are reshaping our world. The next frontier will take us even further, with developments such as quantum computing.

These intelligent technologies present new opportunities but also new risks. The public has deep concerns over how data and technology are being used; business leaders suffer the uncertainty of what they can confidently do without breaching rules or risking reputational damage. Together, this is slowing the adoption of intelligent technologies and limiting their possibilities.

For business, it has become a question of trust. Trust is the credibility required from customers, suppliers, markets and ecosystems for businesses to operate successfully. Enterprises can’t get past the gate and into the value creation zone without it. In essence, organizations will struggle to create long-term value unless trusted data is flowing through them

Today’s disruptions are creating a slew of new products, services, and ideas to enjoy. Transit, hospitality, financial services, supply chain management and so on are all innovating and challenging the status quo, reimagining how we go about our daily lives, how we interact and connect with each other, and how we should set rules that are in the public’s best interest.

Setting rules that are fit for purpose is key to unlocking technology’s and new business models’ full potential. What may have worked in the past is being upended, in this fast-paced, constantly shifting environment. But it is not just the digital platform revolution where the future of regulation applies. It also applies to other areas of import, like employment. Consider the changing contours of work and the workplace.

Regulators around the world have launched a bewildering number of antitrust lawsuits and investigations against the big tech firms: Amazon, Apple, Facebook (now known as Meta) and Google. Each focuses on a different part of the conglomerate, from Apple’s App Store to Google’s advertising data. Scarcely a day passes without an existing case making headlines or a new one popping up.

That is unlikely to change in 2022. But instead of trying to make sense of this ever-changing legal smorgasbord, it is more edifying to follow what lawmakers are up to. While lawsuits drag on (and often end with not much to show for all the effort), 2022 will be the year when the world’s parliaments and regulators start to pass substantial rules to govern the tech industry. It will therefore be possible to guess which country (or region) might develop the world’s best competition framework.

Global policymaking on digital assets is very fragmented, partly because much of it has been a scramble to keep pace with market changes and emerging threats. Another factor is the absence of an authority to oversee a truly international effort. While banking regulators agree with global policies under the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision, digital assets have no equivalent convening body.

Some suggest that even the Financial Stability Board, which includes the finance ministers of some of the world’s biggest economies, is not a broad enough forum because the questions around digital assets stretch beyond finance into fields such as technology and into wider society.

In early 2021 it seemed that the European Union would win, hands down. Its executive branch, the European Commission, had just introduced the Digital Markets Act (DMA), the first law aimed at regulating big tech “ex-ante” — that is, constraining firms’ behaviour upfront, rather than punishing them after the fact with antitrust cases. The idea is to prohibit the gatekeepers of important digital markets, such as apps and online search, from engaging in unfair practices, such as discriminating against rivals that use their platforms.

The idea is to prohibit the gatekeepers of important digital markets from engaging in unfair practices

Other governments have caught up and in some ways overtaken the EU. For starters, there is China, which surprised the world in 2021 by seriously tightening competition rules for its internet giants. As in other policy fields, authorities in Beijing have taken more than one page from the EU’s book. Yet enforcement comes with Chinese characteristics. Firms are asked for swift “self-rectification”. And it is not clear if they have any official recourse if they feel unfairly treated.

China’s crackdown makes America look even further behind: although a regulatory and cultural “techlash” has raged for years now, the results have been meager. That may change in 2022. As with antitrust lawsuits, a confusing number of tech bills have been proposed in Congress: the House of Representatives has moved forward with half a dozen. Some Republicans, who claim that the big platforms want to censor them, may yet team up with Democrats to pass DMA-like legislation.

Yet it is Britain that appears to have the best setup so far, though it is not fully implemented. Its Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) now has a Digital Markets Unit (DMU). The government is working on new regulation, to be passed in 2022, that would empower the DMU, like Germany’s FCO, to give tech firms “strategic market status” and require them to follow stricter rules.

The main difference is that the CMA, even more than the FCO, has invested in relevant resources. Its researchers have published some of the best studies of the market for digital advertising.

The CMA also boasts a Data, Technology and Analytics team, which consistently recruits data scientists in order to close the wide knowledge gap between tech titans and their regulators.

Social scientists from various disciplines have identified trust as an important feature of well-functioning and prosperous societies. Therefore, it comes as no surprise that the creation of trust is a regulatory goal in several sectors of society, i.e. legislation is being used with the intention to create trust.

For the next normal, people are expecting organizations to be kind and think human. Recognizing the relevance of privacy brings the individual to the centre of the conversation to create trust and generate value beyond just compliance or risk reduction. The question should not be why, but how.

Today’s business decisions are data-driven. How effective these decisions are will depend on the accuracy of the data. How human they are will depend on getting positive consent from the individuals impacted, as well as full commitment from other stakeholders involved in properly protecting data and making decisions on their processing based on a well thought set of principles.

This is data trust, the action of using data with all stakeholders in mind and based on four fundamental pillars: stewardship, ethics, protection and privacy.

By defining a proactive data trust strategy that incorporates effective privacy elements, organizations can achieve the following benefits:
• Incorporation of controls earlier in the design of processes and tools to increase effectiveness and reduce costs
• Identification of value generators for key stakeholders
• Increased trust in the organization’s brand by creating trust by design

Finally, risk is everywhere – and changing rapidly. New technologies, demographic shifts and globalization are happening as we see a reinvention of industry, consumption and even the very future of work. While this unprecedented transformation is revealing new opportunities, there are also many new risks for companies to navigate. Building a foundation of trust is an important first step in turning digital disruption into long-term value. The board’s role here is critical. Boards today are challenged to help steer companies through a shifting risk terrain, overseeing a dynamic risk management approach that embraces disruption and enhances resiliency and trust.

Without trust, you can’t create value. In the Transformative Age, with more data changing hands and more technology used in decision-making, trust is more important than ever. It’s trust that enables organizations to create value and capital markets to function properly. With richer insights from deeper data analysis, you can look at risk afresh. You can make smarter choices, from what you should mitigate to what you can embrace. With trust comes the confidence to make bolder strategic moves. It’s trust that will help you seize the upside of disruption.

In the words of Paul Samuelson – American economist:

“I’m not speaking in favor of killing innovation. I’m speaking in favor of centrist use of the market, which involves necessarily a considerable degree of regulation. Markets by themselves will get themselves inevitably into inequality and into their own destruction. It will happen again and again.”