Podcasts: Recent Episodes
TrustTalk
In this episode, Professor Eric Uslaner, in his latest book, “National Identity and Partisan Polarization” delves into the complex topic of trust and its implications for societies and politics. He highlights some key insights and concerns regarding trust, corruption, nationalism, and their interconnections. Throughout the interview, we explore the moral basis of trust, it lies in the belief that people of different backgrounds can trust each other based on shared interests, regardless of ethnic, religious, or ideological differences. This belief instils the notion of equality and is typically learned from parents at an early stage of life. Trusting individuals are more likely to engage in charitable giving, volunteerism, and compromise in both personal and political spheres. However, the current climate of political polarization runs counter to the concept of generalized trust. The level of trust in a society is strongly influenced by the degree of economic equality.
Corruption tends to thrive in societies with low levels of trust and high levels of inequality. In highly corrupt environments, resources for public goods such as education and healthcare are diminished. Moreover, individuals in such societies often prioritize their own well-being and may support corrupt leaders from their own group. Punishing corrupt individuals alone is insufficient, as new corrupt actors will likely take their place. The guest emphasizes that reducing corruption requires widespread public education.
The rise of nationalism globally signifies a decline or stagnation in trust. Nationalism reflects particularized trust, where individuals trust only those who are similar to them. It often entails perceiving those different from oneself as threats to the desired social order. Countering the rise of nationalism is challenging and requires long-term efforts, including education and generational change. Political trust presents a similar challenge, as opposing sides tend to view each other as enemies.
Our guest expresses concerns about the growing nationalism trend worldwide. Notably, Sweden, a country known for its tolerance, experienced the rise of nationalist parties advocating for stricter immigration policies and emphasizing divisions between natives and foreigners. The United States has also seen immigration become a major political concern. Troublingly, in some cases, immigration opposition gained more support for certain political parties than they lost on other issues such as abortion. The rise of nationalism presents complex challenges without immediate solutions.
Throughout this thought-provoking conversation, we explore the multifaceted nature of trust, its relationship with corruption and nationalism, and the difficulties associated with addressing these issues. The guest's insights shed light on the dynamics shaping trust in societies today.
We welcome as our guest Marguerite Soeteman-Reijnen, a businesswoman from The Netherlands. She recently stepped down as Chairman of the Executive Board of Aon Holdings. She tells about her journey to her current position and her interest in supporting and encouraging women in leadership roles. She emphasizes the importance of trust in her career success and the success of the organizations she has led. Trust is particularly significant in the insurance industry, where she started her career, as it is based on the principle of ultimate good faith. Marguerite explains that building trust involves logic, empathy, and authenticity. She believes that trust is crucial in relationships and leadership and highlights the role of trust in women's leadership.
The interview also discusses a study that suggests women are less prone to losing trust and more likely to regain trust even after repeated transgressions. Marguerite attributes this to women's optimism and relationship-driven nature. However, she notes that personal experiences and the frequency of trust violations can influence individual responses.
When it comes to balancing trust and empathy with making sound business decisions, Marguerite mentions the importance of trust but verify approach. She emphasizes the need to gather all relevant information, maintain competence and confidence, and have realistic self-awareness. Building trust with underrepresented groups requires leaders to foster an inclusive and belonging culture. In her former role at Aon Holdings, trust is vital in providing risk and insurance solutions to clients. We talk about a recent report on sexually transgressive behavior in a TV show and the importance of independent and unbiased investigations to maintain trust. She offers advice to young women aspiring to leadership roles in underrepresented industries, the importance of continuous learning, asking questions, making oneself visible, and believing in oneself.
In this new episode, we explore the fascinating world of trust and cooperation in economics with economist Professor Benjamin Ho, author of "Why Trust Matters, An Economist's Guide to the Ties That Bind Us." He discusses how game theory offers insights into trust, highlighting the role of reputation, history of interactions, and vulnerability in building trust. He also explores the use of social signaling and mathematical principles in understanding trustworthiness, particularly in relation to apologies using Bayes' rule.The interview delves into the puzzle economists faced in explaining cooperation and altruism, emphasizing that most people are inherently cooperative, except for economists who are trained to be self-interested. The importance of cooperation, fairness, and altruism in human nature and society is highlighted, drawing from Robert Frank's book on the baseline economic model.Early hunter-gatherer societies faced the trust dilemma and developed accounting systems, language, and legal systems to facilitate trust and cooperation as communities expanded.The complexities of apologies are examined, emphasizing the need for them to carry a cost or commitment to be effective. The experiment involving Bill Clinton's apologies showcases the trade-offs between likability, respect, and authority for politicians. The cost associated with trust-building, such as in apologies, is emphasized, with costly apologies proving more effective in restoring trust.In cooperative dilemmas like climate change, trust plays a crucial role, as coercion is impractical at the international level. The Paris Climate Accords' approach of transparency to foster trust, accountability, and positive behaviors is discussed.The relationship between trust and contract enforcement is explored, noting that while trust and contract enforcement often go hand in hand, excessive rules in contracts can hinder trust-building by limiting vulnerability and risk-taking. The importance of including trust-building mechanisms in economic development is emphasized, as the absence of trusted institutions hinders poverty alleviation and overall progress.The interview sheds light on the significance of trust in economics, drawing from game theory, behavioral economics, and historical perspectives. It underscores the role of trust in cooperation, apologies, climate change, and contract enforcement, and emphasizes the need to prioritize trust-building in educational curricula and economic development efforts.
Our guest is Peter van Keulen, a prominent lobbyist in The Netherlands. He talks about trust as a fundamental aspect of lobbying, and the importance to establish and maintain it through transparency, integrity, and access. He discusses the essential elements for building trust in lobbying, namely integrity, and access. Integrity is demonstrated through a code of conduct that outlines how lobbyists protect their clients' interests and how they act towards the people they seek to influence. Access is the ability to interact with decision-makers due to relationships built over time. While knowing decision-makers does not guarantee success, it can be useful.In the United States, lobbyists must register and disclose certain information about their activities under the Lobbying Disclosure Act of 1995. In Europe, regulations have been introduced, but they vary by member state, and The Netherlands has been slow to regulate lobbying. The European Commission has rules in place that prohibit former commissioners or high-level professionals from acting as lobbyists for a specific party for a specific period after leaving their position.However, there are still stereotypes and misconceptions about lobbying that can impact the perception of the profession as a whole. When people view lobbyists as only representing big corporations or having questionable motives, it can be challenging to establish trust. That's why it is crucial to educate the public and policymakers about the diversity of actors involved in lobbying and how it operates to foster trust and create a more positive image of the profession.Ultimately, building trust is an ongoing process that requires open and honest communication and a commitment to ethical practices. NGOs, governments, and municipalities also engage in lobbying activities, and the growth of lobbying activities in the Netherlands is in the municipalities and provincial decision-making levels. By promoting transparency, integrity, and access, lobbyists can build and maintain trust with decision-makers and the public.
Our guest today is Alison Taylor, clinical associate professor at New York University Stern School and Business Executive Director of Ethical Systems, a non-profit research collaboration focused on bringing the best ideas on business ethics from academia into the corporate sector. She has had a diverse career working in corporate investigations in emerging markets, leading her to question the role of culture and leadership in businesses. Her background in political science, history, and organizational psychology has given her a unique perspective on business ethics. She believes that society has lost consensus on what it means to be a good business and her upcoming book aims to clarify this confusing debate.
She argues that organizations should focus less on rules and compliance programs and more on building ethical decision-making capacity. They should bring in the wisdom of the collective and have debates about gray areas to jointly make decisions based on the collective's wisdom. Rather than treating ethics as a fundamental black-and-white issue, she suggests building thoughtful capacity for ethical reasoning among the workforce and in society in general.
We talk about Elon Musk's decision to lay off the director of Ethics, Transparency and Accountability at Twitter, she believes that he may have underestimated the complexity of content moderation and is now facing the consequences of his decision.
She raises the topic of transparency and questions the notion that more transparency leads to more trust in businesses, despite the increase in the level of information available about corporate conduct over the past two decades. She argues that that businesses need to change how they think about ethics and be more transparent and honest, while also being more restrained in what they promise to achieve. She suggests corporations should have a more focused strategy on what they can and cannot solve and stop exaggerating and spinning a story to deflect scrutiny. Finally, she explains how leaders can navigate ethical dilemmas and make decisions in the best interest of their organization.
Our guest today is Jan van der Spoel, the author of "360 Degrees Trust." His approach, known as the Trust Compass, can elevate ordinary relationships into high-trust ones. During our interview, Jan discusses his background in graphic design and how his fascination with human behaviour led him to explore the concept of trust. He also shares how he created his own tools to better understand the challenges of achieving a consensus on trust.
Jan then goes on to outline the top three things that organizations can do to foster team spirit through trust: intent, system, and power balance. He stresses that all three are critical in building a team that trusts one another. Furthermore, he explains that control is the antithesis of trust and details how organizations can transition from a culture of control to a culture of trust. Jan recommends providing employees with professional freedom and setting clear expectations instead of micromanaging them, as studies show that this approach can be more effective in motivating employees than having a task-based manager watching over their shoulders.
Our guest today is Esther van Zimmeren, Associate professor in Intellectual Property Law & Governance at the Faculty of Law of the University of Antwerp and coordinator of the Centre of Excellence GOVTRUST. The connection between trust and the legal profession is not a simple one. In legal literature, the concept of trust typically pertains to confidence in (legal) institutions, such as courts, judges, or "the legal system." Legitimacy is often used as a synonym for trust, despite its unclear relationship with trust in broader literature from other disciplines. The terms trust, rule of law, and legitimacy are used interchangeably without specifying their drivers or consequences, leading to a lack of clarity in their practical implications.Esther discusses the challenges of creating trust in contractual arrangements, particularly in complex IP licensing and patent pool agreements. They explore the balance between creating clarity and legal certainty while leaving room for innovation and open communication to build trust. She suggests that clear milestones can be imposed at the beginning of the contract, but renegotiation and mediation can be used when more space is needed. The use of alternative dispute resolution, such as mediation, can help to maintain good long-term relationships and build trust. She highlights the importance of considering the context in determining the effectiveness of rules and contracts. They suggest that differences in outcomes may be related to variations in empirical research and theoretical work, as well as factors such as the type of collaboration, contract, actors involved, and geographical scope.Esther van Zimmeren believes that legitimacy, fairness, and procedural justice are important considerations for trust in an organization or institution, especially in a regulatory governance context. She talks about the Unified Patent Court in Europe, which has promising rules for fairness and impartiality but faces challenges in terms of the independence of its technically qualified judges who work part-time for patent firms. She emphasizes the need to look at specific examples rather than general concepts when discussing trust in the legal system.
Our guest today is Emily Frolick, lead partner of KPMG’s "Trusted Imperative", a new, proactive, strategic approach to risk management that creates a powerful platform for growth and innovation. By inspiring trust in customers, investors, employees, suppliers, communities and regulators, businesses can achieve sustainable advances in performance and efficiency. She talks about the different risks that companies face, including regulation, technology disruption, brand reputation, environmental factors, and cyber risks.In the area of digital transformation, she notices significant changes to businesses, from moving key functions to the cloud to creating new digital offerings and ways to not overlook the role of trust. She talks about a cultural change project by KPMG, conducting interviews and workshops with key stakeholders to identify challenges and desired outcomes, leading to a better understanding of the steps needed to create a culture of trust and accountability.
Today’s guest is David Dunning, professor of psychology at the University of Michigan where he focuses on the psychology underlying human misbelief. In the interview, we talk about what is going on in the human psyche that's allowing people to trust, and why people trust other people when, according to the economics of rational analysis, they shouldn't. Trust often turns out to be not really an economic decision. When you go to a doctor there's a norm that if your doctor says X, unless you have excellent reasons to ignore him, you should go with the doctor’s advice.Trust is crucial not just for established relationships. It’s also especially vital between strangers with no responsibility toward each other outside of a single interaction. Psychologists found “excessive” trust rates rising much higher than anticipated, given people’s aversion to risk and rather cynical expectations of their peers’ trustworthiness. Many trust even though they expect their trust not to be honored.David is most well-known for the Dunning-Kruger effect when a person's lack of knowledge and skills in a particular area causes him to overestimate his own competence.We talk about the 1986 negotiations between Reagan and Gorbachev, both walked away from a potentially historic agreement that would have eliminated nuclear threats. They famously walked away from a deal because they couldn't get themselves to trust one another.
Our guest today is Paul Bauer, a research associate at the Mannheim Center for European Social Research (Germany). He wrote his doctoral thesis on trust in 2015, and is particularly interested in the methodological side of trust research. In some of his work, he investigates whether different people interpret surveys on trust in similar ways, using causal research designs to examine the effects of experiences such as victimization or unemployment, on trust.Despite decades of research into trust measuring individual trust remains unsatisfying due to problematic survey questions that are used to measure social trust. There are two main methods used to measure trust, surveys and behavior observation. Surveys ask for people's judgments about trust, while behavior observation looks at behaviors based on trust. The trust game is an example of the latter, where trust is measured by the amount of money sent from the trustor to the trustee and how both parties behave.He suggests that non-alignment between the many surveys by organizations Like Edelmam, Pew, and major consultancies like Deloitte, PwC, EY, and KPMG may be due to different survey questions, different time points for data collection, and different samples. The OECD guidelines on measuring trust are helpful but could be updated with more recent knowledge. He believes that even though trust is emotional and subjective, it should still be quantified, and mentions his research on audio responses to measure trust. He also points out that definitions of trust are often detached from measurements of trust and discusses his work on finding a better fit between the definition and measurement of trust. Finally, he reflects on the possibilities AI gives researchers to handle larger amounts of data in a shorter time, thus proving more in-depth research results.
Today’s guest, Robert Lepenies, the youngest university President in Europe, believes that there are major economic and political interests that fuel the denial of science. We should focus not only on the symptoms but also on the deeper underlying structures that allow denialism to thrive.To maintain trust in science. scientists should actively address issues like science publications that become more focused on ranking and commercialization rather than the content of the research or industry-sponsored research.He is a frequent user of social media platforms such as TikTok, Twitter (he is called "The TikTok Scientist"), and LinkedIn to disseminate scientific insights.When talking about ChatGPT he advocates soul searching about what is the purpose of the texts we produce in science, asking ourselves, why do we produce it in the way that we produce it? Why is it valuable to write, understand, read, to critically reflect? And what is it that the machine can do and what is it that it can't do?As to AI-generated output, he believes that traditional methods of evaluating research are not enough to establish trust, suggesting the need for an “extended peer community" involving a broader range of people and stakeholders in the evaluation process.
Trust in Central Banks is critical for the effectiveness of a monetary policy, and for reaching price stability. Today's guests, Carin van der Cruijsen (senior researcher at De Nederlandsche Bank, the Central Bank of the Netherlands) and Jakob de Haan (professor of political economy at the University of Groningen, Netherlands) talk about the importance of explaining monetary policy actions to the general public, the need for financial knowledge, the relation between trust and inflation, the main driver of trust in financial institutions, and the communication sensitivity of communication by financial markets.
It’s almost Christmas Eve and TrustTalk is very proud to have Santa Claus as our guest sharing with us some thoughts about building trust in challenging times. We ask Santa to give us a bit of advice on how we can become nicer to each other, and what we can do to reach millions of children around the world that live in poverty and are surrounded by conflict. Asked what he would like to give us as his advice for 2023: trust yourself!
Our guest today is Michael Kende. He has a Ph.D. in economics from MIT and is a Digital Development consultant at the World Bank Group, a Senior Advisor at Analysys Mason, and the Board Chair of the Datasphere Initiative and until recently Chief Economist of the Internet Society. He has done a significant amount of work on promoting Internet development in emerging regions around the world. He works on the economics of cybersecurity, as a means to reduce data breaches and increase trust in the Internet.The Internet has brought us numerous free services like contacting people, creating online content, video conferencing, sharing videos, communicating, and working online, but it comes at a price, as the data we put online, some of it very personal, raises privacy issues, makes us vulnerable to cyberattacks and results in a concentration of power in large companies and governments. He talks about trust and the privacy paradox and the “flip side” of free services that internet provides.The way to grow trust is through technology and regulation, giving the example of the automobile industry where in the 60ties there were no safety regulations until Ralph Nader’s book in 1965 “Unsafe at Any Speed”. He talks about the European GDPR Directive, the Data Sphere Initiative, the privacy paradox, and contact tracing apps like the Ehteraz app Qatar required people to use during the Soccer World Cup.Asked about the Internet of Things (IoT), says Michael that he doesn’t think all of the lessons of the Internet of websites and services online have been learned.
Myra White, the author of the book "The Superstar Roadmap", talks in this interview about how to trust yourself and how to objectively observe yourself. Why become some people a chess master and most of us don’t? The best way to trust yourself is to go out and try things, trust and understand why there is some you are good at and some things you are not, don’t sit in your armchair but get up and trust your capabilities. We trust people when we have personal contact with them and get to know people from other cultures. She talks about the lack of trust among Americans, the education system in the US versus the UK, too many rules, and whether that stimulates or blocks trust.
Our guest today is Martijn Lampert, co-founder and Research Director at Glocalities, a values-based international research, and marketing insights organization that became known after their 2020 study on trust in the United Nations. Their most recent Trend Study 2022 is based upon interviews of 300,000 people stretching over 20 countries and spanning 8 years since the start in 2014. Gen Z is more activist and at the same time less optimistic and disenfranchised about their future, they have diminishing trust in meeting sustainability goals, and their prospect to flourish as well as to make a political impact. Half of the world's population is aged below 30, but only 2.6% of the world's parliamentarians are under 30. The young generation is the highest educated generation ever in human history. They have higher levels of trust in education and science, they are the most connected generations ever through the internet, and at the same time are emancipating and increasingly looking for purpose and quality of life.
As the ultimate expert on the role of trust between organizations, Professor Reinhard Bachmann talks about the importance of risk and vulnerability: you do not need to trust if you are not vulnerable, nor if you want to avoid any kind of risk. What role play competence and integrity?
He speaks about his research into the role of trust and power in two types of inter-organizational relationships, vertical relations (supply chain) and horizontal relations (M&A, joint venture, cooperations), the “system” or “institutional” trust in liberal capitalist countries (like in the UK) versus coordinated capitalist countries (like in Continental Europe).
In the case of acquisition transactions, two organizations need to be integrated, it is not uncommon that one side distrusts the other (job loss, uncertainty) and why is it that many M&A transactions or joint ventures fail, due to lack of trust? In organizational trust you need to see real persons who represent an organization: if it is an abstract organization and you would not associate any human face with it, it is very difficult to trust.
Too much trust is dangerous too: the global financial crisis of 2008 was for a part caused by too much trust in financial advisers (“blind trust”).
He reflects upon organizations that say they do not need trust because they can control and monitor operations more closely by technical means (surveillance, video, etc), wondering whether trust becomes obsolete (he thinks it is not).
Our guest today is Francis Fukuyama. He is the Olivier Nomellini Senior Fellow at Stanford University's Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies and a faculty member of the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law, and a professor of Political Science. His interest in philosophy and inspiration for his later work came from his undergraduate teacher, Allan Bloom. He talks about interpersonal trust that enables formal institutions to establish property rights and the rule of law and a commercial code to promote economic activity, about the lack of trust that will add to transaction costs and make business dealings much more difficult.
When asked about the eroding political trust he talks about the rise of populist politicians and the distrust they foster against institutions as well as media to gain power, the elite losing sight of the views of ordinary people, being unresponsive and unaccountable, which has led to a crisis of trust in political institutions. We talk about information distortion, conspiracy theories, and the imperviousness of fact-checking and evidence.
He counters China and Russia’s arguments that liberal democracy is an obsolete system, and talks about Putin’s Ukraine war and the effects that any outcome will have on other conflicts in the world, the Biden election win denial in the US, people’s disenchantment with European institutions for not delivering.
In his book, Trifecta of Trust, psychometrics and leadership expert Joseph R. Folkman has collected compelling data to make the case for the value of trust in leadership. His research shows that there are three core behaviors that create and reinforce trust from others. By mastering this leadership trust trifecta, you can increase success and happiness, both in business and in life.
Voice Over: oday's guests are Deloitte's Michael Bondar and Natasha Buckley. Michael is a principal in Deloitte's Advisory Business and the US and global leader of Deloitte's Enterprise Trust Practice. Natasha is senior manager at the Deloitte Centre for Integrated Research. Trust drives enterprise performance and mitigates risk. Trust elevates customer and brand loyalty, which can increase revenue. It enhances levels of workforce engagement, which can result in increased productivity and workforce retention. They talk about the old adage that you can only manage what you can measure and how Deloitte measures trust to help clients make strategic decisions. Natasha and Michael also talk about how specific operating areas like superior customer service delivering innovative solutions or protecting customer data significantly elevate trust in a brand leading to higher performance. We talk about digital engagement and digital transformation and why they are key drivers of trust. About A.I. and how it can help to validate information accuracy. How trust across different stakeholder groups can be maintained and the trust challenges that lay ahead.
Today's guest is Sander Smits, senior partner at McKinsey Amsterdam. He talks about the book “CEO Excellence”. The consultancy firm interviewed over 2.400 CEOs out of their database, from which they selected 67 “Excellent CEOs” for the book. He talks about the role of Roosevelt’s “fireside chats” during the financial crisis of the 1930s to create trust and the parallel with CEOs finding ways to establish trust with the company’s board and its stakeholders, the need for transparency with the board, and the different dynamics that play a role in steering the company, like setting a bold vision on where the company should be headed to and by doing so build trust. 68% of CEOs that were interviewed said they were completely unprepared for their new role, and one-third of Fortune 500 CEOs don’t make it through the first 3 years of their tenure. He talks about the book’s research into six mindsets - McKinsey calls it the “Irreducible Core” – that CEOs have to rise to the top of the list, one of them to listen to numerous inputs and from that formulate a bold vision.
Engaging with stakeholders builds trust. He mentions the example of the Nestlė CEO who reached out to environmentalists to talk about renewable raw materials and how to use that, trying to fully understand their point of view. He likes a quote from one of the interviewed CEOs: do you want to have a team of stars or do you want to have a star team?
Our guest today is Tonia Ries, Executive Director of Thought Leadership for the Edelman Trust Institute. For more than 20 years Edelman has been publishing the Edelman Trust Barometer on the status of trust in four institutions: business, government, NGOs, and media. She talks about GenZ and their predilection for employment values and societal roles of their employers, spreading their influence on Western culture and views on the role of trust. Recent trust research shows an epidemic of misinformation and widespread mistrust of societal institutions and leaders around the world, a failing trust ecosystem unable to confront the infodemic, leaving the four institutions—in an environment of information bankruptcy and a mandate to rebuild trust and chart a new path forward. Recent research shows that governments are not seen as competent, nor ethical. Rather businesses are more trusted increasingly being asked to take on responsibilities that historically have been responsibilities for governments. The interview concludes with Tonia’s vision of the main challenges for trust research. She talks about stakeholder capitalism and the debate as to who should the primary stakeholder of business be.
Our guest today is Reinhard Stelter, Professor of Sport- and Coaching Psychology at the University of Copenhagen, Denmark. He advocates a new form of coaching as a transformational dialogue, one that fosters trust between the coach and the dialogue partner by a more relational “attunement” or resonating with the coaching partner. He refers to the need for what the German sociologist Hartmut Rosa called “Resonance”, to show that in times of ever-growing acceleration in technology, private interactions, and social processes, resonance might be the solution. He advocates that in the process of resonating with another person, we can develop trust and growth in relationships and understanding.
He talks about his move from performance-oriented sports psychology towards developing coaching as a transformational dialogue where trust is the foundational premise. The focus is on developmental issues, where clients or dialogue partners struggle with themselves or specific challenges they are faced with. The perspective of “dialogue coaching” can be described as fellow-human companionship: dialogue guides – a professional coach or colleague or a friend – support their dialogue partner by including themselves in the dialogue as a collaborative and co-reflecting partner.
As a researcher in AI and robotics, Professor Benjamin Kuipers, in this interview, sees increasing applications of AI in our society. It is natural to wonder whether the behavior of these artificially intelligent systems should somehow be governed by ethics. There is general agreement that ethics imposes constraints on individual behavior for the benefit of society as a whole. There is also a general recognition that trust is important, for individuals, organizations, and society as a whole. But aside from recognizing that trust is in general a good thing, few people have looked carefully at the specifics of how trust serves the thriving, and perhaps even the survival, of our society. In this interview, Benjamin Kuipers, based on ideas from many insightful thinkers, suggests a framework for how these elements work together: a society thrives when it has the resources to respond to threats and opportunities when it gains resources through positive-sum interactions where many positive-sum interactions are forms of cooperation, which in turn involves vulnerability to exploitation by partners. Trust is a willingness to accept vulnerability, confident that it won’t be exploited, and for trust to be effective, one’s self and others must be trustworthy. Through ethics, a society teaches its members how to be trustworthy and how to recognize trustworthiness in others.
Our guest today is Jason Rhys Parry, Senior Content R&D at Sapienship, the global social impact company, founded by Yuval Noah Harari and Itzik Yahav and headed by Naama Avital. Sapienship's mission is to focus global attention on the most important collective challenges facing the world today, through entertainment, education and investments.
In this interview, he talks about an old mechanism for academics to build trust, the footnote, and the damaging effect hiding scientific work behind paywalls has on public access to information. Global cooperation did produce unintended positive effects on global warming as he explains the Montreal Protocol did by storing billions of tonnes of carbon stored in plants that would otherwise be in the atmosphere. He talks about the “replication crisis” in science, flawed studies, experiments that fail to replicate, the effect of too much media attention, and a lack of self-criticism and self-evaluation. And about the cost of averting climate breakdown: the “2%-More-Rule”: if humanity invests just an extra 2% of Global GDP in developing eco-friendly technologies and infrastructure every year, this would be enough to prevent catastrophic climate change.
Our guest today is Margaret Levi, professor of Political Science and Director of the Centre for Advanced Study in the Behavioural Sciences at Stanford University. She talks about her upbringing in a middle-class Jewish suburb, how the protest marches she was going to with her mother, and the books she got from her father made her believe that you have to stand up to something that’s wrong. Her publications concentrate on trust in government, the ways in which citizens and governments interact, about institutions providing a setting in which we feel protected. She talks about the social contract between citizens and their institutional leaders and the role of accountability. The Covid pandemic has produced new insights into citizens’ behaviors. In her book “In the Interest of Others” she explains why members of organizations are willing to engage in costly actions, using the Australian transportation unions as an example. To create trust, credible and fact-based communication is essential. Asked what the challenges are for future generations of political scientists, she mentions the threat democracy is under.
In today’s interview with Peter Sieradzki, former CEO of the private bank InsingerGilissen, he talks about trust built on institutional processes, the breaches of trust in corporations and banks, the role of integrity and sustainability in the banking business, and about fintech providing a great impetus in the development of new technology and new systems in banks. He reflects on cryptocurrencies and whether they can gather sufficient integrity to be seen as a trusted financial instrument and on trust challenges for banks in the foreseeable future.
Andrew Winston, the co-author of the book “Net Positive”, talks about the challenges that lay ahead and the limited time we have to contribute to the world’s problems. A net positive company improves the well-being of everyone they impact and the lives of everyone it touches, from customers and suppliers to employees and communities, greatly increasing long-term shareholder returns in the process, taking ownership of all the social and environmental impacts its business model creates. This in turn provides opportunities for innovation, savings, and builds a more humane, connected, and purpose-driven culture. He talks about the important connection of building trust with the external world so you can get to the kinds of partnerships and collaborations that we need to solve really big problems, without that trust built up, it's going to be nearly impossible, as one cannot have a very functional partnership unless there's some level of trust. This is no utopian fantasy. Courageous leaders are already making it real and the stakes couldn't be higher. With bold vision and compelling stories, he sets out the principles and practices that will deliver the scale of change and transformation the world so desperately needs.
Today’s guest is Wes Bricker, US Vice-Chair and US Trust Solutions Co-Leader of PwC. He served as Chief Accountant at the US Security Exchange Commission. In this interview he talks about PwC’s project “The New Equation” and the two most fundamental needs clients and organizations are grappling with today: Firstly the urgency to successfully respond to, and change, in the face of major shifts shaping the world: technological disruption, climate change, fractured geopolitics, social tension, and the continuing effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. Secondly, the need to build trust at a time when it is both more fragile and more complicated to earn.
The Covid pandemic has learned us that we have to rely on science, at the same time when scientists appear in public they are often criticized and mistrusted. In this interview, Roberto Gronda (University of Pisa, Italy) explains why this is: operating as a scientist in the context of a university or laboratory renders more trust than a scientist doing consultancy where the scientist has to show more qualifications, like being media savvy. A lot of scientists work in big groups, so they need to trust each other because they do not have all the skills necessary to assess every bit of knowledge. The old idea is that there is a scientist who has enough skills to build everything from scratch, to know everything about his field of research to be completely autonomous from all the other people. That's not possible anymore. So lay people need to trust a scientist. But the relationship between laypeople and scientists is a relationship of inequality. As for what knowledge is concerned, there is no chance that laypeople can know things better than scientists in their field of research.
In this interview with Moira Dean, Professor in consumer psychology and food security at Queens University in Belfast, Northern Ireland (UK). We talk about her research into consumer food choices, food safety, food fraud, risk perceptions, and food supply chain management and food labeling. Consumers developed different food habits during the pandemic and lockdowns. We talk about the “head, heart, and hands” or the perceptions, attitudes, and behaviors of consumers and producers along the food supply chain to explore food security challenges and create trust in food. She explores the challenges in global food integrity and how the world’s growing population will get food in a sustainable, cost-effective, and environmentally friendly way. In the interview, we cover the 2020 Deloitte survey into consumer attitudes on ethical and environmentally produced food. How can labeling products enlarge the trust of consumers? What is the role of all players in the food production chain, the farmers, food producers, and retail?
This interview with Richard Ned Lebow, Professor of International Political Theory at the Department of War Studies at King’s College in London, was taken, just before Russia invaded Ukraine. We talked about trust in international relations, about the view that asking Ukraine to renounce membership of NATO is dangerous (which he does not agree with), a discussion that rendered moot with the news about Russia invading Ukraine.
Trust is an important element in diplomacy mentioning three famous examples in history. Trust in diplomacy should be distinguished from trust in nations.
He talks about the role of disinformation during World War II. Russia was not the only country using disinformation (“maskirovka”) in warfare. General Patton of the Allied Forces staged a non-existent army in Kent, including radio traffic as if it was a real army to strengthen the German belief that an allied invasion would start in the French Port of Calais.
He comments on Stanford professor Larry Diamond’s view that we see a trend of a “democratic depression”, about deterrence and realist models of International relations assuming that trust is in short supply.