In Which I (Sort Of) Review The Tribe That Discovered Trust
In Which I (Sort Of) Review The Tribe That Discovered Trust

In Which I (Sort Of) Review The Tribe That Discovered Trust

Apology

Well, what a long time since my presence has graced (or been inflicted on) these pages. No excuses, I’m simply that lazy and uncommitted. I’d like to say this signals a resurgence, but that would probably be mostly untrue, so I won’t.

So, a little background for this unexpected post…A few months ago, I was both surprised and flattered to get a message from David Amerland, whose acquaintance I have enjoyed immensely for some years now on GooglePlus, saying that he had mentioned me in the acknowledgements of his new book, The Tribe That Discovered Trust, and asking me if I would like a (digital) copy of it.

Never one to turn down a book of any sort, and having not only enjoyed, but actually been influenced by, his previous book on semantic search, I hastened to accept with fulsome thanks, and the promised email was duly dispatched, and gratefully received.

It promptly languished in my inbox for some months though, since I’m much more of a paper book kind of person. I don’t have a mobile device that I could read it on, (see neo-luddite) and I really hate reading books off my computer screen, so I mentally shelved it under a “get to this at some point” label.

Well, that point arrived this weekend when, being basically in between other reads, I decided to print it out (2 pages per sheet, double sided) so I could read it in comfort. (Comfort in this case being while seated cross-legged on the floor of my study with the loose pages spread out in front of me.)

So, full disclosure: Through the graciousness of the author, I was given a free copy of the book with absolutely no strings attached. (In fact, this little (or not so little as the case may be) putative review will be as much a surprise to him as it was to me.)

And now, having wasted 350 odd words on an introduction, (luckily I feel no compulsion to edit myself into brevity) let us have no (further) delay…

The Tribe That Discovered Trust

As you’ll know from my review of Semantic Search by the same author, (you all read that right? Go ahead…I’ll wait…Right then…) I’m not much of a reader of “business guide” type books. Indeed, I’m far more interested in the theoretical expositions than the practical ones, and this book is no exception. Luckily, the practical (business application) aspects are largely left as exercises for the reader, in the form of handy little questions at the end of each chapter.

Apt as they always are, and provoking of important (perhaps essential) introspective analysis in terms of one’s business model and practices, they nonetheless allow one to consider them entirely separately, and in ones own time, adding to the totality of the books message, while in no way detracting from it.

An Allegory Of Positivity

I was a bit surprised to discover that part one of the book was actually what turned out to be a charmingly allegorical little tale.

A short story of sorts that manages to convey symbolically the transition between the old, straight-forward, top down sort of demand for trust that the developing free market economy foisted on its consumer, and the new, trackless (or entirely too track-full) ecosystem of the digital marketing landscape, and what skills we need to hone in order to successfully traverse it.

Throughout it, the authors optimism, (a most endearing trait) is evident. The rules he envisages as guiding the protagonist through difficult and potentially dangerous decisions are ideal (perhaps even idealistic) ones. If all leaders followed these approaches, they would without question make choices which benefited both their followers, and those they encountered, far more than they harmed them.

Of course, the difficulty lies in engendering that quality of leadership. My innate cynicism leads me to speculate that as things currently stand, the majority of leaders in business, (both large and small), would fall outside of this ideal spectrum, with correspondingly less successful (or positive) results. As is so often the case, we are both the cause, and the solution, of the problem.

Success & Positivism

This leads me into a momentary aside…the first of several no doubt. (I don’t plan these things…they just happen…)

If we treat this allegory as is intended (or at least, as I assume is intended, but this is not the place for a discourse on the validity of an author’s intent when interpreting their work), which is that the two groups in the story can be seen as rival (or potentially rival) companies, then there are in fact multiple possible outcomes which a business would see as being successful.

The annihilation of the opposing group would, back home, be seen as just as successful (if not more so) an outcome as the outcome that eventually resulted. This however leads us into murky ethical waters, to which we may perhaps return later.

Suffice it to say that the scene has been set, the pump primed. The surprisingly (mentally) persistent tale of Punga and his team will hover at the edges of whatever follows.

Trust Is The Colour Of Death

Part two begins with the all-important question of what trust actually is, and here we start getting into the really interesting psycho-social stuff. We are introduced to various theories and definitions of trust, and approaches thereto, particularly as it related to commercial theories at various times in the previous (20th) century.

No doubt you noticed my heading there, which may seem a little extreme. (Or perhaps not, but we’ll get to that in a moment.) It’s actually a line that formed part of a fragment of poetry (actually song), written by Robert Jordan, as part of the background of an epic example of world building, his Wheel of Time series. In the block quote, I have quoted the immediately preceding lines. The full text of the song fragment is available online.

Trust me to know and to do what is best,
And I will take care of the rest.
But trust is the colour of a dark seed growing.
Trust is the colour of a heart’s blood flowing.
Trust is the colour of a soul’s last breath.
Trust is the colour of death.

Having one of those minds annoyingly stuffed with useless information, this little quote is what my brain throws up whenever “trust” is mentioned.

Now, in fairness, Jordan was talking about exactly the sort of trust that the author describes as being a product of how the consumer was viewed, and treated, by 20th Century business. That is, top down, almost enforced trust.

This book is not about how to make people trust you. What it is about is transcending that antiquated and (to put it bluntly) failing approach, and rediscovering the fundamental quality of trustworthiness, not by telling people to trust you, or by generating an image that you can be trusted, but by actually being trustworthy. Literally worthy of somebodies trust. (Sounds like we’re getting a little ethical again.)

Everything Is Subjective

I might have mentioned in the past, here and there, that I’m a pretty die-hard subjectivist, a moral and philosophical approach that a surprising number of people seem to struggle with. One of the things I enjoyed about this book was its head on confrontation with the idea (and reality) that trust is subjective.

Of course, as a real subjectivist, I also have to accept the idea that, to some people in the tribe at home, (or in any given business), there would have been nothing at all wrong with the annihilation I mentioned earlier, and indeed, I could argue fairly convincingly (I like to think) that they would be right. From a certain point of view at least. And for a given value of right.

And that’s something else I enjoyed about the book. The focus on two absolutely essential issues. That of context, and that of long-term planning.

Afterall, as Euphemus of Athens said way back in 416BCE, “To an imperial city nothing is inconsistent which is expedient.” And what are corporations but a type of modern imperial state? Less thirsty perhaps for actual blood, but their metaphorical appetites certainly unslaked.

But short-term planning is one of the ultimate weaknesses of that sort of mind-set, and the tactics which were expedient at the time so often end up being the ones that lead to your downfall in the future. For the farmer planting a wind-break that will take 100 years to be effective, the question of his immediate gain never even comes to mind. And just so, while the actions that generate trust may cost us now, we learn that as an investment in the future, they can be valuable without measure.

In the author’s own words…

The value of trust is a little like the price of oxygen. It’s almost nothing, until you haven’t got it any more. Then it becomes priceless.

Trust & Consequences

Of course, no discussion of trust can ever be complete (or perhaps even begun), without the issue of distrust. Through a series of real life business examples, the book describes, and examines, instances where trust has been broken, or betrayed, and analyses the different approaches and outcomes of those approaches.

As another aside, we can tell the author doesn’t have much truck with doing things wrong himself…I personally can think of at least a couple more creative ways to indirectly deny something than “it was somebody else’s fault.” :)

Here, we’re taken through ways in which broken trust can be responded to, and even repaired, as trust is both incredibly fragile and, we’re told, surprisingly robust.

Perhaps the social constructs which encourage us to trust also encourage us to give those second chances, to, as the book phrases it, suspend our inclination to distrust, simply because the experience, the expression, of trust is so fundamental to our surviving and thriving as a species.

Not Everything You Read On The Internet Is True

Finally, we come inevitably to the question of online trust, from ways in which it spreads and is perceived, to how it influences and is shared by various networks whose underpinnings are, after all, the very human users and creators thereof.

And hopefully unsurprisingly, this isn’t just about trusting (or not) people you meet online, or trusting (or not) companies to whom you give your business.

Trust, although we scarcely think about it, seems much more fundamental to the internet than that. The internet is very interested in trust, because if we could trust what we read online, or at least, be served with results that were unquestionably trustworthy, well…that would make for a quite different internet indeed.

Right now, we’re on the curve…and there’s at least a chance that it could be a catastrophe curve. As we adapt to a new digital environment, the environment itself is changing and adapting to us. Companies and individuals are leveraging things that weren’t there to leverage not long ago, and we’re basically having to learn as we go along much more rapidly than ever before.

We still have some way to go before we will be likely to trust an apps determination of how trustworthy something is, but the process is already underway, and no doubt before long, our suspicion will probably (perhaps sadly) be viewed as a backward attitude by denizens of some future net.

Trust & Ethics

Time for that other aside…It seems to me that the core of trust is in fact a philosophical one. In order to be trusted, a business needs, in essence, to demonstrate its commitment to the well being of its customers. This in turn must raise inevitable questions, such as, for example, ones about the well being of its shareholders or owners or dependants.

In order to be trusted, one must conform to a subjective idea of good. An idea which may change, or be enforced with greater or lesser levels of fervour. And so, the cynic in me wonders if we can ever achieve that level of wide-spread enlightened self-interest.

At the end of the day, that’s what it is. Enlightened self-interest. The realisation that what is good for you is also good for me, and vice versa. The end of the zero-sum game which has so entrenched itself in our cultural and psycho-social matrix.

Can we overcome it? The argument put forth (implicitly anyway) by the book is that our own digital evolution will require it. That any business who cannot do so will ultimately fail. And I think I hope that is true.

In Conclusion

Understanding the mechanisms by which trust work does not give you a blue-print, or a magic bullet that will somehow make your business a success or make people trust you. As the author is at pains to emphasise, this does not tell you what to do to demonstrate your trustworthiness.

What it does give you is an understanding of the characteristics that underlie the trust calculation. If your actions (or business processes or interactions) mesh with those characteristics, and build from those foundations, chances are you will be worth your clients trust, and your client will almost certainly recognise that, to both your own, and their, advantage.

Trust