Trust Across America-Trust Around the World™

This week’s Trust Insights welcomes our Trust Council members who joined us in addressing the following question:

Is the Apple/Google Contact Tracing Plan Worthy of our Trust?

by Barbara Brooks Kimmel, Founder Trust Across America-Trust Around the World

During these trying times, Apple and Google claim to have temporarily placed their corporate competitiveness on hold to begin collaborating on at least one very large data project. It’s called contact tracing, “the process of tracking down the people with whom infected patients have interacted, and making sure they get tested or go into quarantine’ according to this recent NPR article. The Apple/Google “alliance” will expand the reach of existing contract tracing capabilities. This initiative has raised many questions and multiple collective eyebrows, not only for our trust and ethics subject matter expert community, but also for the general public, and for good reasons. For example:

• Why should the public now trust the tech giants with their data when these companies have not proven themselves trustworthy in the past?
• Should all trust concerns be set aside in the interest of global health? 

Who better to ask than Trust Across America’s  Trust Council? Our council is comprised of senior members of our Trust Alliance who are some of the world’s leading trust subject matter experts.

What we already know about trusting the tech giants

Bart Alexander shared a quick retrospective on the state of tech’s visibility into our private lives: 

Providers such as Apple and Google already have comprehensive information about our location.  Even with location services (GPS) off, they have visibility into the relative strength of every wifi signal and cell signal. From years of collection including through  Google’s fleet of Street View cars, they can correlate that triangulated location with GPS.  With other data bases, they can determine if we are at home, at a shop or even a medical facility.  Google recently reached a $13 million settlement on the use of Street View cars for MAC address collection that goes back a decade.  This kind of information is used for target marketing to the public.  To now add a permission marketing app to supplement with Bluetooth technology is a rather minor addition to the existing privacy concerns, and at least has a public health purpose.

Natalie Doyle Oldfield who spent twenty years working in IT before turning her attention to organizational trust, added a bit more historical perspective:

As history has shown, wars vastly expand governments’ powers to regulate, to collect data and introduce new measures.  For example, income tax was introduced as a war time measures act in the interest of public welfare.  At the same time, strict policies to protect personal income data were enacted. Census taking provides another historical example of data collection.

Banks, health care professionals, lawyers, accountants and other professionals must follow established confidentiality rules and codes of ethics to keep our personal data secure and private. For the most part, the regulatory bodies have put safeguards in place to ensure these professions do not abuse our privacy.  And if they do, there are repercussions. Medical professionals can lose their licenses to practice and lawyers can be disbarred. 

The question is will “Big Tech” demonstrate that they too not only can but WILL voluntarily meet the highest ethical standards? Can they provide sound answers to the following questions: Specifically, what data will be collected and who will have access to it?   Are we committing to practicing privacy and security by design? What about HIPAA certification? Will we do what’s ethical and in the public’s best privacy interests,  or only what’s regulated, understanding that tech regulations are lagging far behind other industries like finance and health care.

Personal Trust vs. Societal Health

Charlie Green’s response is one of “Roll the dice trust.”

Personal trust inevitably comes in conflict with tech privacy and security concerns. After all, the height of privacy and security tech models are called “zero trust” for a reason. Because it has nothing to do with personal trust.

I think the trust issue in this case is that we need to trust Apple and Google and each other, adding some clear transparency bumpers, to do something potentially tremendously positive in the face of a pandemic.

Randy Conley sits in the camp of “cautious optimism.”

I think technology can play a tremendously helpful role in public health or disaster management situations like this, AND, we have to be cognizant of the personal privacy issues involved. I believe South Korea has leveraged personal technology to a large degree in their successful management of the COVID-19 virus. The reality is that we live with an illusion of privacy. Despite our safeguards, we don’t have as much privacy as we think we do. If nefarious actors in Big Tech or any skilled hacker wants information on us, they can get it.

Linda Fisher Thornton considers the trade offs:

“The challenge we face is balancing the benefits of surveillance during the COVID-19 pandemic, which potentially includes saving lives, with the costs in terms of the loss of privacy and autonomy. The surveillance approach puts the safety of the masses ahead of the privacy and autonomy of individuals  For surveillance to be effective, a strong majority will need to allow access to their location and health status data. To convince them to do that, tech companies will need to demonstrate trustworthy intentions, a clear plan, full disclosure, and implementation that includes privacy protections.” 

Bob Whipple adds that with the tech solutions, just remember that anything that is made by people can be hacked by other people.  So the potential of abuse in electronic tracing is immense.

Pandemics Aside, Trust is ALWAYS a Function of Leadership

Bob Vanourek, a former CEO of several large pubic companies reminds us that:

Good leaders go first in extending trust and scale up or down afterwards depending on the behavior of the other. 

This pandemic is a huge Black Swan (or perhaps a “known-unknown”) event that will change much of our world forever. Some would argue that using such tech will help save lives and is, therefore, worthwhile. Others will argue the privacy invasion issues are scary, and we can’t take a step down this potentially slippery slope.

Like many ethical issues, there are legitimate pros and cons on both sides of the argument. Should the government pass a law outlawing this technology and behavior? I think not. Should we blindly accept the tech companies to handle this without close scrutiny? I think not. 

Stephen M.R. Covey’s “smart trust” applies here alongside Jim Kouzes’ “go first” dictum. Let’s extend Google and Apple smart trust and closely monitor what they are doing, adjusting accordingly.

Wrapping up

Getting back to Bart Alexander:

In 1988, Shoshana Zuboff wrote “In the Age of the Smart Machine” that increasing automation can be used to empower or control us at work and beyond.  Even in that pre-internet era, the key moral issue of surveillance had emerged: for whom and for what purpose are we giving up our privacy?

I’ve argued (in the work I did for the U of Denver Institute for Enterprise Ethics) that these moral issues should not and cannot be resolved by engineers.  We need sociologists and ethicist to struggle with what otherwise are just technical problems to be overcome.  I would add that public health officials will always err on the side of protection versus personal freedoms, embodied in the precautionary principle.  They may often be right, but they and the software engineers’ solutions should not be without scrutiny.

Finally, as the Founder of Trust Across America- Trust Around the World, I’ll add my perspective. I do not believe that these two tech giants will receive adequate voluntary public buy-in to reach the scale they had hoped for. They simply haven’t earned the public trust required of such a large initiative. That being said, something tells me that Apple and Google already have all the technology and data they need to go forward, with or without permission, while other competing interests attempt to play catch up.

One member of our Trust Council shared this quote from the often controversial Winston Churchill: “In wartime, truth is so precious that she should always be attended by a bodyguard of lies.”

Trust Across America-Trust Around the World, along with members of its Trust Alliance, offers both online and in-person workshops to help leaders, teams and organizations build their trust competency. These are some samples of recent engagements.

Catch up on our 2020 Trust Insights series at this link.

Barbara Brooks Kimmel is an award-winning communications executive and the CEO and Cofounder of Trust Across America-Trust Around the World whose mission is to help organizations build trust. Barbara has consulted with many Fortune 500 CEOs and their firms, and also runs the world’s largest global Trust Alliance . She is  the editor of the award-winning TRUST INC. book series and TRUST! Magazine.  Barbara holds a BA in International Affairs and an MBA.

Copyright 2020, Next Decade, Inc.

According to these recent Gallup polls, American’s trust in government is at an all time low. The same can be said for American’s trust in media.

Two questions. If Americans don’t trust the government to handle problems, and they don’t trust mass media then:

1. “Why are American’s placing trust in their elected officials to make the “right” decisions for them during this crisis?
2. “Why are American’s now trusting the mass media to report the news fully, accurately and fairly?

What are your thoughts? What will be the “state of trust” in government and media when this crisis ends? 

Post your thoughts here or contact me directly at Barbara@trustacrossamerica.com 

While there are no shortcuts to trust, there are many work arounds.  Barbara Brooks Kimmel

In the words of Abraham Lincoln…. You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time.

The same applies to trust. Perhaps now, more than ever, leaders have a responsibility to their stakeholders to stop treating trust like an outcast soft skill, and start approaching low trust as a high risk. Trust is an essential organizational competency with tangible value, just like any other.

How many of these shortcuts to trust have you participated in or taken?

• Misdefining trust in a way that suits organizational leadership and its advisors. A few examples: brand trust, check the box sustainability/ESG, philanthropy, “feel good” CSR, and blockchain solutions are not trust. Neither is”purpose.”
• Engaging a “feel good” speaker, rather than holding a trust competency workshop with a trust subject matter expert.
• Paying to be designated as a “great workplace.”
• Hiring additional legal and compliance professionals.
• Creating a marketing campaign based on trust “talk” rather than action.

Unfortunately, not a single one of these costly “perception of trust” shortcuts will elevate trust.

Building a high trust organization is not difficult if trust is acknowledged as the outcome of principled behavior. It simply requires leadership buy-in, a solid trust-building framework, and a destination. High priced trust shortcuts might fool some of the people in the short-term, but in the long-term principled leaders build trust-based organizations from the inside out, not the outside in.

Trust Across America-Trust Around the World, along with members of its Trust Alliance, offers both online and in-person workshops to help leaders, teams and organizations build their trust competency. These are some samples of recent engagements.

Refer to the list of above and decide which you would rather do, build trust or work around it.

Barbara Brooks Kimmel is an award-winning communications executive and the CEO and Cofounder of Trust Across America-Trust Around the World whose mission is to help organizations build trust. Barbara has consulted with many Fortune 500 CEOs and their firms, and also runs the world’s largest global Trust Alliance . She is  the editor of the award-winning TRUST INC. book series and TRUST! Magazine.  Barbara holds a BA in International Affairs and an MBA.

Copyright 2020, Next Decade, Inc.

Randy, thank you for participating in our 2020 Trust Insights series. What is your trust insight?

Trust doesn’t “just happen.” Randy Conley

Can you expand a bit on this important insight?

Can you provide a real life example of a trust “challenge” where your insight has been effectively applied.

Generally, do you think the global “trust” climate is improving or worsening? What actions are making it better or worse?

Many claim we have a crisis of trust. Do you agree?

Randy, how has your membership in our Trust Alliance benefitted you professionally?

My involvement in the Trust Alliance has benefited me by learning from other experts in the field. Their wisdom has sharpened my thinking about trust and encouraged me to consider viewpoints I may not have considered had I not been part of this community. I, and hopefully other members, have mutually benefited from the support and encouragement we offer each other.

Randy, thank you so much for your time and more importantly for your commitment to elevating organizational trust. What would you like our audience to know about you?

Randy Conley is Vice President & Trust Practice Leader for The Ken Blanchard Companies. He is Blanchard’s subject matter expert in the field of trust, co-author of Blanchard’s Building Trust training program, and works with organizations around the globe helping them build trust in the workplace. Trust Across America has recognized Randy with a Lifetime Achievement Award as a Top Thought Leader in Trust and he is a founding member of the Trust Alliance. Inc.com named Randy a Top 100 Leadership Speaker & Thinker and American Management Association included him in their Leaders to Watch in 2015 list. He holds a Masters Degree in Executive Leadership from the University of San Diego.

Before you leave, Tap Into Trust and complete our 1 minute/1 question quiz. Find out how the level of trust in your workplace compares to hundreds of others. 

Have you reviewed how our workshops are helping teams and organizations just like yours elevate trust? Schedule an ONLINE webinar today.

Did you miss our previous 2020 Trust Insights? Access them at this link.

Contact us for more information on elevating trust on your team or in your organization or email me directly: barbara@trustacrossamerica.com

Copyright 2020, Next Decade, Inc.

Our new reality is teaching us so much about trust. Barbara Brooks Kimmel

This past Thursday, nine members of our Trust Alliance, from four countries, convened for the first in a series of weekly Zoom “Lunch and Learns.” The discussion topic was Trust Lessons from Coronavirus. The conversation ran the gamut from families to communities, and up the societal ladder to government and beyond.

Let’s begin with trust lessons for the family and work our way up from there.

The Family

The modern family operates differently than it did just a generation ago, when more mothers stayed home with their children. In my research I uncovered the following. As of 2018, 63% of all American families have two working parents. In 1989 the number was 53%. (US Bureau of Labor Statistics.) This represents close to a 19% increase. Suddenly, both parents are home, with many working remotely, and their kids are home too, with no school or childcare options. Certainly a shock and a “new reality” for many families. What does this have to do with trust? Just about everything.

Randy Conley of The Ken Blanchard Companies spoke about benevolence and compassion as not only the launch pad for building greater trust, but as the basis of the human fundamental connection. Working parents may want to consider using this “teaching” moment to build even stronger bonds with their children who will then have an improved “skill set” to build them with their friends, communities, teammates and beyond. Parents may consider taking some of these lessons back to their jobs when they return. This could translate into higher levels of workplace trust and more trustworthy generations in the future.

The Community

At the community level, Lea Brovedani is encouraged by how she sees people connecting, displaying tremendous empathy and generosity towards others by offering to help neighbors, joining together in fundraising for nurses and hospitals, and accepting “distancing” (and even washing hands) in the interests of protecting others. Both empathy and generosity build trust.

Darshan Kulkarni, our resident bioethicist, happens to live across the street from a hospital in a large US city. He is witnessing the virus first hand from his window. He urges everyone in every community to take time to separate fact from fiction to get a better “feel” for what is going on, and lessen fear and panic. Understanding that the political push and pull, and the day to day Fox vs. CNN reporting may hurt trust in the short term, it’s now up to communities to pull together to ensure that trust is not eroded over the long term.

The Workplace

David Belden, an organizational strategy consultant discussed how the coronavirus will permanently change the way we work. He reminded us that in many ways the 2008 financial crisis taught companies how to be more productive with fewer employees. Twelve years later and many people are accustomed to working remotely. Now, even more employees have joined those ranks. Will that continue post Coronavirus crisis? Will employers become more efficient? Will trust flourish as in-person micromanagement is no longer an option? Perhaps output increases when time clocks no longer need to be punched.

Will home based employees be more productive with less rules and restrictions? How about those organizations where remote teams have flourished for many years, using ever improving technology to enhance a new form of “teamwork” and efficiency? Has their forward-thinking strategy built a stronger foundation of trust, and a clear business advantage going forward? Because companies are now being given an opportunity to become even more efficient, will they share their wealth with their employees? This is the perfect time for leaders to demonstrate their support for their workers through their actions, not just their words. Think “Purpose” with a capital “P.”

From Canada, Natalie Doyle Oldfield reminded us of how trust builds business relationships, internally with employees and externally with customers and suppliers. At Trust Across America-Trust Around the World, we call that the trust “bank account.” Whether an entrepreneur, a small business owner or the CEO of a multinational company, the bigger that trust account pre crisis, the more stakeholders will remain loyal during the crisis, and the faster the post crisis recovery will be for business leaders who banked it.

Mark Donohue founder of LifeGuides presented another point of view expressing concerns that working from home will be isolating while social connections disintegrate. He shared that 43% of the US workforce currently works remotely (Gallup). Perhaps the time has come, or is past due, to redesign support systems that not only build trust between employers and employees, but also offer better benefits including counseling services during times of isolation and/or personal crisis.

Government

Our European members weighed in on the role government is playing in building or destroying trust. Olivia Mathijsen, a leadership and business advisor is at ground zero for Coronavirus, working remotely in Milan, Italy. She reminded us that different legislators have contrasting points of view, not all data is created equal, that cost cutting in the health sector has created some of the dissolution of trust, and that some media outlets are fueling mistrust by disseminating misinformation. But she sees a silver lining, and that’s compassion being shown and assistance offered not only between individuals, but also between countries, essential components for building societal trust that will hopefully continue post crisis.

Geert Vermeulen, an ethics and compliance expert reporting in from the Netherlands spoke of the shortages of critical supplies and regulatory constraints that have further taxed the system. But he also sees elevating levels of trust as individuals and companies work together to meet societal needs.

The last few minutes of the conversation turned to the shared GLOBAL level of accountability, empathy, compassion and benevolence that has been so apparent over the past several weeks. If we can maintain these basic human behaviors when the Coronavirus crisis subsides, societal trust will certainly be stronger.

In closing, David Belden pointed out that the Latinized form of the Greek word crisis (krisis) means turning point. Coronavirus is already moving the world in the direction of increasing empathy, compassion and benevolence. And as Mark Donohue concluded, the nature of trust is built on the “golden rule,” perhaps the most important reminder during these challenging times.

An abbreviated version of this article was published earlier this week on SmartBrief.

If you would like to participate in our upcoming “Lunch & Learns” join our Trust Alliance.

Before you leave, Tap Into Trust and complete our 1 minute/1 question quiz. Find out how the level of trust in your workplace compares to hundreds of others. 

Have you reviewed how our workshops are helping teams and organizations just like yours elevate trust? Schedule an ONLINE webinar today.

Did you miss our previous 2020 Trust Insights? Access them at this link.

Contact us for more information on elevating trust on your team or in your organization or email me directly: barbara@trustacrossamerica.com

Copyright 2020, Next Decade, Inc.