To trust or not to trust, that is the question
This
game felt like a round of poker: very intense, tactical and a lot of
bluffing involved. It brought out the worst in us. And to our
surprise we could have gotten much more if we had all played along.
Of course, I wasn’t all that surprised: when I started to
understand the game after the first round I kept telling my
colleagues to play Ys so that we would all win points. But of course
some are greedier than others and their instinct kicked in. I could
almost see the little angel on their right shoulder saying “trust
your colleagues” and the devil on the other side saying “take
what you can, give nothing back” (Jack Sparrow – sorry, Captain
Jack Sparrow – would approve). I can see the appeal in getting 3
points; but lets face it, the chances of that happening were slim. By
not trusting one another we were bound to lose.
But
why is it that we are inherently suspicious of others? Why is trust
so difficult to build? And what to do once you have broken it? I
scoured the internet for some answers, and I found some interesting
Ted Talks:
The
first speaker (James Davis) said that trust is the willingness to be
vulnerable with someone else and to take risks. So what makes us
trust the other person? Firstly, their ability: it varies according
to the situation (you can trust a doctor to do brain surgery on you,
but you won't trust them to manage your investment portfolio).
Secondly, does the other person care about me or are they just
following their self-serving interests? Lastly, integrity: do you
share the same values? Do they respect their commitments and keep
their word? Or do they take advantage of others and adapt to the
situation in order to have it better than others?
The
second speaker (Professor Dan Ariely) describes several “games”
that test how humans react in certain situations. The first game, the
public goods game, leads us to conclude that once trust is broken you
can't get it back. The second one, the prisoner's dilemma, shows that
when we know the other person and their reputation (what they have
done in the past) we are more likely to trust them. Finally, the last
game shows that, contrarily to popular belief, people do trust each
other quite a bit: when given the choice between keeping the money or
sharing it and then getting half of it back, people chose to share it
even if there was a chance the other wouldn't give them half of it
back. In the end of the talk, the speaker says one of the ways to
increase trust is by introducing a negative consequence for betrayal:
if the other knows that betraying the other person will backfire then
he/she won't do it in the first place (of course this is one of the
scare tactics used by the mob or gangs).
After
watching these videos the main idea that stuck with me was that in
order to trust someone we need to know them pretty well. When you
don't know how people react in certain situations, or what their
interest is (the well-being of the group or their own selfish
interests), it is very hard to trust them.
For
the long negotiation we have in store for us next week, I will do by
best to foster trust among my colleagues so that we are all in sync
when negotiating with the people of Chestnut Drive. It will also be
important to hear the other side's complaints and work together
towards resolving the issues and creating value.
It
will be challenging to make the other side trust the Bunyon Company
because of the previous contract bribery scandal and the third
development project that did not go very well; we will have to make
a double effort to get them to trust us by mentioning the quality of
our workmanship and the projects that were successful. We do have
something in our favor: our lawyer did not find any legal basis to
block construction. But of course, to carry on with construction
without addressing the neighbors concerns will not prove successful.
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