The TRUST Show

S12E4: Broken Promises, Shattered TRUST: Why Don't We Trust Politicians?

Politicians are among the most distrusted people. It didn’t use to be that way, but it is now. This episode will explain why we rank politicians’ trustworthiness so low using my Relative Trust™ model. The main reasons include the change in their behavior during primaries and after a party nominee was selected, the pledges they make that they know they can’t keep, the level of political polarization they exhibit, and how the means justify the end, and the procedural tactics they use to support party interests above the interests of the people who elected them, the American people. Is this really our fault? And how can we fix it?

S12E3: TRUST Attitudes, a few research findings

Part of my Trust Premium research is more general and relates to our overall attitudes toward trust. In this episode, I will tell you what I found so far about the relationships between risk-taking attitude, perceptions of trustworthiness, willingness to start with trust, and our belief that “you get what you paid for.” Some of my findings are more obvious, while others are more surprising.

S12E2: Timing is Everything, Including in TRUST

Time is one of the components of my relative trust model. But it has additional roles in trust. You’ve heard that “timing is everything” and that “the early bird gets the worm.” What happens when two peers in an organization cannot resolve a disagreement themselves and must go to the boss? Does it matter who gets to speak to the boss first? The short answer is that it does. In this episode, I will explain why the boss will likely trust the first employee to speak with them more than the second. This episode will also advise the two peers and the boss on building trust and resolving conflicts as best as possible. 

S12E1: Can You TRUST an Artificial Intelligence Avatar

Artificial Intelligence goes beyond ChatGPT and textual content generation. Today, it can generate lifelike videos of you. Deep fake is a bad usage of those, causing viewers to think they see one person when, in fact, they see a graphic generation of that person. But can it be used for good? We use “Mail Merge” features to customize emails, but how about increasing trust by increasing message intimacy through AI-rendered avatars? My guest in this episode is Jill Schifelbein, an innovative AI researcher, partner, and  Chief Experience Officer at Render, a start-up specializing in producing hyper-realistic avatars. The episode starts with a demonstration of Jill as an AI avatar. We discussed one of the most critical implications: would you trust the avatar less than a person? And what if you didn’t know it was an avatar? If you want to watch the avatar used in this episode, watch it on YouTube: https://youtu.be/8SS4Egjxdpw

S11E12: Why I Don’t Do End-of-Year Planning

This is not an episode about trust. Instead, I'm sharing why I don't do strategic planning in the last two weeks of the year. Companies often consider this time downtime because many people take this time off. But is it really the best time for strategic planning? Is there really something so magical about the end of the year and the beginning of the following year? In this episode, I’ll explain what I don’t do end-of-year strategic planning and what I do (and don’t do) instead.

S11E11: Trust and Authenticity: The Vicious Cycle of Fake Apologies

Last week, we witnessed another example of the vicious cycle of hurtful actions (or words) and insincere apologies driven by the wrong reasons. This time, it was the congressional hearing about antisemitism with the presidents of three Ivy League universities and the “clarifications” (apologies?) that followed. In this episode, I will discuss this vicious cycle and how it’s related to trust.

S11E10: TRUST, Negotiations, and Contracts

There are two types of negotiations: win-win and zero-sum-game (or win-lose). You don’t need trust for the latter, but for win-win negotiations, you do. In this episode, I discuss the two types of negotiations and how trust helps reach the best outcome for both sides in win-win negotiations. It will use the relative trust model components such as personality compatibility, symmetry/fairness, positivity (empathy and NoBS), and time and intimacy.

S11E9: TRUST and Doing the Right Thing When Nobody Watches

S. Lewis said, "Integrity is doing the right thing, even when no one is watching.” One of the components of my relative trust model, one of the components of the “what you do when you interact with me” group, is Positivity, specifically NoBS. One of the examples of NoBS I gave in The Book of TRUST is when you do something “for show.” When you do things just so that other people see. This correlates well with C.S. Lewis’ quote. But, if nobody knows that you do good things, they may not know you are someone they can trust. How do we resolve this paradox? In this episode, I’ll talk about the paradox and give you ideas on when to make things known to others to be trusted by them and when not to.

S11E8: How to Use Trust Premium to Get More Customers and Charge Higher Prices

Previous episodes discussed the Trust Premium research, but in this episode, I want to explain how it can help you get more customers and get them to pay a premium for what they buy from you, whether it’s products or services. This is far from theoretical. This is how you apply the research. I will talk a bit about the research itself, but then the three steps of turning this research into a source of increased revenue and profit for you. The questions that will be answered are: What is the trust premium in my industry? Who are the customers willing to pay higher premiums for high trustworthiness? What is the premium that MY customers are willing to pay for my trustworthiness? What am I doing that prevents me from getting the maximum trust premium in my industry? How can I fix it?

S11E7: What’s so Special about Trust Habits and Trust Premium?

A few years ago, I was asked, “why do you need to write another book about trust? What’s so special about it?” When I teach my students entrepreneurship, I tell them that the only way a new entrant to a market can succeed is by doing something different. Unique. And I live that advice. I wouldn’t have started pursuing the topic of trust if I didn’t have a unique approach to it. In this episode, I discuss what makes the Trust Habits® and Trust Premium™ unique, because they are.