Unconditional Trust Does Not Exist
“Trust me.”
Famous last words, right? When you hear a stranger say these words, it probably has the opposite intended effect, making you instantly suspicious.
In contrast, isn’t it the ultimate vote of confidence when someone says, “I trust you”?
When someone extends their trust to me, I feel an incredible sense of responsibility to honor that trust. It’s in a person’s ability to consistently honor that responsibility that is entrusted to them, that has built countless people’s reputation over time. And it is exactly that reputation that is directly linked to (a) the number and quality of opportunities that come across my desk, each day, and (b) the way in which people show up in my life day in and day out.
This is exactly why my ears perk up when I hear someone say, “I trust him or her”; in these instances, I implicitly understand that this is a relationship that has been built and tested over time. Let’s face it, Trust is an incredibly valuable currency that isn’t necessarily in short supply, but is incredibly difficult to earn. Having been in the United States during the #MeToo movement, and having been in Silicon Valley in a time where these conversations around trust and reputation in the workplace have been so paramount, I am wary whenever a Tech Company says they believe they can build greater trust and connection via technology. And so, when Angeli Jain, Product Lead and Head of Trust at Airbnb came to our Stanford GSB class on Reputation Management to talk to us about ‘Building Trust and Reputation in a Sharing Economy’, I naturally approached the talk with skeptical curiosity.
But I was glad to hear that Airbnb has deduced the same lessons that I have taken away from life in general.
“Trust takes time. Trust is something that has to be earned consistently over a period of time. For companies, it’s a chicken-and-egg challenge as well, because you must establish some level of trust in order to build a strong reputation; and in-turn, a strong reputation over-time then also helps to build-up that trust.”
→ Angeli Jain, Product Lead & Head of Trust @ Airbnb
What I’ve come to realize is this: Trust is a quality — like love, faith, and respect — that is an invisible, immeasurable, and intangible concept, that is at the core of our societies, companies and individuality. “Trust” underpins so many decisions we make every day. Do you trust yourself to take-on that project? Do you trust the day-care to take care of your kids? Do you trust your advisors’ strategic analysis and recommendations? Do you trust your colleague enough to share something personal? Do you trust that organic and fair trade label on your coffee beans?
When I was a young child, I can remember my dragon-mother’s words, “Trust and Love are not the same, Erika. I will always love you, even if you misbehave; but Trust must be earned, even between family members. Trust takes time to earn, and can be thrown away in an instant if you’re not careful.” Though the samurai-like undertones in my mother’s voice seemed ominous at the time, I knew this advice was sound.
In working for a number of boutique consulting firms over the past decade, I know that most every project I’ve sold or delivered is carried on the back of incredmentally built-up trust in individuals, more so than the company or brand. Trust in me, trust in the team members the client has met, and trust in the process. ‘Boutique’ is an euphemism for ‘little to no brand recognition’; which means that we have to build trust one project and one client at a time. Whether you work for a boutique consulting firm, a start-up, or are launching a first-time PE or VC fund, trust is a valuable resource built on the backs of reputations of many individuals. The beauty of not having a big brand name to hide behind, is that you are entirely exposed. You know that if you win the trust of another, you are winning on real-time merits; there are no coat-tails to ride on here.
Similar to the ‘boutique’ industry, the modern ‘sharing-economy’ of today also relies completely on a complicated trust-economy in order to function. The challenge of these new companies like Airbnb though, lies in the fact that trust must be built virtually entirely online, with no handshake or face to face conversation to determine that baseline of trust. Crazy, right?
That’s the problem Joe Gebbia, Co-Founder and Chief Product Officer of Airbnb, framed in a Tedtalk where he asked everyone in the audience to pull out their smartphones and unlock it, then hand their phones to the person to their right. After a burst of nervous laughter, Joe quite simply stated that this vulnerable act of trust is what Airbnb must get its’ users to do every single day in order to be a viable business; but, instead of handing over a smartphone that has personal pictures, notes, emails, passwords and the like — Airbnb stakeholders are handing over the keys to their personal homes to complete strangers.
What’s fascinating is that Airbnb has become very good at building trust in its online community. They’ve built in trust-building code and apps in order to try and foster faster relationship-building. This includes short bios to increase familiarity, a messaging portal to communicate between host and guest, a bilateral rating and review system, property verification, and background checks (where available), as well as conflict and dispute resolution processes. Angeli’s job is a fascinating one, building and managing “trust apps and processes” for the Airbnb platform.
From where she stands, she and Airbnb have 3 primary responsibilities. At the base of the pyramid is safety; as Maslow’s hierarchy of needs go, if users, both hosts and guests, don’t feel safe on the platform, then everything crumbles. After baseline safety is met, transparencyis key; having open lines of communication between all stakeholders is critical, to create ‘rapid and mini experimentations on trustworthiness’ through communication. And at the top of the pyramid is support. Angeli often stated that there was no “model” that Airbnb can copy or take inspiration from (as no other company has tried to have strangers share their homes with each other); and as one of the first in the shared-economy space, Angeli confessed they expect to make a lot of mistakes. And from that place of honesty, offering adequate support that is seamless and easy to use to address the mistakes that will arise is a critical point of company-wide self-awareness.
That made me think about my mother’s advice to me when I was a child, that trust is a responsibility that must be earned. Isn’t it true of all of us, not just organizations — that we must all build up trust in the same way Airbnb is approaching it? Perhaps we could all take a page out of Airbnb’s book, and approach our every day with a strong belief that ‘most people are inherently good’ and perhaps we can all adopt:
(A.) a conscious effort to create safety: by building credibility, a culture of non-judgement, and deepening our capacity for empathy;
(B.) a conscious effort to build out and encourage transparency: by creating a culture that embraces radical candor, promotes ‘over-communication’ both upwards and downwards, and subscribes to the notion that feedback of all forms is truly a gift that should be received with open arms regardless of whether it is positive or negative, and
(C.) a conscious effort to provide support when mistakes are inevitably made: by owning up to our mistakes instantly, showing resilience in the face of adversity, and restoring some faith that may have been lost. We must be able to make mistakes, but also be able to make-up for them.
At the end of the day, building Safety, Transparency and Support seems to be a good trust-building framework to live by, whether it’s from the context of an individual, a friend, employee, corporation or a global brand. Though it can sound complicated, it might in fact, be entirely simple.
Journalist and Anchor of Nightline fame, Ted Koppel, recently spoke to us and said:
“Why do we need a class on Reputation Management? Reputation Management, in my opinion, is incredibly simple. Be honest. Don’t lie. Own up to your mistakes, and do it early. I’m amazed how many intelligent CEO’s fail to come clean when they find out they’ve made mistakes. I didn’t say it was easy, but it’s pretty simple, don’t you think?”
Yes. Simple, but not easy, indeed.
