How Do You Build Trust Online?
Practical insights from a philosophical approach
That zoom meeting we’ve all had
The meeting is due to start. You click to join the call. There are 20 people online with you. Some of them have cameras on. Most are turned off. You’ve all joined at roughly the same time. No-one wants to say much. You can almost feel the collective sigh of relief as the meeting chair joins and starts walking through the agenda. Awkward virtual interaction avoided.
But if you are a part of a team — especially one that works remotely a lot (or perhaps only works online) — how can you move from this awkward state of affairs, to being part of a vibrant and trusting team?
Now as I write this, like any good philosopher, I’m sitting in a coffee shop. The people around me are minding their own business. One person is messing about on their phone, some others are (like me) doing work on a laptop. I think the staff might prefer we drink more coffee.
But we’re all sharing a space together and, in doing so, there is a sense in which we’re all trusting one another. To be sure, this isn’t a very interesting case of trust. It’s the kind of trust with which we’re all very familiar. It’s a background state of affairs. Like oxygen, until it’s gone, you just don’t notice the trust here.
Here’s Annette Baier making the point of just how common this kind of trust is.
“We often trust total strangers, such as those from whom we ask directions in foreign cities, to direct rather than misdirect us, or to tell us so if they do not know what we want to know […]. We do in fact, wisely or stupidly, virtuously or viciously, show trust in a great variety of forms, and manifest a great variety of versions of trustworthiness, both with intimates and with strangers. We trust those we encounter in lonely library stacks to be searching for books, not victims. We sometimes let ourselves fall asleep on trains or planes, trusting neighboring strangers not to take advantage of our defenselessness.” (Baier, 1986: 234)
Vulnerability
So here I am in the coffee shop, trusting the people around me not to harm me; trusting the people around me not to steal from me. And they trust me in the same ways.
All of that goes some of the way to explaining why some attempts to build trust in online environments have proven difficult. Trust often seems better formed through face-to-face interaction.
And online obviously isn’t face to face. Even when everyone has cameras on, it can seem like there’s something missing from the social interaction. Something important that helps us to build trust.
And as we know, one great way to build trust is to make yourself vulnerable to others, thereby signaling trust in them. We can easily see how this works. By making myself vulnerable to those in the coffee shop, I’m signaling my trust in them, which in turn is a way to earn their trust in return.
This is the point Philip Pettit makes in his “The Cunning of Trust” (1995). If I trust those people in the coffee shop, I’m showing them, or at least suggesting to them, that we share some of the same kinds of moral values.
If we share moral values, it’s easier for them to trust me. So, coffee-shop trust is to some extent easy, because displaying a degree of vulnerability is easy. But it’s hard to make yourself vulnerable in an online environment.
And vulnerability, as Baier tells us, is integral to trust.
‘Trust then, on this first approximation, is accepted vulnerability to another’s possible but not expected ill will (or lack of good will) toward one’. (Baier, 1986: 235)
So what can you do to build trust online? One interesting new study by Falcke and Zobel (2024) looked at exactly this. The authors found in their research some specific challenges to building trust.
Serendipitous Interactions
First, they noted a lack of what they called ‘serendipitous interactions’ in lots of work-based, online interactions. ‘Serendipitous interactions’ are interactions that aren’t structured and aren’t planned. They’re the kind of interaction you might have in passing, in a coffee shop. Or that you might have just before or after an in-person meeting.
Now of course online interactions are often staged in some way, especially for work. We all join the zoom call to have a particular meeting. We follow the agenda. We leave.
We don’t experience the normal kinds of person-to-person interaction that we might have before and after an in-person meeting. Online, we don’t normally get to have those serendipitous interactions.
Digital Onlookers
Second, Falcke and Zobel found a challenge to building trust that they called ‘digital onlookers’, really nicely captured by this quote from a participant:
“I have the feeling that in a meeting with more than five or six people, it becomes difficult to interact, especially if they’re strangers. Because imagine, you’re in a room with 10, 15, or 20 strangers, and then there are like three people talking and ten other people you don’t know, are listening. It sort of changes the social dynamics a little bit, which makes it weird. Imagine if you met someone at a net- working event in person. And then you have ten people standing behind you that you didn’t know, and they’re just listening but not talking.”
Can you imagine that in person? Ten people coming up behind you and listening, whilst you and a colleague have a conversation? That would be very weird in person. But online, this kind of thing is really common.
Philosophy versus Challenges
Both of these (a lack of serendipitous interaction and digital onlookers) were identified by the authors of the research, Falcke and Zobel, as being barriers to trust.
And I think if we look to the philosophy of trust, we can see why this would be the case. We know from the philosophical literature that trust has key components, among which are being able to rely upon a person, and thinking that they have the right kinds of moral values.
That means that, for someone to trust me, they must think that I can be relied upon and also that I have moral beliefs and values that are in line with theirs.
Communication is key
Pretty much the only way of displaying moral values online is through communication. So, to be trusted, I must speak (I can’t be a digital onlooker). And how likely is it I’ll display my moral values in work contexts?
More likely, surely, that some of those serendipitous interactions will provide the space for me to show how I think and feel about the world. And the kinds of steps that Falcke and Zobel recommend for building trust in online environments build on this idea of generating good conversation. Specifically:
- Plan space in and around meetings for serendipitous conversation.
- In meetings, use online facilitators to ensure good social interactions in groups, to avoid lots of digital onlooking.
This all seems excellent, but is it enough?
Something Missing?
But to return to vulnerability and Baier, the one thing that I think they might be missing is more space for individuals to make themselves vulnerable, in order to build trust.
Now, in their research Falcke and Zobel are coming to this from the world of start-ups. There, displaying genuine vulnerability might not be a good thing to display for all sorts of competitive reasons.
But if the philosophy is right, that vulnerability and trust move in lock-step, then, finding ways to realize that online would also be a powerful tool.
Conclusion
Building trust in organizations can be hard at the best of times. Doing it online is even harder.
The recommendations from Falcke and Zobel seem excellent. As a reminder, we should:
- Plan space in and around meetings for serendipitous conversation.
- In meetings, use online facilitators to ensure good social interactions in groups, to avoid lots of digital onlooking.
But maybe we can add a little vulnerability to the mix. So let’s add a third recommendation for building trust online: Plan spaces and activities that allow for vulnerability.
What matters in all of these recommendations, of course, is that we are making space for our values to shine through, to enable those we interact with to see as us the trustworthy individuals we are.
Over to you!
Let me know in the comments: how would you set about building trust online? In an online world, how would you build in opportunities to display vulnerability?
Readings
- Falcke, L., & Zobel, A.-K. (2024). ‘Open Innovation’s Potential in the Metaverse: Leveraging Digital Features to Build Trust with Partners’, California Management Review, 0(0).
- Baier, A. 1986. ‘Trust and Antitrust’, Ethics, 96, 231–60
- Pettit, P. 1995. ‘The Cunning of Trust’, Philosophy and Public Affairs, 24, 202–25
- Salter, A., Criscuolo, P., & Ter Wal, A. L. J. (2014). ‘Coping with Open Innovation: Responding to the Challenges of External Engagement in R&D’, California Management Review, 56(2), 77–94.
