Trust, Tech Giants, CEO Leadership, Mumbai Slums, & more

We’re back from a brief summer hiatus with more tips on fighting misinformation.

Combatting fake news and misinformation is a 2-pronged effort: fact-checking and confronting your own cognitive biases. At a time when facts are scarce and so much is open to interpretation, the truth becomes even more muddied when you allow your biases (conscious or not) to influence what you believe.

In this newsletter, we discuss the foundation of trust. We explore how trust was damaged when technology giants were hauled before Congress to defend their business practices. We look into how a slum in Mumbai is tackling COVID-19, how one CEO is fighting systemic racism, and how misinformation is making every doctor’s job harder.

When misinformation makes us trust what we shouldn’t

Considered the father of modern-day theory and research on trust, Morton Deutschdefined trust as the “confidence that [one] will find what is desired [from another] rather than what is feared.” He argued that trust is the most essential ingredient in the development and maintenance of happy, well-functioning relationships between individuals, groups, and countries.

And that’s where the problem lies: we don’t trust anymore. Trust, especially in politics, media, and technology, is low. What might be the cause? Misinformation that preys on our fears makes us question even the most basic of facts. This drives us to place our trust in shoddy sources and alternatively discount credible sources. Deutsch pioneered the notion that trust is foundational to society. To rebuild trust we need to make a concerted effort to understand one another and seek out the facts. Even at the risk of not liking what we learn, we have to take the effort to seek out the truth.

Bottom Line: Misinformation is dangerous because it makes us trust and mistrust what we shouldn’t. To break this downward spiral, we need to recommit ourselves to the truth.

Should Google, Amazon, Facebook and Apple be broken up?

The idea that the four most successful companies in the world may be broken up is anathema to many. They enrich our lives in a multitude of ways and we use their products every day. However, there are other views to consider.

1. Selling products at a loss to drive out competition is illegal. Amazon was willing to lose $200 million by selling its own diaper products below cost to force Diapers.comto fold or sell.
2. Copying, acquiring, and killing competitors is a tactic that hurts small businesses and consumers. Many legislators believe that Facebook’s acquisitions of Instagram & WhatsApp fit that bill.
3. Being forced to pay your competitor 30% of your earnings is tough especially when there’s no alternative. Developers complain that Apple forces them to do that with App Store fees. Just ask Fortnite owner Epic Games who refused to pay and subsequently got kicked out of the App Store.
4. Raising prices without rhyme or reason when customers have little choice is often considered anti-competitive. Google added a fourth ad spot to the top of its search results page forcing customers to spend more on advertising to maintain the visibility of their brands.

Bottom Line: Anti-trust issues are complex and even if you love their products, don’t let that affection bias your perceptions.

Learning from a leader fighting systemic racism

Lowe’s CEO Marvin Ellison shows other CEOs how to combat racism in the corporate world. As one of only four Black CEOs at the helm of a Fortune 500 company, he’s dealt with racism his entire life and can now uniquely provide advice on how to fight it. Here are his views as shared with the National Retail Federation recently:

1. Talking less and doing more is most important. While it’s tempting to make corporate pronouncements, what matters are the specific actions leaders take.
2. Recognize that developing a diverse organization isn’t difficult. Lowes has a diverse leadership today because the talented, diverse leaders existed within his organization or elsewhere. They were just being ignored.
3. Appreciate that there’s always more to do. While Ellison’s proud of how diverse his company is, he also believes that he’s just getting started. He believes that’s the mindset every leader should have.
4. Directly support minority-led businesses. Lowes launched a program to help minority businesses recover from the pandemic by giving $25 million in grants to them.

As we discussed in Savvy, fighting bias begins with developing greater self-awareness, finding trusted people who can provide you with honest information, being open to alternative viewpoints, and being willing to change when you’re wrong.

Bottom Line: Systemic racism is everyone’s problem. Business leaders can drive change when they confront their own biases.

How a Mumbai Slum is fighting COVID-19 successfully

About 1 million people are packed into the Dharavi slums of Mumbai. The one square mile area should have been a cesspit of COVID-19 infections. However, by aggressively chasing the virus before it reached the hospitals, the slum has been able to contain its spread. Here’s how the slum tackled the pandemic:

• Frequent screening of every house in hotspot areas identified super-spreaders
• Thrice daily cleaning of all community toilets limited the spread of the disease
• Healthcare camps enabled anyone to get tested for free as often as they wanted
• Marriage halls, parks, and hospitals were commandeered to quarantine people

Dharavi, with a population of 869,565 people per square mile, fought the virus because its residents agreed on what the facts were, figured out what to do, and acted quickly together. The slum dwellers of Mumbai even won praise from the World Health Organization for their efforts.

Bottom Line: COVID-19 doesn’t discriminate and it takes discipline and rigor to contain.

How misinformation is making every doctor’s job harder

We saw misinformation making every doctor’s job harder early on in the pandemic when it inspired us to begin this newsletter. Sadly, since then, matters have only gotten worse. The scourge of misinformation about the pandemic has led people to use dubious medicines, fall sick, and require medical attention (when those resources are already scarce). Who knew that misinformation could kill people?

How can you fight COVID-19 misinformation? Here are four suggestions:

1. Pay attention to where you find your medical news. Social media is a great way to stay connected with friends and family but it is not the best place to consume medical information.
2. Depend on the information sources that you normally would go to for medical advice prior to the pandemic. Whether it’s your family doctor, local hospital, or county official. If you’re using the Internet, follow these tips from the National Institute of Health.
3. Avoid cures that sound too good to be true. There simply aren’t any at the moment. Oleandrin, which was touted as a COVID-19 cure by the MyPillow CEO and pitched to the President, is just the latest example of a cure with no scientific support.
4. Ignore the fringe theories being peddled by political leaders, opportunistic business people, and conspiracy theorists as clinical trials for the real cures will take time.

Bottom Line: COVID-19 misinformation is leading to more people falling ill and dying.

Updates from the last newsletter

Savvy — Navigating Fake Companies, Fake Leaders & Fake News in the Post Trust Era won yet another award. This time taking the Current Events category in the 14th Annual NIEA awards. With the coronavirus pandemic and misinformation on the rise once again, there’s fresh interest in Savvy and speaking engagements (albeit virtually)

Want to share the newsletter or view the archives?

You can now do so via the Savvy Insights newsletter link. If you’ve read the book, please leave a review on Amazon.com and encourage others to subscribe to the newsletter or buy the book. Join us on our mission to rid the world of fake news.

Learn more about Savvy

Savvy has been recognized with five major book awards in less than a year. More information about the book, speaker, and media inquiries at www.savvymatters.com Purchase the book on Amazon.com or via your local bookstore.

Please add our email address to your contact list so that Savvy Insights doesn’t go to your spam folder. Join us on the mission of ridding the world of fake news by sharing this newsletter with your friends and family.