by Esther McVicar
Can there be respect in a post-truth world?
In article five I spoke about respect during change and using the whole person approach to better effect change programs. Today I would like to expand more on the whole person approach by examining the post-truth/post-trust dynamic impacting the community sphere and organisational governance.
We have all heard the term post-truth or witnessed public debate on alternative facts in the media. We have seen the impact during the Covid-19 Pandemic, where people did not know who to trust for accurate information, perhaps information that could even save their life. The post truth phenomenon has contributed to changes in government, increased resistance to frontline government services, the victimisation of experts, and the end of civil debate in some quarters (Lewandowsky, et al., 2023).
This technocratic denialism, the rejection of expert knowledge and scientific consensus has had a flow on impact to governance in every organisation around the globe. How we know what we know has been radically challenged (Jones, 2023). At the heart of this societal change is the decision to re-evaluate who we trust on the big issues (Roque, 2023). That decision is framed in hegemonic power, and who wields it.
Foucault, 1977 argued that when one considers truth, they must also consider how it is interwoven with power, particularly the status of “those who are charged with saying what counts as true” (Foucault, [1976] 2001).
How We Trust
Trust or belief in what we are being told is critical in organisations to achieve outcomes, but also to achieve healthy and strategically sustainable organisations. So, what is trust exactly?
Trust is a personal risk-taking exercise where we evaluate not only what is being communicated, but our estimation of the entity communicating, the context in which it is communicated, and the personal impact to ourselves (Bachmann, 2018).
When we think about trust as it applies to business and organisations the operating context of the business matters, i.e., one might be more concerned with trusting their surgeon than where we buy a TV. Thus, there is a greater onus on certain economic sectors to be trustworthy. This example highlights a key component of trust, it is a personal risk -based decision.
Trust occurs on a continuum, those decisions we deem potentially personally detrimental are also those we consider high trust and as a result, those trust-decisions are complex for us. Similarly, those that are least personally detrimental we consider as having a lower trust value and are therefore simpler decisions to make.
To make those complex decisions easier, we can establish a common ground on which to make the decision. This shared understanding allows us to make reasonable assumptions about the future behaviour of the entity we are choosing to trust.
In the example above, it not necessarily the individual surgeon we trust, but the known experience of that surgeon; their education, the prestige of the hospital they work with, and the supporting medical system that assures us of their trustworthiness, these factors form the common ground making it easier to trust. The person we buy a TV from has none of that background, but nor is it necessary, since there is lower personal detriment in buying a TV.
Here is where it gets tricky, while societies generally have been found to have the same trust norms (up to 90% agreement), there is cultural variability particularly when it comes to institutionalised trust (Braithwaite, 2021; Raaphorst & Van de Walle, 2018).Trust in this case is also dependent upon our world views, the processes of the institution, and our experiences of them.
We trust institutions because they are a known entity, we understand how they work, and their representatives are known to act in the public interest. These institutions then can lend that robust integrity to us when we make decisions involving them (Bachmann, 2018). Similarly, people speaking on behalf of that institution are also imbued with its legitimacy, but what happens when two representatives of the same institution disagree with one another? Who do we believe?
We experienced that in the pandemic where medical advice was replaced for a swathe of the population, with a counterview presented not by experts but by people they trust. Ranging from neighbours to politicians, but strangely also unknown people on social media. Here the trust relationship again was not with an individual, but with social media platforms, which imbued these counter opinions with their perceived legitimacy.
Post Truth or Post Trust?
Lorusso, 2020 argues that post-truth can only occur because of the infosphere prevalent in the 21st century. This infosphere is conceived of as an intertwining of the digital and material world. Post-truth is understood as a specific regime of truth dependent upon the digital aspect of this infosphere but not originating in it, rather the digital aspect of the infosphere sustains this new regime of truth (Lorusso, 2020).
If we consider the aspects of trust discussed earlier, it becomes apparent that this infosphere is creating a new common ground on which to build trust relations. It is also worthwhile considering how the digital aspects or platforms of the infosphere gained legitimacy. When we think about who uses these platforms, we can see the reverse is also true about legitimacy, the prominent members of society who use these platforms have imbued them with their own legitimacy (for good or ill as the case may be).
Truth has been largely understood to be composed of three aspects: correspondence; verification; and sincerity (Lorusso, 2020). Correspondence refers to a visible truth datum, i.e. I was late because of a car crash on my route home. This is a phenomenon that can be witnessed, there were other parties involved, it is a verifiable truth, there will likely be a news report about it.
However here it gets tricky, the news report will interpret what occurred and the truth datum then becomes a mediated truth object saddled with extraneous opinion. The third aspect of truth, sincerity, should prevent fallacious statements being made but as we have seen this is no longer the case. On the internet you can say anything, hence truth needs a new paradigm in this 21st century infosphere.
Crowdsourcing Trust.
Together these factors have made it increasingly difficult to form trust relationships in the modern era. We are all encouraged to do our own research, we no longer trust our academic communities, or those considered to be “in power” to tell us the truth.
While a healthy level of scepticism is required for a healthy democracy, i.e., we should question those who hold power. What we see today is bordering on unhealthy, and for some sectors of society is well entrenched into something toxic that is damaging to society. How does this happen?
In using the only paradigm for truth, we know; we have become obsessed with verification. Everything is accessible now, in a fraction of a second with can have dozens of sources of “truth” presented to us. We can verify until our hearts content.
However, the verification aspect of truth has become a little unhinged. Verification without sincerity in these sources of truth derails them as truth datums. Yet this seems solvable by gathering more and more data, to the point that the amount of data is overwhelming.
People in this position then find that the platforms they engage with to gather data, are algorithmically feeding them information that is biased to appeal to them (Jones, 2023). In this manner they now inhabit an information bubble that will only ever reinforce their views, making it virtually impossible for society to judge the truthfulness, or indeed trust in this information.
In the face of this complexity in many respects the globalised cosmopolitan world view has turned inward, in a return to the local village, only trusting what and who we know.
These people then come to work and are asked to trust the information from their organisations, to trust the leaders of their organisations in a trust-decisions that they find potentially personally detrimental. As leaders, did we do the work to create common ground? Do we have psychological safety in our organisations? Have we provided an environment of high reliability?
In the whole of person approach, we need to understand how this post-truth environment impacts the organisation, and its outcomes. Just as people are losing trust in institutions, they also losing trust in the organisations to which they are attached. The lack of employee trust in an organisation is immediately translated into approaches to customers and stakeholders, in fact it will steer those interactions, and shape the experiences of those actors (Davidovitz & Cohen, 2021).
How can this be addressed?
The whole of person approach respects the three spheres of influence in our lives: work; family; and community. It recognises that wellbeing hinges on these parts of ourselves being in harmony, understanding that challenges in one sphere impacts the others (Vogelgesang Lester, et al., 2017). Traditionally this has been seen as a negative, we might have felt that we had to separate our family and community spheres from our work sphere in order to be effective in the workplace.
However, today we recognise the interplay between the spheres changes how we think, how we feel, and even our conception of self. Thus, working to keep to these spheres in harmony can lead to a compounded effect on personal and interpersonal development in the whole of our life. Leading to net gain at work, home, and in the community.
As leaders we must be cognisant of the influences of these spheres on the members of our organisations. The absence of trust in a post truth world makes it difficult to govern organisations, without coercion or over-reliance on command-and-control approaches that further conflicts with societal values degrading trust further (Braithwaite, 2021).
Roque, 2023 argues that to address the epistemic change occurring in our communities, institutions and organisations need to increase transparency to reduce paranoia and increase democracy to reduce authoritarianism apparent in decision making. Suggesting the creation of spaces and mechanisms to expand dialogues between citizens, to encourage participation in decision making (Roque, 2023).
Lewandowsky and colleagues, 2017 suggest introducing a program of ‘technocognition’ using behavioural economics to nudge the populace against the spread of misinformation, coupled with improved journalistic standards, and better information architectures that are transparent and involve democratic processes (Lewandowsky, et al., 2017). Together this action would foster the circulation of valuable information supporting trust norms in society.
At a business level we can take a lead from the societal level approaches and rebuild our own information architectures to foster greater trust and understanding in our organisations. Similarly, we can create spaces and mechanisms that encourage fruitful discussion and harness these insights from the members of our organisations to make better more inclusive and transparent decisions.
Braithwaite, 2021 argues that “when we trust we place our wellbeing, meaning our security and our hopes for a better future in the hands of another” (Braithwaite, 2021).
She uses the concept of trust norms which are the communities shared belief of what members of that society must do to be trusted. These can be split into exchange trust norms, i.e., acting with predictability; and communal trust norms which reflect concern for the well being of other (Braithwaite, 2021). Her research illustrated that the combination of both exchange and trust norms predicated trust in institutions (Braithwaite, 2021).
Krot and Lewicka, 2012 found that trust norms vary with context, they found that trust between co-workers was linked to honesty, help, and support; but for leadership trust was linked to keeping promises, concern for employee welfare, and keeping them informed. While leadership trust in employees was mediated by good motives, task efficiency, honesty and reliability (Krot & Lewicka, 2012).
Overall, it was found that benevolence and integrity are most important for building trust within an organisation, with integrity, i.e., honesty and fairness being most important in relationships between coworkers and benevolence, i.e., concern for employee wellbeing the most important between employees and managers. However, both aspects were important in the vertical relationship between employees and leaders (Krot & Lewicka, 2012).
These studies indicate that strategies focussed on establishing a combination of exchange and communal trust norms within an organisation implemented contextually can improve trust within an organisation. This might look like establishing communication and behavioural charters in team and evaluating performance against these charters through peer review.
Similarly, new internal information architectures can provide verification of behaviours, for example explaining how decisions are made, using dialogic processes to listen to organisational members and designing spaces where employees and leadership can meet and discuss issues on common ground, build trust and are a significant component of trust norms.
References
Bachmann, R., 2018. Institutions and Trust. In: R. H. Searle, A. I. Nienbauer & S. B. Sitkin, eds. The Routledge Companion to Trust. Oxford: Taylor and Francis Group, pp. 218-229.
Braithwaite, V., 1998. Communal and exchange trust norms, their value base and relevence to institutional trust. In: V. Braithwaite & M. Levi, eds. Trust and Governance. New York: Russell Sage, pp. 46-74.
Braithwaite, V., 2021. Understanding and Managing Trust Norms. International Journal for Court Administration, 12(3), pp. 1-14.
Davidovitz, M. & Cohen, N., 2021. Alone in the campaign: Distrust in regulators and the coping of front-line workers. Regulation and Governance, 16(4), pp. 1005-1021.
Foucault, M., [1976] 2001. The political function of the intellectual. Radical Philosophy, 17(Summer 1977), pp. 12-14.
Jones, W. E., 2023. Post-trust not Post-Truth. Critical Review A journal of Politics and Society, 35(1-2), pp. 63-93.
Lewandowsky, S., Ecker, U. & Cook, J., 2017. Beyond Misinformation: Understanding and Coping with the Post-truth era. Journal of Applied researh in Memory and Cognition , 6(1), pp. 353-369.
Lewandowsky, S. et al., 2023. Misinformation and the epistemic integrity of Democracy. Current Opinion in Psychology, 53(101711), pp. 1-7.
Lorusso, A.-M., 2020. Between Truth, Legitimacy and Legality in the post-turth era. International Journal of the Semiotics of Law, 33(1), pp. 1005-1017.
Raaphorst, N. & Van de Walle, S., 2018. Trust in and by the Public Sector. In: R. H. Searle, A. I. Nienaber & S. B. Sitkin, eds. The Routledge Companion to Trust. Oxford: Talyor & Francis Group, pp. 469-482.
Roque, T., 2023. Denialism as Government. In: R. Pinheiro-Machado & T. Vargas-Maia, eds. The rise of the Radical Right in the Global South. Oxford: Taylor & Francis Group, pp. 185-196.
Vogelgesang Lester, G., Palanski, M., Hammond, M. & Clapp-smith, R., 2017. Multi-domain Ledership: A whole Persona Approach to leading in the workplace , and beyond. Organizational Dynamics, 46(1), pp. 133-139.
Webster, S., 2021. Chapter 11 Whole of Person Approaches to Leadership and Executive Coaching. In: M. Watts & I. Florance, eds. Emergining Coversations in coaching and Coaching Psychology. London: Routledge, pp. 1-12.
Esther McVicar is an experienced executive director and organisational systems specialist. A sessional academic at the Australian National University (ANU) and the Australian New Zealand School of Government (ANZSOG), she writes about the second pillar of Lean: Respect for Humanity.
Connect with her about Strategy, Risk, Governance, and Transformation on LinkedIn.
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