A pervasive lack of trust is affecting many areas of life right now. Too often, the practices of businesses and institutions – and those who run them – are being called into question, leading to backlash from customers and constituents who are choosing to disengage, boycott or otherwise rebel. This crisis of trust has leaders scrambling for...
A pervasive lack of trust is affecting many areas of life right now.
Too often, the practices of businesses and institutions – and those who run them – are being called into question, leading to backlash from customers and constituents who are choosing to disengage, boycott or otherwise rebel.
This crisis of trust has leaders scrambling for solutions so they can successfully move business forward. Here, two widely respected thought leaders share valuable perspectives on how to authentically regain and cultivate trust among customers, constituents and colleagues.
New York Times Bestselling Author and Expert on Technology’s Role in Transforming Relationships; Sociologist and MIT Professor; Author, “The Empathy Diaries” (March 2, 2021)
“The tools we use at work have become instruments of surveillance as much as creativity. Trusting work cultures must begin with a revised contract in which worker identity is no longer the product of use. The words that link up best in the future are empathy, transparency and trust. To be empathic with each other requires trust. Trust requires that we come to each other as voices to be heard and respected, not as data sources to be exploited.”
Leading Expert on the Governance of Future Technology including Artificial Intelligence and Cybersecurity; Professor of Law and Professor of Computer Science, Harvard University
“The practice (and perhaps pretense) that business can be politically neutral has been sorely tested, when commitments to even basic, previously uncontested facts have become a litmus test for political allegiance. While it can be hard for a company or brand to speak institutionally in the political sphere, executives should reflect on whether and when it’s called for. And as the donations of companies’ political PACs come under scrutiny – particularly those of the tech giants – it’s long since time to revisit those rituals of wheel-greasing for all currently in power. There is a category of behavior that’s ‘lawful but awful.’ To knowingly engage in it, with the excuse that it’s technically permitted, contributes to a corrosion of trust in both public and private institutions.”
