I have written about stopping using the word “trust” in the past and this practices has been a regular part of talks and workshops going back to around 2008 or so, and I wrote it up in Removing Trust – Personal InfoCloud. It isn’t the concept that is problematic it is the fact the term trust is used to mean many different things that can be conflicting.
In 2007 I was doing work in an environment where trust, most often meaning “having confidence in something or someone” was the context, but is also was bring used in different contexts and meanings. This was when I stopped using the word trust and wouldn’t let others use it, but other words had to be used in its place.
This shifting to other terms started highlighting not only the other terms available, but the different intents and meaning the word trust was being used as a proxy. The second insight was when asking others if they had “confidence in” or were “comfortable with” a person, process, or tool / service the replies were far more confident than when asking about trust. The follow on questions when asking about why they gave their responses were really specific and insightful, but also people had a lot more to say about why they have that response than when using the word trust.
The Non-Trust Words
When I present and talk about stopping using the word trust and I am not using my old keynote slides that frame all of this and provide many of the terms, I am always asked, “what are the words people use instead of trust?” There was a stretch of time that I was mapping the words and tracking them, but often they were contextual to the type or work or environment, the subject matter, or people. Much of the work was mid–2000s through 2010s doing work to vastly improve collaboration, social enterprise, and knowledge management that embraces social platforms. But, my work was broad across many processes, workflows, and systems and industries.
I’m listing the main 9 words that surfaced and were used. These are not in any specific order. Some of the terms are shades of difference from others, but the nuances are often important.
Comfort
Comfort is one term that surfaced a lot when not being permitted to use trust. Most often this surfaced with social platforms in public, as well as enterprise (organization) contexts. When asking people if they trust interacting with others in a service, the answers were most often squishy at best. When talking with people why they didn’t use the service, comfort surfaced a lot (or lack of comfort). They would say they didn’t feel comfortable using the services, how what they shared would be used, who would see what they shared, and were not comfortable with other people they didn’t know seeing it. When using comfort in the initial question, “Do you have comfort using the service?” The responses were solid. When asking why, there was a lot of feedback. When asking what could help give them comfort or improve their level of comfort there was also a lot of good solid feedback that was given.
Confidence In
Similar to comfort, the term confidence and “have confidence in” was common and helpful. Confidence in showed up in most work and often was around security, information value shared, validity of the information, and in the people they would interact with. In work and negotiation environments this was often commonly used around interacting with others and was used when facts and security were important elements of the environment and engagement types. Confidence often was used when talking about access management to a system or service. It was also used with regard to how information (particularly personal and privacy related matters) are managed, along with identity management (others who may not be familiar were who they claimed to be).
Respect
The term respect often surfaces in information sharing environments. It also surfaces in when hierarchy is dominant, but used even more so in wirearchy environments where expertise is being shared by people outside the formal structures. People vouching for others often use respect as a term when introducing others. Systems and services that lack the ability for people to express why they are valuing other’s insight or deeper contributions. Organizations that have caught on to the fact that work happens far outside hierarchy and have mapped their informal patterns / wirearchy lean heavily on the use of respect as one of the terms they use when thinking and talking about trust.
Treasured
Treasured is quite close to respect, but is has a higher emotional value placed on it. This is used where there is high value in the source of information (a person or organization). This often is a source that the contributions are not in high volume, but also are a strong draw for people using a service. When using the term treasured (or variants) when asking people about a service and hearing, “this is something I treasure because…” these are often insightful for what is strongly valued. But, when the answer is “no”, that can be helpful to understand if there is something that is missing or not highlighted. Yet, it is fine if something is not treasured and it really help put a focus on the value and utility of is offered, as it may be needed and helpful, but lacking strong attachment.
Loved
In some environments the term loved, which is more of an emotional tie to a source or service than “treasured”. When pushing on “loved” to get a better understanding, it can be something that changes over time. Things that people say they love, are often a guidepost for areas where any changes around it should be careful considered, well thought through, and tested.
Valued
When valued surfaces as a term it is similar to “treasured” and “loved” but the intellectual and emotional strength tied to those other terms isn’t present. When “value” is a proxy and clarifier for trust surfaces it is something people want, don’t want to lose access to, may want more of, and may want easier access to. When using, “Is this valued?” in environments where this is a term used the responses are really helpful to explore to get more information. When poking at why something isn’t valued, it is a presentation or system problem that is getting in the way of a source or person being valued? If there is too much friction getting to a good resource, reducing the friction can move something from not being valued to being considered valued.
Honest
The term “honest” as an alternate for trust doesn’t always surface, but when it does it is always good to tease out more information and understanding why it does. When the term honest appears it is often is in relation to getting good critical feedback and insight, but this is not always the case. It also gets used when a source or resource doesn’t have any perceived leanings or shadings. This term can be fuzzy and it is always good to explore what is meant a little more when it is used instead of trust.
Believable
Believable is a “soft trust” term and really helpful, as it is a signifier of when there isn’t validation and may not have a lot of volume to assess it. Believable nearly always surfaces in relation to a person (persons) or a source, but not a system or service. If someone or a service isn’t vouching for them or it (see Respect), but it seems correct and has some correlation to things that are verifiable, that often fall into a believable category. When believable surfaces as a term the next two terms (dependable and consistent) may also often used.
Dependable
Dependable is often used around all aspects and quite often is one of the common terms used instead of trust, as one the meanings intended. Dependability is often used interchangeably with “reliable”. Dependability relates to something you can rely on for something getting done, surfacing needed insights, and just working as needed.
Consistent
The term consistent as an alternate term for “trust” is one that in many environments gets tricky as a person or source can be consistent in not being honest, not working well, and not being dependable. The phrase, “It consistently fails”, is similar to, “You can trust it will fail”. Consistency is one of the terms and meanings of trust that had me digging to understand “trust” and diving into Francis Fukuyama’s (Francis Fukuyama – Wikipedia) work and framings around trust, as well as many others.
Understand and Clarify What is Meant by Trust
These last three terms: believable, dependable, and consistent were drivers behind my stopping using trust as people would regularly shift meaning between these three and understanding the distinction when trying to understand problems or needs to improve a system, service, process, or other. But, removing the use of the use of the word “trust” from use unlocked the other terms and meanings that were being blocked and deeply valuable for better understanding and getting to much better tools and service, as well as understanding of what works and doesn’t in organizations large and small, as well as the broader world around.
Leave a Reply