Today will be the first in a series of trust broadcasts which is my central theme and the yeast that runs through all that I, Shane Ward, and IDthree am about. Although my focus will be trust in the commercial space, it is impossible to separate human trust from commercial trust. Before trust runs through the heart of an organization it must first run through the hearts of people. 

Predicting trustworthiness in others is near impossible. Think of the well-known personalities who have shocked the world with untrustworthy behavior. Bill Clinton whose illicit affair with Monica Lewinsky sent shockwaves through the white house and the world. We all remember his words “I did not have sexual relations with that woman.” Bernie Madoff, who defrauded the public of $65bn in the biggest Ponzi scheme in history causing two suicides, one being his own son, and the financial ruin of many people. Then there was our very own, and much loved, Hansie Cronje who created utter disbelief in the world of cricket.

Scientific models like the polygraph have also proved unreliable. The Green River Killer, who is the second most prolific serial killer in US history with 49 convictions, sailed through his polygraph, so did the notorious Ted Bundy. On the flip side, 215 people who failed their polygraphs have now been exonerated of their alleged crimes based on new DNA advancements. These innocent victims had already served an average of 13.5 years in prison. 

Surely when it comes to trusting ourselves though, we should be very accurate. After all, who knows us better than we know ourselves? So why is it that we let ourselves down so often? The cold fact is that predicting our behavior is as tricky as predicting the behavior of others. When I ask you “Can you trust yourself?” What I’m really asking is “Can your current self-trust your future self?” The answer to that question is unpredictable. 

How many weekends have you declared that you will start a diet on Monday? How many gym contracts don’t get used? How many new Year’s resolutions don’t even make it past January? How many last cigarettes have you smoked? How come we are sure we can resist temptation right up until the moment that we fail, and then when asked if we can resist the same temptation in the future, we are confident that we can? 

The answers lie in the scenario below: You are standing on the pavement at a pedestrian crossing and see a gap for you to cross the road. As you step into the street, the car approaching accelerates causing you to hop back onto the pavement. You are outraged and think the driver is wreckless and selfish. Now let’s switch things around. This time you are the driver approaching the intersection and it is you who accelerates but this time your thinking is different. You were running a bit late for a meeting, your actions were completely justified and reasonable, and anyway, no harm was done. We can be complete hypocrites, right?  When it is you who is the transgressor, your self-protection mechanism kicks in and you bleach your past behavior. You do this because you have the need to be an acceptable partner to yourself. Taking this further when asked directly after the transgression if you would be a repeat offender, you say no with conviction! This condition is called forward-looking myopia. We have proven to be very inadequate at forecasting our future remorse and therefore we break our own commitments because we focus on the now. This flaw blurs our prediction of how we will behave. 

So, what can we learn? 

1. When it comes to our own self-assessment we bleach the past and see the future with rose tinted glasses. 
2. The ability to forego short-term gratification in exchange for long-term reward is a significant indicator of one’s trustworthiness
3. Before you break your own commitments, pause, not to think, but to feel. Transport yourself into the future and test how you will feel after your breach. That is a very effective safeguard
4. When you do let yourself down, up-grade your present by learning from your past

Shane Ward