Why are we willing to give someone we trust the benefit of the doubt after they mess up and, you know, hopefully repair the relationship?

Right.

Well, th-this has been, I think, one of my favorite findings from some of our research is that when consumers say they trust the organizations they do business with, when employees say they trust their leaders, in other words, they see them as competent, they see them as having integrity and consistent, they see them as benevolent.

When those companies and those leaders slip up, 'cause none of us are perfect, right? We're gonna mess up every now and then.

People give us the benefit of the doubt.

But I think the key in that trust equation, you know, as we've talked about competence, integrity, and benevolence, I think the key really is benevolence and showing somebody that when I make decisions, when I do things, I, um, I keep you in mind.

I'm thinking about you.

I wonder what role you think the kind of communication that we're all relying on now, the emails, the chat groups, um, the, the chatbots, how is communication playing into the kind of connection that we have at work or our sense of control?

How would an organization go about doing that? And as a follow-up, who's responsible for making sure that happens?

That's a good question, 'cause I think some people would say it's everybody's responsibility, but I think it's well said, if it's everybody's responsibility, then it's no one's, and I think that's very real.

I will first say, I don't think this is HR's responsibility.

I do think HR sh- needs to be a catalyst for it.

They need to be measuring it.

They need to call it out.

But that's a leader responsibility.

[laughs]

Right

... accomplish a shared mission.

Okay.

Humans have always done that.

We just do that today in what we call companies and organizations, but it, I think we gle- we glean a lot if we go way back in time to look at how did the human brain evolve, why did it evolve the way it does, and a lot of it has to do with us being a social species.

So evolutionary hangovers have to do with, well, why do we engage in all this automatic judgment of people? You know, if we run into a mean person in the street, and we, and they, and they, they say something rude to us, or we're dealing with a customer and they lash out at us, and we say, "Man, what an abrasive person," or, "What a rude person." Well, that's a cognitive bias, and what I call an evolutionary hangover.

Essentially, it's something that developed over evolutionary time for a very good reason, but in modern business settings and modern social settings, it can sometimes cause problems, just like hangovers.

Yeah.