Benedict Arnold, Misconstrued History, And the Depths of Trustworthiness-Part Two-
This is part two of our exploration on trustworthiness and radical honesty and maybe our not so big a traitor Benedict Arnold. In this episode, we will explore why trust is a crucial part of companies and why global companies run on trust. If you haven't listened to part one, I encourage you to go back and listen to that first.
Todd: On the business side, I will explain to you why trust runs all successful companies. Forbes and Harvard Business Review did a study and found that it's not sweat or money that make a company run; It's trust. Now, trust is going to touch every area of every business. And research has shown that workers of companies that had high trust levels reported 160% greater energy in the office, 74% lower stress, 76% greater engagement, and had 50% more productivity than their peers in the same position at a low trust company.
Joe: When you say low trust and high trust in a company, what does that look like?
Todd: In a high trust company, when there is some turnover, other people will fill in to do that position. They work for each other. In a low trust company, the number one sign is people covering their own butt all the time. People try to ‘play work,' and bosses try to catch them doing it.
Joe: I've worked at those; those suck. I can see putting that on trust, that you have to trust that each other is working. It also kind of reminds me of people who re-enlistment in the military. They always say it’s for my brothers and sisters and it’s for the people.
Todd: That's a great point. And I think trust doesn't mean you have to be best friends. They don't have to be that way. It’s really all about helping others out when they need it and working as a team. That's what builds trust in the workplace. Another thing is people assume that everyone's doing their best. They're not looking to get their co-workers in trouble. They're assuming they do a good job unless they see evidence of the contrary. It is a toxic cycle of mistrust when you have leaders who are constantly playing bad cop. It just rots the company.
We've talked in our last episode about how we base first impressions of trust on facial features and that showing guilt. Does that mean you can take that to work? If I showed my boss that I genuinely feel guilty for something that I did wrong, does that level up my trust in everyone's eyes? Overall, it can and does. When you step up and say what you've done and ask for help, it shows more respect than if you tried to hide it. People may even be glad you asked for help in the first place. But you got to ask the right person, like a person you can trust who will cover for you if you are running late.
Trust is very human, and it all starts in our brains. Humans are born physically premature, and we are highly dependent on other people to take care of us. We can't survive on our own like many animals can right away because of this need. We're hardwired to make social connections and find people to trust so we can survive. It's like a default position. We just trust so routinely all the time until someone does something weird or against your values. Even more, everybody thinks that their judgment is better than average on gauging someone else's character. According to Harvard Business Review, a professor said he routinely finds that about 95% of his MBA students place themselves in the upper half when it comes to their ability to size people up accurately, including how reliable, trustworthy, honest and fair their classmates are. Also, more than 77% put themselves in the top 25% of the class and 20% put themselves in the top 10. So, this inflated sense of our own judgment makes us very vulnerable because we trust our instincts over facts.
If 95% of people think they're in the upper half of judgment, is that because they haven't been burned enough times? If they did this survey on 65-year-old retirees, how many of them would say that they can gauge someone's trustworthiness? Also, if trust is a function we are born with, and everybody thinks they're good at gauging if somebody is trustworthy or not, what does trust do for us evolution-wise? Why would we be born with this mechanism? Overall, we want trustworthiness in our species. We want to get these social connections so we can get more opportunities. And more opportunities mean more security and comfort.
How does this relate to a low social and economic status? Basically, we talk about how low socio and low socioeconomic status effectively leaves you out of several loops. You don't have as many safety nets as many school choices, and you don't live in better locations. You are slowly funneled into the places where America wants you to live so that you can keep working for higher-ups. If you are in poverty, it's the same as burning out 13 IQ points or something like that. You have less mental capacity to do other things because you are so burdened by the low economy. So, on trust issues with social class, you would think you could trust more people the higher you are. But we have had episodes about how the rich don't lie any less or more than a normal person.
There was a study done where they noted different levels of cars and checked the driver’s age, status, etc. What they found was every lower classed driver stopped when someone was at the crosswalk. But the upper-class drivers, 30% of the drivers didn’t stop. We've covered how wealthy people don't lie any less than others. It just means that they have a different set of priorities, which may not make them trustworthy in the eyes of somebody like me who needed to cross a crosswalk. Now, we talked about how guilt is an indicator of whether or not you are trustworthy. If you have calloused yourself with wealth over the years, you're not going to express guilt about having that Lamborghini or having that BMW. You're going to hit the accelerator.
Joe: When we started writing this episode, you were musing about the idea that maybe trustworthiness could be worth more than being shrewd in business. After reading about trustworthiness. Do you still believe that?
Todd: Absolutely, and it's proven the studies about how businesses do better when people aren't telling all each other and people are stepping up, helping each other out, trusting their boss, and are transparent. I think it's important for a business to be transparent with wins as well as losses. I also think it's very important to become a connector not just in your workplace, but in all your affairs/groups.
Joe: If you zoomed out and look at how friends connect from a distance, it would look like a chemical bond, and the people who are the smartest and most informed are hubs in these networks. They have multiple friend groups. They have multiple workgroups. They are what Todd is calling a connector. I don't think you can be that without high trust. I think all the groups that you connect with have to trust you. You can be a connector either by your proficiency as an expert in something, or you can be a connector to multiple groups just by sheer tenacity and charisma.
Todd: You nailed it. That's the hack - hang around a connector, and you will pick it up, and you will get connected faster. It'll shave years off the process.
I want to clear the air a little bit on Joseph Reed. I want to talk about why he is so trusted and why it might be flim-flam and publicity – why it might be the mere exposure effect where you're out in public so much that people just trusted him because of it. So, let's get a little bit into the supervillain who is trying to take down Arnold. Joseph Reed was a lawyer from Philadelphia, and he was a secretary and aide-de-camp to Washington. Meaning, he was a colonel in the Army, and he was Washington's right-hand man. He was probably up on the hill watching the battle from my safe distance. If you want to talk about trustworthiness, the best example is how much of a shyster Joseph Reed was to Washington.
Now, Washington accidentally opened one of Joseph’s letters and discovered that he had been sending letters behind Washington's back to one of Washington's generals, Charles Lee, who had switched sides. He had served the British in the Seven Years War and had switched to the Americans. The more important note here is that switching sides was pretty darn common, and Washington read how his right-hand man incepted Washington's decisions. Ultimately, Washington stops trusting Joseph Reed and stops taking his advice. Washington doesn't blow up at him or do anything. He simply writes an apology for opening his letter, and that was it. He just leaves him in the cold socially and stops talking to him.
But Joseph Reed kind of made a bounce-back. He was loved by Congress and sided with Congress, making him overall untouchable. He served in battles and was never wounded, likely because he was near Washington. Congress, however, took that to the public and said he was just good at war and being on the battlefield. From there, he was offered the position of brigadier-general, ironically the position Benedict Arnold really wanted. He turned it down and turned down being the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. Now here's a bit of possible propaganda. He was once offered a bribe of 10,000 pounds to help reunite the British and the uppity American colonies. Joseph Reed refused whatever British officer was reaching out. He said he was not worth purchasing, and the king of Britain was not rich enough to do it. It was a very ballsy and very flashy statement. This is why Congress loved him, and he was eventually elected to be a congressman.
Joe: This is a man who effectively bolstered and potentially mythologized his entire reputation and turned down the rank Benedict Arnold wanted. And meanwhile, Benedict Arnold is butting heads with him, almost at every turn, giving somebody the lawyer fees to defend themselves against Reed. Arnold is a serious blood and guts hero from the battlefield, and Washington froze Joseph Reed out. So, these guys are pretty much polar opposites at this point. By 1778, Joseph made it his life's mission to utterly ruin Benedict Arnold. He dragged out a Benedict Arnold trial for months even though there wasn’t anything tangible to convict him on.
Todd: It was a witch hunt for his head.
Joe: That and it was led by the new president of Pennsylvania and the leader of Congress, Joseph Reed. Joseph Reed turned all his power against Arnold. So, if you are Benedict Arnold, the hero of the Revolution so far, and you've got this lawyer on your back and nobody is listening to you for help, how long before you say screw this guy, I’m out?
Final Thoughts
Trustworthiness is skin deep at first. But over time, trustworthiness becomes a matter of guilt. Does the used car salesman seem like he's capable of guilt? Because if someone shows guilt, that they're capable of feeling genuine remorse for their actions, it means they want to be benevolent. If our car salesman watches an 80-year-old widow drive off the lot in a lemon and turns to you and says they felt awful, it demonstrates a sense of right and wrong. Guilt prone equals trustworthy, period.
Benedict Arnold demonstrated guilt writing to Washington, full of grief and vulnerability. Do you know who didn't seem bothered by his guilt? Joseph Reed, the lawyer who badmouthed his commanding officer, hanged pacifists, and moved into an older woman's manner after losing everything. Read felt righteous and justified about it. He was in the correct political party at the moment, and he wore it like white armor wherever he went.
Trustworthiness is necessary to business. Trustworthiness is a hack to get people to buy into your company, and the road sign to trustworthiness is the capacity for guilt. So, I want to ask you an important question. When was the last time you heard anyone in politics, in Congress, or anyone from Facebook or Amazon express profound guilt? We've heard a lot lately how they were justified, right, and did things because it was the American thing to do. Want to know who's going to get my vote? The first politician who says I can do better and means it. We can all do better. And saying it out loud will make you and your business more trustworthy.