Trust is not given, it’s built | Guilherme Athia | TEDxLeidenUniversity

Key Concepts:

• Trust as a built, not given, entity.
• Trust as the currency of human relationships.
• The age of opinion: Mobilizing social media users, simplicity of commenting, and access to vast information.
• Trust pillars: The foundation of a trust strategy.
• MEMO framework: Map, Execute, Measure, Optimize.

1. Introduction: The Personal Anecdote

• The speaker, Guillia, introduces herself by recounting her childhood experience of trying to contribute to dinner table conversations, highlighting her early desire to belong and be heard.
• She emphasizes that this early experience taught her a valuable lesson: "trust isn't given, it's built."
• She connects this personal anecdote to her later experiences in meeting rooms, boardrooms, classrooms, and international negotiations, where trust remained a key factor.

2. The Importance of Trust

• Trust is defined as "the true currency of human relationships."
• It is essential for various aspects of life, including careers, raising children, opening businesses, and driving change.
• Trust enables turning strangers into allies, encourages risk-taking, and provides stability during challenging times.
• The speaker acknowledges the common experience of feeling misunderstood and promises to provide a tool for more precise communication.

3. Professional Background and Challenges

• The speaker shares her experience working in global corporations, leading corporate affairs and interacting with governments, NGOs, media, and international organizations.
• She describes her role as a "non-transactional stakeholder," focusing on exchanging ideas, perspectives, and data.
• She recounts feeling like the child at the junior table during meetings with finance and sales colleagues because corporate affairs didn't directly generate revenue, making it difficult to prove its value.
• To address this, she collaborated with finance and sales to quantify the impact of her team's plans, leading to increased trust and recognition.
• She also shares an experience as a professor where an overly prepared lecture resulted in low trust from students, which she rectified by shifting to a facilitator role.

4. Trust in the Digital Age: The Age of Opinion

• The speaker introduces the concept of the "age of opinion," characterized by:
  • Five billion social media users mobilizing, dividing, and fragmenting people.
  • The ease of commenting, posting, liking, and disliking anything at any time.
  • Access to vast amounts of information from various sources, including media, social media, books, online programs, and AI tools like ChatGPT.
• She notes that while it has never been easier to speak, it has also never been more complicated to trust.
• The speaker warns of the risk of being labeled and "canceled" due to misunderstandings or controversial comments.
• Trust is presented as not only a moral value but also a survival skill and a competitive advantage for individuals and organizations.

5. The MEMO Framework: A Practical Approach to Building Trust

• To navigate the complexities of the age of opinion, the speaker introduces the MEMO framework: Map, Execute, Measure, Optimize.

  • Map:
    • Involves asking three key questions:
      • "Who am I now?" (What's my DNA? What's my goal? How do I want to be perceived?)
      • "Who are the people that matter most in that journey?" (Individuals, groups, or companies)
      • "How do I want to be trusted?" (By myself, my company, or others that matter)
    • Combining the answers to these questions creates "trust pillars" for specific goals or time periods.
    • Examples of trust pillars:
      • A young professional aiming to be trusted as a solid team player.
      • A parent striving to be emotionally present.
      • A company committed to "walking their talk" with investors, employees, consumers, and society.
  • Execute:
    • Involves implementing trust pillars with clarity and precision.
    • Emphasizes the importance of doing what you say you will do.
    • Acknowledges that perfection is not required, but dependability is essential.
  • Measure:
    • Highlights that trust is not an assumption but a perception.
    • Suggests using surveys to measure perception.
    • Examples of measurement:
      • A parent noticing a friend's behavior.
      • A leader actively listening.
      • A company collecting data.
  • Optimize:
    • Recognizes that trust is dynamic and evolves over time.
    • Encourages adaptation and learning from failures.
    • Frames failure as part of a virtual cycle, not a vicious one.

6. Practical Application and Conclusion

• The speaker prompts the audience to think about a goal and apply the three mapping questions to create their own trust pillars.
• She emphasizes that this process will lead to more precise communication.
• She references her book, "Get the Memo," and reiterates the importance of focus in the age of opinion, stating, "in the age of opinion you either focus or you fail."
• She concludes by stating that she is not someone who has earned the world's trust but someone who is building it in every occasion.
• She reiterates that "trust isn't given, it's a commitment and it starts with an intention."
• Her intention is to build trust with the audience, inviting them to join her in this endeavor.

Main Takeaways/Synthesis:

The presentation emphasizes that trust is not a passive gift but an active construction, especially crucial in today's information-saturated and opinionated world. The MEMO framework provides a structured approach to building and maintaining trust by mapping out desired perceptions, executing actions aligned with those perceptions, measuring the actual impact, and optimizing strategies based on feedback. The speaker's personal anecdotes and professional experiences underscore the importance of consistency, dependability, and genuine engagement in fostering trust across various contexts, from personal relationships to corporate environments.