Buzzwords of the apocalypse - how to build trust in a time of volatility

The centre must hold. The centre cannot hold.  

The Heft team has attended three different conferences focused on housing, energy, and geopolitics recently, where the erosion of the political centre ground has been dissected in various ways. 

There seems to be a consensus building that, more than ever, democratic politics is not an answer to socio-economic risk; it is the source of it.  Within this consensus, “misinformation”, “social cohesion”, and “polarisation” form the trifecta of buzzwords of the apocalypse, with instability serving as the metric of decline at each turn.  

It is no wonder then that questions of social licence and trust in institutions are coming to the fore again, with the latest lesson from over the ditch in the form of the Optus triple zero outage, which saw three people die while unable to contact emergency services in September. The regulatory impact is that telecoms providers must now maintain a public register of network outages. However, the real temperature check is in some of the responses to the regulator’s review: “woefully inadequate and riddled with conflicts of interest” being the take from one Liberal Senator. Over time, Optus appears to have reached the ceiling of its “reputational credit limit,” and now the regulator has been drawn into the vortex, pulling at another thread of political cohesion and trust.  

Amongst this commentary is a call for New Zealand businesses and organisations to improve their ability to take and manage risk to improve our “woefully inadequate” productivity, and to remain ‘agile in the face of volatility’. It seems like a tall order just when people are at their most exhausted and are looking for political leaders to do more of the heavy lifting, not less.  

But if we take it at face value that the cavalry is not coming, how do the private sector and civil society play their part in holding the centre ground and creating the necessary consensus on key issues? We can wring our hands all we like – but what is to be done? 

Prepare for mis- and disinformation like it's a communicable disease.  

Prevention is always better than a cure. So it goes for treating misinformation (inaccurate information spread by mistake) and disinformation (intentional campaigns designed to spread discord). Our information environment is decaying, but businesses and organisations can protect themselves through early detection and rapid response.  Forums such as Reddit are serving as early warning systems for emerging reputation and misinformation concerns, while disinformation campaigns should be seen as an “all-in” issue that must involve skin in the game from government, the private sector, and civil society alike. 

Be human.  

People trust people, and with the rise of AI and a dwindling pool of journalists in the news media, the imperative of direct, human relationships in creating trust and responding to volatility cannot be understated. An example of this in action is to be found in New Zealand’s recent local election turnout numbers. Smaller councils had better voter turnout:

The Chatham Islands led the way with 68.34%, while Kaikoura had a turnout of 59.37%. Compared with Auckland, which saw a 28% turnout, these smaller communities demonstrate one of our national superpowers: connectedness.

In small towns, you’re more likely to know someone running for office and the effort to support them (or vote someone else out) holds more personal value.  

Strengthen your governance. 

Stakeholders differentiate between unavoidable catastrophes and failures stemming from inadequate systems, governance, or risk management. The latter destroys trust much faster (again, see Optus). So, ensuring that governance is structured in favour of the ability to collaborate meaningfully and respond to rapid changes in the external operating environment is increasingly essential. Which brings me to...  

Design for the edge case. 

It is no longer enough to design for averages. When it comes to weather and politics, we’re in a time of extremes. Get used to it. How we ensure we are building redundancies for worst-case scenarios is critical to the resilience of our physical and social infrastructure. More than that, the space we create for ourselves to reimagine local and distributed systems and really get under the hood of what communities want and need can help us weather the storms of both malcontent and Mother Nature.

Localised energy systems, citizens’ assemblies like that held by Te Rūnanga o Toa Rangatira in Porirua, and community and iwi housing partnerships have all risen to the surface as solutions for the “edge case”. How are you building this thinking into your organisation?  

Always-on trust building.  

Be aware that objects in the rearview mirror may appear smaller than they are (with apologies to Meatloaf). Just because you’ve put a shock behind you, it doesn’t mean that it’s over. The Optus example shows the compounding nature of trust and distrust, and it is critical that all types of organisations understand what their “always on” approach to trust building is. This is not to say that it needs to be resource-hungry. But it does require focus, strategy, and a certain humility about leading in service of people. Particularly prickly people who are distracted and uncertain.  

Arrogance is the enemy of influence – don't assume people care about your position or remember something positive you did for a few people a few years ago. Your current and active approach is what matters to your organisation and to the pushback against the buzzwords of the apocalypse.