New models for building digital trust

How can large organizations, facing increasingly complex disruptions, build digital trust with their stakeholders?

People are deeply confused about the difference between trust and reliability. Typically, when people are talking about digital systems, they’re actually talking about reliability or competence. But that’s not human trust. Human trust is understanding what a person’s motivations are, and believing they’ve got your back. You can anticipate what they’ll do. You know why they are acting the way they do.

This is something that is forgotten very often in constructing digital systems. Data is the clearest example. I’m going to deliver this service to you, and then without really making it clear, we’re going to sell your data on the side. That’s a violation of trust. A consequence is that if I don’t understand your business model and what you are offering me and what the value is to you, I can’t trust you. It’s that transparency in value, the relationship, and the motivations that are often left on the floor when people talk about digital systems.

All of these dynamics are forgotten when people make digital systems. And that’s, in many ways, the fundamental error. A breakdown in this understanding is a pretty good approximation for the situations I’ve seen where issues of trust come up.

Source: https://www2.deloitte.com/us/en/insights/topics/digital-transformation/the-importance-of-digital-trust-qa.html

Herlina