It’s only a small step from distrust in ruling elites to distrust in the legal system

As soon as the plane door opened at Los Angeles airport, I knew I was in trouble. There at the door was an anxious Cathay Pacific ground staff with a big notice: “Lima: DAVID DODWELL”. All in big capitals. At the best of times transiting Los Angeles is a headache. Landing there late is a guaranteed nightmare.

It was 11.00 at night, and my connecting LAN flight to Lima was due to fly at 12.15. The message was clear: with a rush and expedited passage through immigration, they were confident they could get me on the onward plane. But my suitcase – forget it. They would send it on and deliver to my hotel the following day. So, tired, jetlagged and obedient I was bundled across the sprawling airport and successfully boarded the Lima flight just as the passenger doors were being closed. Whether I ever saw my luggage again was in the hands of Cathay Pacific.

This all-too-common LA trauma got me thinking, as I settled in for another 10 hour flight in a tight economy seat – about trust. There I was entrusting my suitcase to a man I had never met, and would never meet again. I trusted him for one reason only – his Cathay Pacific uniform. With many other airlines, I would have been in a state of total panic. But there are many situations in our daily lives where trust is indispensible, and where a loss of trust can destroy our ability to function efficiently.

The craziness of the Brexit result in the recent UK referendum was in part the result of a collapse of trust in the elites that have traditionally run the country and dominated its politics. A collapse in faith in once-trusted sources of information, like the UK Treasury, or the Bank of England, or the IMF, allowed angry people to fall victim to the siren calls of prejudiced political figures who would in trusting times be wholly ignored as untrustworthy.

In the US, a similar collapse in trust in the Washington elite has prompted millions who in more rational times would know better than to sleep walk behind a modern charlatan Pied Piper. Without trust, even simple things become hard.

About 18 years ago, my small communications company was being wooed by a nameless US communications giant. They came pitching me with a whole suite of proprietary “Trustworks” products. Their mantra was that any company needed to build a positive balance of trust in a sort of “Trust Bank Account”. Having won the trust of their stakeholders – from staff to suppliers and customers, from shareholders to regulators – then even if they tripped up and had to deliver bad news, they would be forgiven. In effect they could draw down on their hard-earned positive trust balance. But with no positive trust balance, then beware how stakeholders will treat you – even when you have good things to tell.