A dealer once told me that one of his original bosses could merely look at a customer and tell if he was a credit risk. Another proudly said that at his store, a contractor could drive his pickup into the yard and have a stock-puller throw a bunch of 2x4s into it without the truck ever stopping; the bill would be sent later and paid without question. Trust and a handshake were all the business principles our forefathers needed, we hear.
Why bring this up now? Because we’re finishing a presidential campaign in which I bet the word “lie” was used in more headlines and stories than ever before. Our elections always have been about trust, but all the talk about lying has given this campaign much more sinister undertones. I fear that mistrust will spill over into how we operate as businesses.
I’m no Pollyanna, naively believing everyone is pure of heart. Our addition of Thea Dudley’s credit and collections column shows our belief that it’s vital to keep close watch on how well customers meet their commitments. That said, however, I’d rather start by trusting people than by assuming everything they say is a lie.
Trust lubricates relationships; lies clog up the gears. Trustworthiness is open and assumed; lying is covert, unrevealed until proven to have occurred. Trust requires responsibility; lies require planned malice.
As a journalist, I’ve grown uncomfortable seeing the judgments that the national press corps increasingly engages in as they report what Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton said (or tweeted). I also understand why they do it. It’s a reporter’s job to check facts and allegations—“If your mother says she loves you, check it out” is an old newsroom saying. But when revealing mistruths takes up most of a reporter’s time and copy, the story and the reader suffer. And when reporters say a candidate “lied,” it implies they can look into the candidates’ hearts and minds and divine their true intentions. It’s too bad no better, alternative word is as headline-friendly. Were there one, the reporting might not have made our national conversation so raw and coarse. But here we are.
Let’s keep this election from accelerating society’s shift away from trust and toward suspicion. I still believe the vast majority of Americans are good and prefer to follow the rules. Every time I come to an intersection, I have to trust the other drivers will observe the right of way and check for pedestrians. That faith in others is what lies beneath how we drive, how we do business, and how we act as a society. Our businesses and our country’s future depend on it.
