In an age of grievance, find every opportunity to listen

How does hyper-personalization of information impact trust?

We began with thought bubbles. If I was on the left, I read a certain thing. If I was on the right, I read a certain thing. It’s morphed into a self-reference: I’m my own content creator. As a patient, I believe that, through search, I can find information that makes me as informed as my doctor about health outcomes. I’m rejecting expertise because my experience is as important as a professional’s lifetime of experience.

I spoke in Davos this year with the President of Dartmouth University. She feels that her students, the kids in high school during COVID-19, lost the ability to engage, particularly with people who don’t share their beliefs or points of view. If I can no longer have a dialogue with you because you don’t share my views, does that mean I don’t trust you? And how might I regain that trust or re-establish that ability to engage?

Research by Cambridge University and Google indicates that a Gen Z person reads an article by looking at the headline, reading the comments, and then deciding whether the article is fair – and only then reading the article. It speaks to a crowdsourcing of opinion. Gen Z has established its own health ecosystem of information: social, friends, and family, rejecting anything that’s top-down and establishment.

Peter Maurer, the former President of the International Committee of the Red Cross, once said that almost all conflict comes back to a sense of fairness. What does that mean for the way people make decisions and form opinions?

Fairness in a post-George Floyd world meant equity and, in a certain way, an ability to make up for historical shortcomings, such as racism, etc. That’s been recast as the need to have opportunity. We can’t guarantee outcomes, but we can ensure people get a fair shot. Our research shows deep skepticism among the young that they’re going to do as well as the previous generation. Only 9% of French and 15% of Germans believe they’ll be better off than their parents. It’s the first generation that doesn’t believe they’re going to do better. That’s what creates this whole theory of hostile activism. More than half of Gen Z believe they are entitled to damage property, spread disinformation, or any other way to show their dissatisfaction. That’s a stunning finding that, in some way, may explain the horrible shooting of the insurance executive (UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson) in New York.

What do you think leaders need to be comfortable with ambiguity while giving people confidence that we’re going in the right direction?

It’s a tricky balance. The presumption has always been that innovation is a public good, and this generation doesn’t see that. What this generation sees is that AI is going to take away the jobs of programmers, agency creatives, or any number of others. That there’s been a lot of lip service, but no specific program oriented to upskilling, so they’re going to be left behind. Put that on top of fears of climate change, inflation, and downward economic mobility, and you’ve got a very toxic brew.

The solution that many politicians put forward is: let’s go back to the good old times. Let’s go back to nationalism and local sourcing. That’s certainly a questionable policy program, but that nationalism is on the rise is true and that people are agitated is also true. It’s fascinating to see that business continues to be the most trusted institution by far, significantly more competent – like 50 points – and 30 points more ethical than government in most cases. It’s also fascinating to see that single-party states perform much better on trust in developing countries than democracies.