The "Trust Hormone"

I read an interesting book by Daniel Coyle on corporate culture called The Culture Code: The Secrets of Highly Successful Groups a few years ago. Coyle studied a number of great teams, including Pixar, the San Antonio Spurs (specifically, the teams that won the NBA Finals in 1999, 2003, 2005, 2007, and 2014), and the U.S. Navy SEALs and found that great organizations are not created by talent alone.  Rather, great organizations build cultures of excellence through specific behaviors that foster trust, cooperation, and commitment.  Coyle wrote that "culture is one of the most powerful forces on the planet. We sense its presence inside successful businesses, championship teams, and thriving families, and we sense when it’s absent or toxic."  However, he also emphasized that culture is "not something you are. It’s something you do."  The great organizations that he studied created strong cultures by fostering trust through psychological safety, cooperation through shared vulnerability, and commitment through purpose and meaning.

I hear a lot about culture these days.  Laszlo Bock, previously the Senior Vice President of People Operations at Google and author of Work Rules! said, "Culture underpins everything we do at Google."  It's no wonder that culture was Merriam-Webster's Word of the Year in 2014!  Culture is what truly separates the great organizations from merely good ones. 

Unfortunately, many organizations struggle with creating the kind of culture that both Coyle and Bock talk about in their books.  For example, a survey of 200,000 employees at over 500 companies reported that 71% of companies have mediocre to poor cultures (see Bourree Lam's article in The Atlantic "Why do workers feel so unhappy?").  Paul Zak, who wrote The Trust Factor: The Science of Creating High-Performance Companies believes that lack of trust is one of the major reasons why organizations do not succeed.  Trust is the foundation of corporate culture.  Without trust, there is no psychological safety.  Without trust, there is no shared vulnerability.  Without trust, there is no commitment.

Trust drives not only corporate culture, but also workforce engagement.  Zak cited statistics from the 2015 Society for Human Resource Management Employee Job Satisfaction and Engagement Survey that suggested that trust between employees and senior management was the second most important contributor to job satisfaction (only "respectful treatment of all employees" was chosen more than trust).  Google's Project Aristotle studied 180 high-performing teams and found that the best predictor of high performance was a culture of trust.  Finally, the Canadian economist John Helliwell found that a 10% increase in employee trust in a company's leaders has the same impact on life satisfaction as a 36% increase in salary!

A culture of trust isn't built with mission statements.  It must be cultivated through daily actions by leaders.  Zak identified eight leadership practices that help to build a culture of trust. Together they form the acronym OXYTOCIN (recall from my post "Trust, Loyalty, and a Story About a Dog..." that the neurohormone oxytocin mediates trust between humans.  Zak (and others) have called oxytocin the "trust hormone".  

Ovation: Leaders need to recognize and celebrate achievements in meaningful ways.  Recognizing individuals who contribute to the organization's success goes a very long way to building trust.

eXpectation: Leaders should set clear, challenging goals and provide feedback.  I've mentioned so-called SMART goals in the past (see my posts "Clear the mechanism" and "Engaged and burned out?").  Leaders can build trust by clearly communicating expectations about roles and responsibilities, who has decision-making authority (see more on this below), and what measures will be used to determine success.  When leaders set so-called "stretch goals" (see my posts, "Pygmalion" and "Think big, act small"), they show that they are confident in their teams and believe that they can be perform at a high level.

Yield: Leaders need to give people autonomy over how they accomplish their work.  Empowerment builds trust!  The New United Motor Manufacturing, Inc.(NUMMI) was a historic automobile manufacturing plant in Fremont, California that was operated as a joint venture between General Motors and Toyota from 1984 to 2010.  Prior to the joint venture with Toyota, the employees at the GM plant were considered "the worst workforce in the automobile industry in the United States."  The plant was known for poor quality, constant strikes, and high absenteeism.  Instead of replacing the staff, Toyota kept 85% of the original GM workers and the United Auto Workers (UAW) union. By empowering employees with the famous Andon cord (Toyota Production System) to stop the assembly line when issues arose, and focusing on teamwork and mutual trust, absenteeism and defect rates.  Similarly, Best Buy once implemented what was called a "Results Only Work Environment (ROWE)" whose main focus was on workforce autonomy.  Unfortunately, despite impressive results, ROWE was later abandoned after a change in executive leadership.

Transfer: Leaders should delegate authority rather than merely assigning tasks.  I've mentioned the book Turn The Ship Around! by David Marquet several times in the past (see "Fix the environment, not the people...", "Turning around the ship...", "Classic Rookie Manager Mistakes", "The definition of power is the transfer of energy...", and "The power of empowerment").  Marquet assumed command of the USS Santa Fe, a nuclear-powered submarine which was perhaps one of the worst commands in the fleet.  Using what you will recognize essentially as High Reliability Organizations leadership principles (particularly "Deference to Expertise"), Captain Marquet turned the USS Santa Fe into one of the best commands in the fleet.  Zak also mentioned the Dutch home nursing company Buurtzorg Nederland, which implemented a self-governing model for its home health nurses (essentially "deference to expertise").  By placing nurses in charge, Buurtzorg has earned high patient and employee ratings and consistently provides high-quality home care at lower cost than other organizations.

Openness: Leaders should share information transparently and solicit input and feedback from their teams.  One of the simplest ways that leaders can demonstrate vulnerability and build trust is by admitting their mistakes.  As Jim Whitehurst writes in the Harvard Business Review ("Be a Leader Who Can Admit Mistakes"), "Being accessible, answering questions, admitting mistakes, and saying you’re sorry aren’t liabilities. They are exactly the tools you can use to build your credibility and authority to lead."

Caring: Leaders should focus on building genuine relationships and demonstrate empathy.  I am reminded of the late Paul H. O'Neill, who served as Chairman and CEO at Alcoa and later Chairman at the RAND Corporation, before serving as the 72nd U.S. Secretary of the Treasury under President George W. Bush.  I had the pleasure of meeting Secretary O'Neill during my tenure at Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center.  Secretary O'Neill was famous for engineering a remarkable turnaround at Alcoa by focusing on making Alcoa one of the safest places to work.  During his inaugural speech as CEO at Alcoa, he said, "I want to talk to you about worker safety.  Every year, numerous Alcoa workers are injured so badly that they miss a day of work. Our safety record is better than the general American workforce, especially considering that our employees work with metals that are 1500 degrees and machines that can rip a man’s arm off. But it’s not good enough. I intend to make Alcoa the safest company in America. I intend to go for zero injuries."  And he did.  

Invest: Leaders should help people grow both professionally and personally.  Leaders should be advocates, coaches, mentors, and sponsors.  Professional development through coaching and mentorship is a long-term strategy, but it's a vital one.  As Doug Flaig writes in Forbes magazine, "Organizations that invest in mentorship are not only preparing individuals for success but are also strengthening their own future. As mentees grow into leaders, they often become mentors themselves, creating a culture of learning and development that perpetuates success."

Natural: Leaders should lead authentically, admitting their mistakes and showing vulnerability.  Zak wrote, "A Natural leader is a servant leader.  A servant leader's primary focus is helping members of the organization be successful and fulfilled human beings."

Zak mentioned the Scandinavian concept of Arbejdsglaed, which literally means "happiness at work" or "joy at work".  He stated that Arbejdsglaed depends upon trust and purpose.  I've posted about purpose and meaning in the past (see most recently, "It's a wonderful life").  And while purpose and meaning are critically important, trust is equally so.  Without trust, there is no psychological safety, no shared vulnerability, and no commitment.  And without those things, there is no joy.  And without joy, there is no culture.  And without culture, the organization will not succeed.  And it all starts with the "Trust Hormone" (OXYTOCIN).

Chance discovery of a national treasure...

Imagine for a moment what it would feel like to stumble upon an old copy of the United States Declaration of Independence.  I'm talking about finding an actual copy of the Declaration from the same year that it was written, 1776!  Well, that apparently just recently happened.  Michael Scurr, a retired insurance broker living in London, England has been volunteering at the National Archives in London for more than a decade.  This past May, Scurr was cataloging boxes of a Royal British Navy ship captain's correspondence from the American Revolutionary War period.  While unfolding an old document, he noted the word "Declaration" at the top and immediately called his supervisor, who confirmed Scurr's discovery.

Experts at the National Archive confirmed that Scurr had found a rare copy of the Declaration that was printed in Exeter, New Hampshire and published in the New Hampshire Gazette or Exeter Morning Chronicle between July 16 and 19 of the year 1776.  Only ten other copies of the so-called Exeter Declarations are known to exist today, and apparently all of them have been found in the United States, making this the first and only copy to have been found outside the United States. 

The newly discovered copy is thought to have belonged to an American privateer named Eleazer Johnson, who was the captain of the Dalton.  He likely read the Declaration aloud to his crew after reading his commission and orders, so that his men knew what they were fighting for.  The Dalton was captured by the Royal British Navy ship HMS Raisonnable off the coast of Portugal on December 24, 1776.  Captain Johnson threw all of the ship's written records, log books, and code books into the water before the British sailors came aboard, saving only three documents: his commission, his orders from the Continental Congress, and the copy of the Declaration.

Thomas Fitzherbert, the captain of the HMS Raisonnable, sent the copy of the Declaration to the Admiralty, which subsequently forwarded the document to the National Archives, where it was finally discovered by chance by Scurr earlier this year.  The document is believed to be the only copy of the United States Declaration of Independence to be captured in a military action.  The newly discovered Exeter Declaration is currently on display at the National Archives.

All of this makes for a very interesting story, particularly as it happened around the same time that all of us in America were celebrating the 250th anniversary of the signing of our founding document, the Declaration of Independence.  I have been personally celebrating our nation's 250th birthday this year by reading about our history, particularly the events that happened leading up to the American Revolution.  I came across mention of what is called the Sherman copy of the Declaration of Independence.  The so-called Sherman Copy is a rare, early draft of the Declaration of Independence likely used by Roger Sherman in June of 1776. 

As many of you may know, the Continental Congress commissioned a "Committee of Five" to draft the Declaration of Independence - John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, Robert Livingston, and Roger Sherman.  Everyone remembers Adams, Franklin, and Jefferson, though few probably know about Livingston's and Sherman's contributions to the Declaration.  Notably, Sherman should be recognized for the fact that he and Robert Morris are the only two Founders who signed all three of our founding documents, the Declaration of Independence, the Articles of Confederation, and the United States Constitution.

The Sherman Copy contains several edits to the document, as well as a short note, likely written by John Adams (who, based on handwriting analysis is thought to have copied the entire draft from an earlier draft), stating simply, "A beginning perhaps – Original with Jefferson – Copied from Original with T.P.'s permission."  Who was Adams referring to when he said, "...with T.P.'s permission"?  Some scholars believe that he was referring to Founder Thomas Paine.

I don't know about you, but I didn't learn very much about Thomas Paine, other than the fact that he wrote the pamphlet Common Sense, which was published anonymously on January 10, 1776 and became an immediate sensation.  In fact, the 47 page pamphlet is still being published today and thought to be the number one selling American publication of all time.  Common Sense made an excellent case that the American colonists should be pushing for complete separation, i.e. independence, from England.  It would be fair to say that Paine had as much, and in some cases, more, influence on American independence than the other, better known founders.  Even John Adams said, "Without the pen of Paine, the sword of Washington would have been wielded in vain."

So why then do we Americans know so little about Thomas Paine, at least when compared to Founders such as George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, the Adams cousins (John and Sam), Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and Alexander Hamilton?  For one, Paine was more radical than some of his fellow Founders, particularly when it came to how much power should be given to the people.  Madison was famously wary of the so-called "tyranny of the majority" and designed our government with the goal of limiting the influence of the popular majority in order to protect the rights of the minority.  Paine argued for a strict democracy based on the popular will of the majority.  Many of the Founders recognized that giving to much power to the majority could lead to tyranny, as manifest during the French Revolution of 1789 which evolved in subsequent years to a "Reign of Terror".  Paine himself was both a hero in France for his political views, as well as a participant in the French Revolution (ironically, he was later imprisoned during the "Reign of Terror" and narrowly escaped the guillotine).  Finally, Paine was later condemned for his religious views - he was particularly vocal about his opposition to any form of organized religion, though he still believed in God.  At least at that time in America, that was not the popular sentiment.

All of this is to say that there is a lot more to learn and know about our American history.  I do think it is our duty as citizens of the United States to learn both the good and the bad about our history as a nation.  We should take this opportunity during the year of the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence to learn more about all the men and women who helped make our country what it is today.  In order to understand where we are going as a country, we absolutely need to fully understand where we came from.

The Big Sort

We live in a highly polarized society, or at least that's what the experts are telling us.  The American journalist Bill Bishop wrote an interesting book called The Big Sort: Why the Clustering of Like-Minded Americans is Tearing Us Apart that explains how and why we have become so polarized.  According to Bishop, Americans have spent the last several decades sorting themselves (sometimes consciously, but at other times unconsciously) into alarmingly homogeneous communities at the local level (city and neighborhood).  As our neighborhoods have become more homogeneous, we tend to select where we live and what we pay attention to based on what is most compatible with our own lifestyles and beliefs.  As a result, society is now more polarized than perhaps it ever was, such that people don't know and can't understand other people who live just a few miles away.

A few years ago, I took a MOOC (Massive Open Online Class) called "Models Thinking" by the University of Michigan professor Scott Page.  In one of the sessions, Dr. Page introduced Schelling's Model of Segregation (see an online simulation here), based upon a 1969 study by the game theorist Thomas Schelling in the journal, American Economic Review.  It's a really interesting model that shows how individuals' mild in-group preferences (i.e. mildly preferring neighbors from the same group) can unexpectedly produce highly segregated neighborhoods, even when no one wants a completely segregated society (Schelling referred to these mild preferences as "Micro-motives" and the outcomes that they produced as "Macro-behavior" and used that as a title for one of his books).  When those in-group preferences become even stronger, the neighborhood quickly becomes very homogenous to the point where, as Bill Bishop's research also suggests, they are all members of the in-group.  

Bishop suggests that there are several explanations for the so-called "Big Sort".  Most Americans (but certainly not all) have greater freedom to choose where they live.  If they don't like a particular neighborhood, for whatever reason, they are free to move to another one.  Bishop cites a wealth of data showing that educated professionals, retirees, religious groups, and even individuals with certain political views (conservative vs liberal) are gravitating towards neighborhoods and communities where they feel comfortable, i.e. where there are people like them.  For example, just looking at the two major political parties in the U.S. today, the majority of individuals in big cities tend to vote for the Democrats, while the majority of individuals living in rural areas tend to vote for the Republicans.  The "Big Sort" affects more than just neighborhoods - churches and social organizations are also becoming more homogenous, attracting individuals who all think alike and have the same values, beliefs, and views.   

Businesses and political campaigns are increasingly using data to identify and appeal to narrow lifestyle groups, which also contributes to the "Big Sort".  Several years ago, John O'Toole published an editorial in the Journal of Advertising that called attention to the fact that targeted marketing campaigns segmented individuals based on a small set of demographics.  Unfortunately, the strategy employed didn't always get things right.  He described the following individual as a profile for a specific marketing campaign:

A woman.  25 to 35 age group.  Family income over $15,000 [this was 1973 by the way].  Urban. Working. College graduate. Let's say a college like Finch in New York.  2 to 3 members of household. White. Probably comes from an upper-income family herself with professional or executive father who belongs to Republican Party.

O'Toole then proceeded to explain that this marketing profile describes both Tricia Nixon Cox, daughter of then President Richard Nixon, as well as Grace Slick, who was the lead singer in the rock-n-roll band Jefferson Airplane.  Look them up - these two women could not be any more different in their political views or personalities!  O'Toole's point was that any marketing campaign designed for the aforementioned profile, which he admitted was probably more detailed than most, would probably not be the correct one.  Bishop's point is that this kind of segmentation only serves to reinforce segregation - "Micro-motives" produce "Macro-behavior".

Bishop goes on to show why the "Big Sort" is a problem for all of us.  He cites several research studies showing like-minded groups tend to become even more extreme the longer they spend time together.  For example, the American legal scholar and author Cass Sunstein co-wrote (with David Schkade) an important op/ed piece in 2003 for the New York Times ("Judging by where you sit"), reporting that when politically like-minded judges sit together on a three-judge panel, they become significantly more extreme in their rulings.  For example, conservative judges vote even more conservatively when sitting with two other Republicans, while liberal judges shift further left with two other Democrats.  Conversely, when a Republican judge sits with at least one Democrat, or a Democratic judge sits with at least one Republican, the judges tends to rule much closer to the ideological center.

Sunstein followed up his 2003 op/ed piece with a book, Why Societies Need Dissent, in which he argued that groups function better when they encourage dissent, as it prevents groupthink and promotes better decision-making.  As like-minded groups start to think more and more alike, they become even more polarized and extreme in their viewpoints.  As someone once said, "What begins as a preference becomes conviction, which turns into the group identity."  The consequences include increased polarization, declining trust in opposing groups, and reduced capacity for compromise.

Bishop suggests that the greatest threat to democratic society today is the gradual disappearance over time of places where people with different views regularly interact.  When we all increasingly live, worship, work, and socialize only with other individuals who think exactly like us, our existing beliefs and views become even stronger, making compromise even harder.  As Sunstein stated, "Organizations and nations are far more likely to prosper if they welcome dissent and promote openness."  Welcoming dissent and promoting a more open society begins with each and every one of us.  Only we can choose to move out of our own personal comfort zones to live, worship, work, and socialize with other individuals who may not think exactly like us.

"Only the disciplined ones are free in life..."

I've mentioned the Kenyan marathoner Eliud Kipchoge a few times in the past (see "Almost doesn't count, except in horseshoes and hand grenades" and "Blind taste tests and the universal laws of success").  The first time was in the context of his goal to try to be the first long-distance runner to finish a marathon in under 2 hours, while the second time focused on a concept from the book, The Formula: The Universal Laws of Success by  Albert Laszlo-Barabasi (the fact that performance is bounded, but success is not).  I have more to say on goals (and our level of motivation to achieve these goals, depending upon how close we are to achieving them), but for today's post, I want to focus on one of Kipchoge's great quotes.  Kipchoge, who is considered one of the greatest marathon runners of all time, gave a speech at the Oxford Union in England in 2017.  He said, "Only the disciplined ones are free in life. If you aren’t disciplined, you are a slave to your moods.  You are a slave to your passions. That’s a fact."

I've thought about Kipchoge's quote a lot lately.  I understand the self-discipline that is required to successfully train for a marathon, as I have run three marathons during the past 10 years or so.  I stopped running regularly about 2 years ago, which was not good for me.  For the past 6 months or so, I've been slowly building my endurance back up to the point where I can run three miles at a time and feel pretty good.  In order to save my hips and knees, I've committed to only running every other day.  I've learned that the discipline required to maintain my every other day running schedule is just as hard.  Discipline is important.

Kipchoge's quote suggests to me that true freedom - the kind that lasts anyway - comes from self-discipline and not from doing whatever we feel like doing.  If we learn to control our habits, emotions, and impulses, we are making a conscious decision and effort to stay focused on our purpose and our long-term goals, not on our moods on any given moment, which are temporary.  That is liberating in and of itself.  If we do not have self-discipline, we are controlled by our emotions and moods - even though we may feel "free" at first, the reality is that we are "slaves" to our emotions and passions.  We are no longer living our own best life.

Kipchoge's quote is a powerful reminder of why self-discipline is so important.  Breaking a good habit is worse than breaking a bad one.  It takes discipline to maintain good habits.

"Trust is the glue of life..."

I've been posting about the so-called five Waves of Trust, a concept developed by Stephen M.R. Covey in his book, The Speed of Trust: The One Thing That Changes Everything.  I introduced the topic in a post from last November, "Change happens at the speed of trust..."  Again, Covey compares trust to the well-known ripple effect, in which waves start out small at the center and become larger and more powerful as they move and expand outward.  He describes five "waves of trust" to drive home the point that trust begins with oneself and expands outward to relationships, organizations, the market, and society.  

Covey said, "Trust is the glue of life."  Today, we will cover the third, fourth, and fifth Waves of Trust, which Covey collectively describes as "Stakeholder Trust":

The third Wave of Trust is Organizational Trust.  Here, Covey refers to a concept called the "Economics of Trust" - he is simply using the analogy of a bank.  Organizations (and to be honest, the analogy works for individuals as well), are always paying a "Trust Tax" or earning a "Trust Dividend".  If the dividends are greater than the taxes, the organization builds up its "Trust Account Balance."  Organizations build up their account balance based upon how well they align systems, processes, and culture.

Covey describes seven common "Trust Taxes" that create unnecessary bureaucracy, red tape, inefficiency, and suspicion.

1. Redundancy

2. Bureaucracy

3. Politics

4. Disengagement

5. Turnover

6. Churn

7. Fraud

The management theorist Laurence Peter (who is most famous for describing the eponymous "Peter Principle") said, "Bureaucracy defends the status quo, long past the time when the quo has lost its status."  

On the dividend side, Covey described seven common "Trust Dividends" that foster open communication, collaboration, efficiency, and speed to action ("Speed of Trust").

1. Increased value

2. Accelerated growth

3. Enhanced innovation

4. Improved collaboration

5. Stronger partnering

6. Better execution

7. Heightened loyalty

Organizations should focus on increasing the Dividends and decreasing the Taxes!  I won't spend as much time on the fourth and fifth Waves of Trust, but I do not wish to diminish their importance.  The fourth Wave of Trust is Market Trust and refers to the level of trust between the organization and its customers and stakeholders.  Market Trust describes an organization's reputation in the marketplace.  If an organization consistently delivers  on its promises, Market Trust will increase.

The fifth and final Wave of Trust is Societal Trust and refers to the level of trust within the community.  Organizations have an important role to play on building mutual trust within the community.  He refers to the concept of "Corporate Social Responsibility".   Organizations should act as good citizens within broader society by protecting the environment, investing in communities, and dealing fairly with stakeholders.  Integrity and ethics are key here.

Overall, I thought Covey's book was superb, and I highly recommend it.  Given the widespread (and growing even more so) lack of trust in society today, I think we can learn a lot from Covey's book.  Carol Stephenson wrote an excellent article on trust entitled "Rebuilding trust: The integral role of leadership in fostering values, honesty and vision" (unfortunately, I can't find a link to the article on the Internet).  I will conclude with what she thinks about leadership and trust.  She said, "A leader must do three things.  First, leaders must not only talk about their ethical values, they must live those values - every day - and in every action they take.  Second, leaders must create a climate of trust and compassion based on open communication.  And third, leaders must embrace a strong vision or purpose for their organization, and that vision and purpose must take into consideration both the economic and the social impact of the business."  And with that, you have the Five Waves of Trust in a nutshell.

"Stay away from easy..."

I was always taught by my parents and coaches to always be a good sport.  While winning was important, what was even more so was how a player or team won.  And if you ever happened to be on the losing side of things, acting with grace, humility, and respect was part of good sportsmanship too.  Unfortunately, not everyone places as high of a premium on good sportsmanship.  There are many athletes and coaches who subscribe to a "win at all costs" philosophy.  Apparently former professional tennis player Andy Roddick isn't that kind of athlete.  

When Andy Roddick retired from professional tennis in 2015, he had an overall professional record of 615-213 with 32 career titles (including the 2003 U.S. Open) and a former number one ranking to his list of accomplishments.  However, I will always be most impressed by what Roddick did in the 2005 Italian Championship.  He was the top seed in the tournament, but he was defeated in the quarterfinals by Fernando Verdasco in three sets (6-7, 7-6, 6-4).  During the second set, Roddick was leading 5-3 with triple match point.  In other words, he would have three chances to win the point and move on to the next round.  The line judge called Verdasco's serve out, which would have given Roddick the match win.  Roddick, however, insisted that the ball was in, forcing the umpire to reverse the call, giving the point to Verdasco (see a video clip here).  Verdasco would go on to win the game, the set, and the match.  Notably, Verdasco would lose in the next round. 

Unfortunately, as I stated, not everyone in Roddick's shoes would have insisted that the ball was in.  His sportsmanship ultimately cost him the match (and likely a lot of money as a result).  It's tempting to ask whether Roddick could have been accused of cheating if he hadn't argued for the correct call.  It would have been tempting to just look the other way and ignore the fact that the referee had made the wrong call.  But he didn't.  He was 100% honest in that situation, which is both admirable and honorable.

Unfortunately, a lot of individuals not only look the other way, but they also outright cheat.  Even the so-called experts that study cheating have been accused of being dishonest.  For example, the Harvard psychologist Marc Hauser once wrote an article entitled "Costs of Deception: Cheaters Are Punished in Rhesus Monkeys", but he later resigned from his position when the U.S. Office of Research Integrity concluded that he had falsified and manipulated the data to better support his conclusions (see the Scientific American article, "Why we cheat" by Ferric Fang and Arturo Casadevall).  More recently, two investigators who have studied and published on cheating and dishonesty, Dan Ariely and Francesca Gino, have been accused of fabricating some of their data (see "They Studied Dishonesty. Was Their Work a Lie?" by Gideon Lewis-Kraus published in The New Yorker magazine). 

Unfortunately, cheating, defined by Fang and Casadevall as acting dishonestly to gain an advantage, is far more common than perhaps realized.  I finished a book last year by the physician and scientist Csaba Szabo entitled Unreliable: Bias, Fraud, and the Reproducibility Crisis in Biomedical Research.  The overall gist of the book can be summarized with one simple statement.  As many as 90% of published biomedical studies may be irreproducible (see also the paper published in 2005 by John Ioannidis in the journal PLos Medicine, "Why most published research findings are false").  In other words, if another scientist tried to replicate the results of a previously published study by following the exact methods that were reported by the original scientists who first published the study, it's almost certain that he or she would not be able to do so!  Dr. Szabo suggests that there are three likely explanations.  The original scientists publishing the study made an honest mistake, used questionable statistical methods to analyze their data, or outright fabricated their results.

Given the cuts in research funding at the federal level, the pool of grant dollars available to fund academic research is getting smaller, even while the number of researchers who are competing for those dollars is increasing.  Academic fraud and dishonesty is likely to become even more commonplace.  Moreover, with the advent of artificial intelligence tools, such as ChatGPT, cheating even outside the research world is becoming more prevalent (see James Walsh's article in New York magazine, "Who wouldn't cheat?").

I have always enjoyed reading Dan Ariely's research and lay publications, and I have posted about his findings several times in the past.  His research on dishonesty is very interesting, but unfortunately I don't think it would be right to discuss his research, given some of the accusations that have come out in recent years.  In his book, The (Honest) Truth About Dishonesty, he suggests that almost everyone cheats.  And while he does not deny that the data in some of his research was fabricated, he denies personally doing so and stated that he unknowingly used and published falsified data.  

Dr. Szabo offered a few recommendations on how to address academic fraud and research dishonesty.  First, he stated that we should have stricter oversight and mandate that data is open and available to all.  Given the level of competition in academic research, that could be a tall order.  Second, he suggested that we should institute more transparent peer review.  Peer review is the process by which a scientist's peers review a submitted manuscript for scientific accuracy prior to the manuscript becoming published.  Unfortunately, even peer review has been called into question as of late (see the article published in The Wall Street Journal by Kevin McCaffree and Colin Wright).  Third, Dr. Szabo suggests that we shift funding from individuals to institutions, so that these same institutions can provide better oversight and have less of an incentive for dishonesty.  Finally, he suggests that we criminalize serious and deliberate fraud.  All of these are reasonable recommendations, but they will likely be difficult to implement.

So back to my original question, "Why do we cheat?"  I guess I can't answer that question fully, at least right now.  Dr. Christian Hart summarized what he calls a tripartite theory of dishonesty for Psychology Today.  Basically, cheating, lying, and dishonest behavior occurs as a function of (1) the expected utility (i.e. benefit) of lying is marginally high, (2) the expected external disutility risk of lying (the probability and consequences of being detected) is low, and (3) the expected internal disutility of lying (guilt, regret, shame, effort) is low.  It seems, therefore, that we can decrease the incidence of cheating, lying, or behaving dishonestly by decreasing the rewards associated with the behavior and by increasing the chance of catching someone lying or cheating.  I'm not sure we can significantly alter the internal regret, shame, or guilt from lying.  I do know that the more we reward honest behavior, individuals will act more honestly in the future.  Many of Dr. Hart's recommendations fit with those suggested by Dr. Szabo.  At the end of the day, it seems prudent to follow Scott Alexander's advice, when he said, "All good is hard. All evil is easy. Dying, losing, cheating, and mediocrity is easy. Stay away from easy."

“Make no little plans…”

I first mentioned the American architect and urban designer Daniel Burnham in my discussion of The Big Switch by Nicholas Carr.  I've come to appreciate Burnham more now that I have been living in Chicago.  As I shared in my post ("The Big Switch"), Burnham served as Director of Works for the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition (also known as the Chicago World's Fair), held from May 1 to October 30, 1893 to celebrate the 400th anniversary of Christopher Columbus' arrival in the Americas in 1492.  The city of Chicago's official flag has commemorated the Columbian Exposition with one of its six-pointed stars (the other three stars commemorate the Great Chicago Fire of 1871, the Chicago World's Fair of 1933, and Fort Dearborn, the original settlement first built in 1803 on the Chicago River near present-day Chicago).

Burnham was a major proponent of the Beaux-Arts architectural movement, a style taught at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris, particularly from the 1830s to the end of the 19th century.  The Beaux-Arts style drew upon French neoclassicism, but also incorporated influences from the Renaissance and Baroque styles, using modern materials, such as iron and glass, and later, steel.  

The Chicago World's Fair had several important influences on later history (in addition to being the site of the first ever Ferris Wheel).  One major highlight was that the inventors Nikola Tesla and George Westinghouse showcased their alternating current (AC) system, effectively winning the "war of the currents" against Thomas Edison's direct current (DC).  The Chicago World's Fair proved that electricity generation could be centralized and distributed over long-distances, both safely and efficiently using Tesla's and Westinghouse's system.  Prior to that time, individual factories had to generate their own power using massive localized steam-powered generators.  While Edison lost the "war of the currents", both he and Samuel Insull (who later founded Chicago's Commonwealth Edison) realized that centralizing electrical power generation could be advantageous.  It was this shift that changed electrical power generation from a highly decentralized, localized, private manufacturing cost to a centralized, shared, and easily accessible public utility (hence, Carr's "big switch").

Burnham helped to design all of the buildings at the World's Fair in the neoclassical style.  All of the buildings were covered in something known as white staff, a kind of artificial stone primarily used to cover temporary buildings (the majority of the buildings at the World's Fair were temporary).  The white buildings gave the World's Fair its nickname, "The White City" and apparently served as inspiration for L. Frank Baum's "Emerald City" in his book, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.

There is a quote from Daniel Burnham that I really love.  He once said, "Make no little plans.  They have no magic to stir men's blood and probably themselves will not be realized. Make big plans; aim high in hope and work, remembering that a noble, logical diagram once recorded will never die, but long after we are gone will be a living thing, asserting itself with ever-growing insistency. Remember that our sons and grandsons are going to do things that would stagger us. Let your watchword be order and your beacon beauty. Think big."

Burnham certainly was thinking "big" when he dreamed up the design of the so-called "White City".  And Nicholas Carr's book suggests that some of the changes incorporated as a direct result of the 1893 Columbian Exposition created a "big switch" in how power was distributed to manufacturing organizations, which subsequently played a major role in furthering the Industrial Age.  As leaders, we too need to "think big" and dream of the future, aiming high in both our hopes and dreams, making big plans instead of small ones.  By thinking big and aiming high, we can help architect a better future for our organizations and for society at large.