In this interview with Stanford’s Clifford Nass, a professor of communications and author of the new book The Man Who Lied to His Laptop, Nass, who directs the Communication between Humans and Interactive Media (CHIMe) Lab at Stanford, lists five key ways to build trust:
1. Flattery is underrated — it’s fantastic. Toss the “criticism sandwich.”
2. Inconsistency is the single biggest threat to trustworthiness.
3. Most team-building exercises don’t work. To be effective, they need to build team identification and foster interdependency between team members.
4. Negative emotions are the most important emotions in the workplace — and must be dealt with well.
5. To be persuasive, focus on expertise and trustworthiness.