Restoring trust

In 1995, Alain Peyrefitte wrote « La société de confiance » (The society of trust) (1), to show how this psychological bond between actors was indispensable to economic development.

In 2007, two researchers described in « La société de défiance » (The society of mistrust) (2) how the French people’s growing inability to live together threatened their prosperity and, quite simply, their happiness. And they opened their book by quoting Peyrefitte’s. Today’s news sadly illustrates the relevance of their analysis.

For European prosperity

A European crisis? While European leaders strengthen the Union to cope with speculative attacks and tensions on world credit markets (another word for trust…), too many French commentators are looking for culprits inside and outside our borders. Greek crooks, Italian dilettantes, German ogres, British traitors… Indebted up to our necks, importers of goods but exporters of moral – even economic – lessons, we show our didactic arrogance far more often than our nonetheless real capacity for innovation and quality production. Where is the trust – or at least the benefit of the doubt – towards our European allies, and towards our leaders, all of whom were elected through democratic mechanisms that are certainly imperfect, but in any case more virtuous than autocratic systems?

For the survival of our companies

In our companies and our schools, work is too often described in terms of unemployment, suffering at work, harassment, fatigue, the right to withdraw, management hell… And too rarely as a necessary means of subsistence – which must not be forgotten for, as those who work the land or raw materials show every day, money does not fall from the sky… Or as an opportunity for personal and collective development – unless one is convinced that watching television does more to elevate the soul than the satisfaction of a job well done, whether in production or in services. In his latest book, “Lost in management” (3), the sociologist François Dupuy describes how matrix organisations, though designed as collaborative structures (in our view, in the spirit of “checks and balances”), become places of power when superimposed on existing bureaucracies… necessarily inefficient, particularly because of the “under-work” they encourage. Here again, necessary collaboration is undermined by mechanisms of mutual mistrust. Yet as soon as one accepts that “no one is ever right on their own”, collaboration, facilitation or the “management of all stakeholders” prove both useful and effective, for collective performance as for individual satisfaction.

And for regional development

Finally, today’s news, with the great rail timetable “big bang”… Consultation processes have been put in place, institutional or voluntary. The former often meet obligations of means. The others, like the “Clubs” we help to run, try – no doubt imperfectly – to strengthen mutual trust through mutual explanation. These profound changes to rail services are in principle justified by objectives of collective well-being – or of public service, if one prefers that term: the opening of the Rhine–Rhône TGV line, which will transform the regions now linked (one need only see the enthusiasm in Belfort, and the coming strengthening of synergies between Alsace, Franche-Comté and Burgundy, not forgetting neighbouring Switzerland and Germany, to be convinced); the works programme undertaken to support the growth of public transport and address failures (have we already forgotten the series of overhead-line breakdowns?); and the “clock-face” timetabling adopted to optimise the use of the rail network.

Here again, explanation may have been lacking towards most opinion relays. But no doubt easy mistrust also bred misunderstandings and preconceptions on both sides… “Why explain experts’ constraints to users who are novices by nature and who, in the end, will understand nothing – or won’t want to?” And “why share our concerns with technocrats who, in any case, care nothing for our issues?” Yet on both sides, there are many examples of common sense and intelligence. Here again, experience shows that mutual trust and collaboration are the keys to collective success, even if this means accepting different points of view and finding middle ways – sometimes less brilliant conceptually, but so much better shared and owned.

Envy, jealousy and systematic mistrust are the timid behaviours of spoilt children, relying on their own wealth – individually or as a family – or collectively, when mechanisms of rent, appropriation or redistribution, depending on one’s point of view, allow wealth to be “pooled”. The country is indebted beyond reason, and many French companies are in a very fragile situation. It is time to blow the whistle on playtime, or to sound the alarm clock, and move from the school playground to the path of individual and collective responsibility.

1. Alain Peyrefitte, « La société de confiance. Essais sur les origines du développement », Odile Jacob, 1995; paperback since 2005.

2. Yann Algan, Pierre Cahuc, « La Société de défiance. Comment le modèle social français s’autodétruit », Cepremap, 2007. Freely downloadable online.

3. François Dupuy, « Lost in management », Seuil, 2011.