At first, Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales’s The Seven Rules of Trust looks like it’s going to fall into a distinctly American category of slick, perky business advice books. The subtitle – Why It Is Today’s Most Essential Superpower – veers toward the cringeworthy.
But curb the cynicism. The amiable Alabama-born, London-based entrepreneur has produced a heartening and unpretentious read about building trust in a world awash with disinformation, political polarisation and corporate deception. Yes, he gets a bit hokey at times, but in a way that charms. It’s hard to dislike Jimmy Wales.
Wikipedia is, naturally, his touchstone and exemplar. For his seven rules, Wales can point to the various ways trust, openness and operational transparency turned a self-admittedly “nutty” idea in 2004 – for an online encyclopedia, edited by anybody – into a global giant. This aspect alone makes the book a worthy addition to anyone’s internet history bookshelf.
There’s much more to The Seven Rules, however. While Wales gives plenty of business advice and analysis, and cases where businesses got trust wrong and right (Airbnb serves as one example for both), this isn’t really a business book. Wales is writing for the same audience as Wikipedia: anyone. He gets how disillusioned we’ve all become with technology (social media platforms “are where trust goes to die”), big corporates, politics and social discourse. His trust rules are as applicable to friendships and family relationships as they are to running a company.
Some of his examples may startle, though. The last person I’d expect as a positive example of almost anything is Richard Nixon. But Wales puts forward the then-senator’s Checkers speech about campaign funding in 1952 as an instance of successful public transparency, though he adds the needed caveat that things might have turned out better for Tricky Dicky if he had followed the lead of his earlier self when president.
Wales makes a brave case too for allowing for productive disagreement instead of shutting down difficult discussions, noting how such debate is a critical process that helps clarify editorial decisions at Wikipedia. He cites studies that show robust deliberation produces more trusted outcomes in areas such as public policy, and specifically praises Ireland’s citizens’ assemblies.
We may live in dark times, but Wales offers here a possible route towards a more optimistic and restorative future.
