Today Fortune Magazine highlighted Smart Trust  in Why Trust Matters so Much In Business.  Smart Trust was #7 on Wall Street Journal’s bestseller list and is rapidly spreading through North America’s best led organizations.   Creating cultures of high trust is a growing 2012  focus of progressive companies recovering from the recent downturn.

If you missed last weeks telecast on Smart Trust or if you want to share it with colleagues or friends (please do) it is available now at SmartTrustBook.com.  Thanks for all the tremendous feedback and positive reactions as evidenced by the continued strong sales of Smart Trust!  

Please help us spread the word:  Go to the help us spread the word tab on SmartTrustBook.com to access numerous free resources, a picture of the book, excerpts  and other digital files you can use to blog, tweet or write newsletters including Smart Trust.  Become an advocate of Smart Trust by forwarding links to friends, colleagues, and other stakeholders.  Together we can start the ripple effect of a global renaissance of trust

Thanks for being an ambassador of Smart Trust

Finally we are on the verge of publishing our new book Smart Trust: Creating Prosperity, Energy and Joy in a low Trust World,  after several years of extensive research, interviews, collabortion and study.  Smart Trust  highlights enlightening principles and anecdotes of people and organizations that are not only achieving unprecendented prosperity from high-trust relationships and cultures but–even more inspiring–also attaining elevated levels of energy and joy. 

The sustainable success these leaders and enterprises are exhibiting is paradoxically being produced in what has proved to be the lowest trust economic climate in years, if not decades.  Smart Trust shows what they are doing and the 5 actions they are commonly taking to prosper, against all odds, in the same economic circumstances causing so many others to fail.

Smart Trust has met the strict scrutiny of business  leaders around the globe and is validated by research from multiple sources that confirms that high-trust organizations outperform low-trust organizations by nearly 3 times.

Find out why trusted people are more likely to get hired or promoted,  make more money,  get the best projects and the bigger budgets, and are typically last to be laid off.  It is our hope and intent that reading Smart Trust will increase your probability of not just thriving, but prospering in this increasingly unpredictable economic marketplace.

My sweet wife Annie came up with a New Years tree for our young grand kids.  They popped the balloons at what they thought was midnight.  Fortunately we were in  the MDT and could broadcast life new years from EDT New York.

Stephen M R Covey and I do intend to make this year our best year yet as far as our mission to shift global governance  on teams in organizations and hopefully even countries to one of high trust.  We were committed and optimistic when we chose the sub tittle to our first book The Speed of Trust: The One Thing That Changes Everything.  We actually approached that sub title a little sheepishly at the time.  We felt in 2006 that perhaps it was a little too bold.  Now in hindsight after selling over 1 million copies of The Speed of Trust  and spending the last 2 years researching and writing our new book Smart Trust: Creating Prosperity, Energy and Joy in a Low Trust World, that feel if anything we understated the significance of trust.  This year we intend to boldly emphasize the over arching influence that trust has on all aspects of our lives and leadership.  We strongly suggest that high trust is the key to transforming toxic relationships,  toxic teams,  toxic organizations and even toxic countries into extraordinary growth engines that will drive our ailing economy to new heights.

We have discovered and documented in Smart Trust compelling examples and evidence that certain “outliers” of success are producing extraordinary results in the same circumstances causing others to fail. We are thrilled that Smart Trust will be in stores in 10 short days and provide a platform for this important dialogue to make 2012 our best year yet.

To be transparent, of course I am biased in my comments about this wonderful book by my colleagues.  That said, seriously, you will be glad you read it.  I do have a somewhat informed judgement of business books by now and this useful parable stands well with the best of business parables,  including the all time greats like,  FISH, One Minute Manager and Who Moved my Cheese. A Slice of Trust: The Leadership Secret with the Hot & Fruity Filling,  highlights in a memorable and meaningful way an important, career critical, management essential insight: Trust matters.

I dare say it is LOL funny in spots. (yes we can use LOL now that it made the Oxford  dictionary).  The humor surprised me.  That is a very tough thing to pull off for a business audience without loosing credibility and sounding trite.  Well done David and Barry!  It is a delightful read that will certainly touch all who read it.  It artfully teaches powerful principles to a surprisingly broad audience:

from the school room to the board room.

Speaking of the board room,  Spencer Johnson,  author of Who Moved my Cheese told Stephen that executives bought his Cheese book in bulk,  by the boxes,  to encourage their entire organizations to embrace change by reading a lighthearted story.  I predict that executives will do the same with A Slice of Trust in order to help all their team members embrace today’s critical competitive advantage of high trust.  Consider what the Chairman of Nissan Americas, Carlos Tavares had to say: “Dazzling…and true! It took me years to discover the power of trust.  With A Slice of Trust, you will understand so much more–and in only a few hours!”

Stephen M R Covey made an equally wise observation in his foreword to this book: “As you join Simon the Pieman on his adventures in trust, I invite you to reflect on how you have extended trust in your organization, your relationships, your family, your world.  After all, the most important story is your story. It’s a story that you create everyday as you explore opportunities for trust.  And it’s a story whose telling is brought to life every time you extend your trust to another, one slice at a time.” Well said Stephen!

Personally,  not so big on the “fruity filling” I prefer coconut cream or pecan, but I digress. Either way this book will leave you hungry for more. Not just pie but trust too.  I can just see author Barry Rellaford at a taster table in Costco serving pie and signing books. (or the Costco equivalent outside the 8 countries that now are lucky enough to have a trusted Costco).  I enjoy the picture conjured up by my close friend and favorite Dane, Mette Norgaard, author of  The Ugly Duckling Goes to Work: “A Slice of Trust is served with warmth and humor.  Pour yourself a cup of tea and enjoy a few bites of wisdom for the workplace.”

A Slice of Trust will soon be available in a language near you as it follows The Speed of Trust’s global success in over 22 languages and counting.  For now buy your Slice of Trust or a box or two in World English at Amazon.com, BarnesandNoble.com or your favorite bookseller in your airport or neighborhood.  (it is a fast read so don’t worry about the pile of books on your nightstand you will read A Slice of Trust before it gets to the pile).   Whether to introduce your team or family to Trust or reinforce the principles taught in The Speed of Trust reading A Slice of Trust this month will make you smile.

Enjoy

Google, in an apparent effort to regain its start up magic, started Project Oxygen to see how to stem the friction of bureaucratic management by studying the management behaviors of googles most highly effective and highly trusted managers.

Statisticians inside the Googleplex not typical HR types, gathered data (“just the facts mam” to quote Sgt. Friday).  Faux pas i know.  My reference to Sargent Friday does not cross global or generational boundaries.  Guess you’ll just have to google it.

Googles mission was to devise something far more important to the future of Google Inc. than its next search algorithm or app.

“They wanted to build better bosses.

So, as only a data-mining giant like Google can do, it began analyzing performance reviews, feedback surveys and nominations for top-manager awards. They correlated phrases, words, praise and complaints.

Later that year, the “people analytics” teams at the company produced what might be called the Eight Habits of Highly Effective Google Managers.” (NY Times).  The cynics say they are reinventing the wheel and relearning what leadership experts already knew.  From our perspective their findings validate and reinforce the 13 behaviors of high trust leaders from the Speed of Trust and add reputable credence to their value.  Google has tremendous credibility here as they were #1 on Fortune’s best place to work list in 2008 and have remained in the top 5 ever since.  Google’s study reinforces the evidence that high trust organizations out perform low trust organizations and that high trust is a key to the magic found in start ups.  Magic that still works in large older enterprises like SAS 2011 Fortune #1 best place to work.

I enjoyed this book very much.  Alan gave me a chance to read a pre publication draft last month.  It is already #1 bestseller on Amazon 2 days before its official publication date.  The story about bounce and hit is worth the cover price alone. Read this insightful new book  You Already Know How To Be Great.  Alan Fine is a world-renowned personal coach for star athletes of tennis, golf, and other sports.  In this book, Alan applies his secret sauce of coaching to break-through business success.

Stephen R. Covey had this to say in his foreword:  ”Over the years, one of the most important ideas I’ve learned about and taught is the power of a “paradigm shift”— of seeing something in a new and different way that creates a huge change in thinking and behavior.

In You Already Know How to Be Great, Alan Fine creates a paradigm shift of major proportion. Most often, he says, dramatic performance improvement does not come from gaining new knowledge; it comes from getting rid of the “interference” that gets in the way of using the knowledge and capacity we already have. That one idea has phenomenal implications and applications. It literally transforms the way we approach improving our own performance and also the way we approach helping others improve theirs.”

Fear and uncertainty can freeze and immobilize even the strong.  Confronting your resistance by taking on your “feared thing first” everyday is the secret to navigating perilous times.  This habit has allowed me to regain my sense of purpose for 2009.

We all can take advantage of the current economic uncertainty by contacting our most important stakeholders and looking for opportunities to grow our trust account with them.  Many people are frozen and afraid to call their customers and other key stakeholders for fear of hearing bad news.  Guess what? The bad news is there whether or not you hear it.  Much better to confront reality and give your customer a listening outlet to discuss challenges and feel understood than to abandon the relationship during difficult times. Now is the time to over communicate with your customers and other key stakeholders. Give them someone they can trust by behaving in ways that inspire trust.

Regain your momentum by doubling your contacts.  Call the ones you are afraid to call first.  Ask for business.  Ask for referrals.  Ask for favors.  They are as afraid and starved for meaningful dialog as you are. Go for it.  Then have the courage and monomaniacal discipline to follow up relentlessly.  Don’t take non responsiveness personally.  Others are frozen and need your consistent concern to unthaw them.  Stay with this relentless follow-up and you will be very glad you did.  One of two things will happen: 1. You will have the happy surprise of good news and will grow your business immediately or 2. You will be the first one they think of when things improve, as you were likely one of the very few that communicated with them during tough times. Make doing business at the Speed of Trust your unique competitive advantage this year.  Increase your credibility by doing your “feared thing first.” Everyday.

There is a compelling YouTube video called Did You Know? (you may want to turn down your speakers a little) that will stretch your thinking.  Over 4 million views.  At the end it asks: So what does it all mean?  To us it means Trust matters more than ever.  It reminds us why sparking a global renaissance of trust is such a critical imperative.

The Globe and Mail is considered Canada’s national paper with over 1 million readers.  Stephen was interviewed by Sarah Boesveld last week and his remarks appeared in today’s Globe and Mail in an article entitled Ambiguity Anxiety.   Stephen had this to say about the pressure on trust in the current crisis when managers are secretive: ”They tend to be done without very much openness, without very much transparency – people in rooms all day long behind closed doors. And when they emerge, managers dish out spin and don’t give employees the straight goods,” he says.

I finally got an Amazon Kindle 2 and must say so far it has exceeded my expectations.  The ability to word search all your books alone is worth the ride.  The Speed of Trust is available in a Kindle version and searching that on the fly has proved very useful.  It holds 1500 books which beats the 500 or so that crowd my office.  You can take notes but it definitely is not as intuitive as a pen and highlighter but I am getting used to it.  It feels miraculous to not carry the 3 to 4 books I usually end up traveling with and you can easily read several at a time as it picks up where you left off so it is simple to read several books simultaneously.  The digital paper is also surprisingly easy to read even in sunlight.  While off, the Kindle displays delightful pencil sketches of authors.  It rotates randomly and one day it displayed the definition of Kindle: light or set fire, arouse or inspire (an emotion or feeling), become impassioned or exited.  I can not yet say that my Kindle has impassioned me but you can say it has re-kindled my goal to meet the challenge that Dr. Stephen R. Covey gave to me years ago: to read a book a week.   Most years I have not hit that goal but I have a couple of years past and I will say that his challenge has dramatically increased the number of books I have read in the last 22 years and that is a HABIT worth having.  Maybe it is The 9th Habit!

Gave my nephew,  a 20 something, a ride to the airport from his uncle’s funeral today.  He asked me to name  the most important principle to have a successful career.  His generation asks great questions.  My #1 advise to him was to work so that his reputation and credibility precede him.  A tall order.  Get a senior mentor in the organization and perform so that he or she will gladly give you a job reference for the rest of your life.  Do not suck up–perform honorably! That’s it.  The cumulative effect of having a reputation as a go to guy is the essence of The Speed of Trust.

Previously I mentioned that I was reading Jeff Jarvis’ new book What Would Google Do? I was just struck by his comments on market trust: “Leaders in government, news media, corporations, and universities think they and their institutions can own trust when, of course, trust is given to them.  Trust is earned with difficulty and lost with ease….Trust is an act of opening up; it’s a mutual relationship of transparency and sharing.  The more ways you find to reveal yourself and listen to others, the more you will build trust, which is your brand.” We of course, agree whole heartedly.  Jeff does an excellent job of giving us a glimpse of the implications of violating trust in a post google transparent world.  His experience with Dell is worth the price of the book alone. How we behave in this financial crisis will effect our credibility, reputation and brand for years to come.  Are you behaving in ways that inspire the trust of your stakeholders, especially your customers?

I will resist the almost overwhelming temptation to quote Jeff further and will instead, again, strongly urge you to read this book right away.  In times of trouble we need to challenge ourselves to get better and to reframe our thinking.  Jeff provokes new thinking that I believe, regardless of your profession or industry, will either excite you about the possibilities of the future or scare you enough to confront reality and change your expectations.  You know I read a lot of business books so I have a somewhat informed judgement.  I predict that this is another Tipping Point and as such will top the business lists for years to come.

In an ethics study  released today of nearly 30,000 high schoolers entitled The Ethics of American Youth by the Josephson Institute in Los Angeles, 83% of teens report lying to their parents about something significant. 64% say they have cheated on an exam in the last year and 30% say they have stolen something from a store in the last year.  The shocker is that 93% say they are satisfied with their personal character and ethics revealing an alarming gap in their perception of their self trust. 

These are our future workers and leaders and we desperately need to change their perception of the importance of trust and ethics or our global crisis of trust is destined to deepen. 

I agree with what Michael Josephson, the institute’s founder and president had to say about the results: ”What is the social cost of that–not to mention the implication for the next generation of mortgage brokers? In a society drenched with cynicism, young people can look at it and say ‘Why shouldn’t we? Everyone else does it.’”

Clearly as a society at large it is critical for us to teach that trust is paramount to a global economy.  We must all make growing trust an explicit objective and behave accordingly to set the standard for the next generation.

Malcolm Gladwell has done it again. His new book Outliers is well worth the read and is already #9 of all books on the USA Today bestseller list. Outliers brilliantly challenges our assumptions about success. It makes my short list of stimulating reads about success. It is extraordinary for a growing a global perspective by learning new insights about success in other cultures. Gladwell again comes up with stimulating and surprising examples that are thought provoking and help develop our lateral thinking. It is a great book to inspire us to get better and rethink our level of play and effort. I was particularly moved by the concept that it takes 10,000 hours to master success and that hard work can overcome other disadvantages. Another unlikely insight I gained was about educating my grandchildren and helping them step up to the future. Well done Malcolm.

As I see it, the ultimate value of the Social Networks is still up for grabs even though it is growing worldwide.  The potential fatal flaw is that rather than enhancing your reputation you may damage it by loosely giving access to your most trusted relationships. Consider this: Do you have a multiple year, deep trusted relationship with your social network friends or a 1 year acquaintance repeated multiple times? With Trust depth matters.

Social networks are filled with loose mutual acquaintances but rarely our most trusted influencers. Why? Because it would violate the very level of trust the relationship is based on to openly expose your most influential high trust relationships to random access from others you barely know! This is the same reason customers are reluctant to risk their reputation by referring their trusted colleagues and friends to salespeople. The speed of your trust and reputation, your social capital and influence, resides in your carefully nurtured “Trustwork”™ not your loose network of acquaintances. Mix the two haphazardly and you risk your reputation with your most trusted friends.  Many of the acquaintances in your social networks, are simply “potential” candidates for you to up-level and earn deep mutual respect with, and they with you,  by demonstrating consistent behavior over time that inspires each person’s trust. Facebook,  Linkedin and others provide a rich opportunity to meet new friends trusted by people you trust.  This  is the ultimate value of networking. In fact research shows that loose acquaintances were more likely to lead to a job referral. So social networks do have value.  Just be sure to extend smart trust and check new friends track records before introducing them to your Trustwork™ of long nurtured high trust relationships until they earn that extraordinary level of trust.

The game of friending anyone and everyone to show a large network number also seems risky.  Clarify your expectations and think of how you would like others to access you. Build your network strategically based on your objectives.  The intent of the network providers is to attract eyeballs and mindshare any way they can and find ways to monetize that attention.  The jury is still out on how they will do that.  Meanwhile, we are trusting them with considerable information so be smart out there.

As the U.S. economy slows, it causes a global ripple effect.  When the going gets tough, budgets, projects, money, customers, and jobs gravitate to the “go-to” performers that are trusted.  High trust teams outperform low trust teams by as much as four times.  Why?  They execute at The Speed of Trust. 

Leading-edge companies are asking one important question in employee evaluations:  Do you trust your boss?  These companies have learned that the answer to this one question is more predictive of team and organizational performance than any other they might ask.  The number one reason for costly employee turnover is the relationship they have with their immediate supervisor.  We are facing a crisis of trust and business ethics.  In the U.S., only 51% of employees have trust and confidence in senior management.

In an interview with Forbes.com executive editor David A. Andelman, Covey explains the significance and mechanics of trust–how to build it, keep it and profit from it.

Stephen M. R. Covey: I use a very simple definition of trust. By trust, I mean confidence. Confidence. The opposite of that–distrust–is suspicion.

See, I don’t trust someone if I’m suspicious about his motive or agenda or integrity. I do trust when I feel confident about it. It’s like Jack Welch said–I could give you a dictionary definition of trust, but you know it when you feel it. And what you feel is confidence.

Generation Y—We’re Here, We’re Peers…Get Used to It

Longing for Mentoring Opportunities, Gen Y Engages Senior Management Directly

I’ll never forget what one CEO said about the risk of investing in a focused training initiative for his company. Someone asked him, ‘What if you train everyone and they all leave?’ He responded, ‘What if we don’t train them and they all stay?

“Millenials,” “Echo Boomers,” “Gen Yers”—The demographic bred to take on the world, and raised with the tools to do it, this group is already making waves with their new rules. They are strong, talented, organized, and don’t like the word, “No.” They also know that they don’t have to work for you.

 HR Magazine calls talent retention “the most urgent priority for companies.” Talent is running away from big business and the red tape that goes with it, while organizations teeter on the brink of losing the valuable force of Baby Boomers heading into retirement.

 If you are an eager Gen Y employee, you’re not off the hook. The winds are changing, but you’ve still got a lot to learn. Hold yourself accountable to the same standards you ask for in management. Not only can we all get along, we can build the best organizations the world has ever seen.

 How do we close the gap between these wildly different philosophies, harnessing the power of old and new to create a win-win for all stakeholders?  I think the answers are deceptively simple and will change the structure of business forever: (more…)

As speculation continues on whether or not we’ve entered a recession, the fact remains that March marked 80,000 U.S. jobs lost—the worst monthly drop in 5 years, raising the unemployment rate to 5.1 percent. Analysts say the bloodletting will continue at unprecedented rates as the economy continues to trend down. Meanwhile, workers sit huddled in their cubes wondering who will be next. Rather than fear the unknown, learn how to be the employee that is too valuable to layoff with 8 Tips that will give you the edge when the axe starts to fall.

It’s no secret that the best opportunities, promotions, and assignments go to the team members who can be trusted to get the job done. These are often the same people who get to stick around when the going gets tough. The fastest way to increase trust—and therefore your value to the company—is to demonstrate behaviors of character and competence. A basic understanding of these behaviors will help make your organization more profitable, you more promotable, and your relationships more energizing:

1)       Talk Straight & Create Transparency—Tell the truth in a way people can verify and leave the right impression. Err on the side of disclosure—no hidden agendas. The more people trust you, the faster you can work (think less red-tape). Counterfeits such as beating around the bush, withholding information, flattery, and spinning actually damage trust and effectiveness.

2)       Demonstrate Respect & Show Loyalty—Behave in ways that show fundamental respect for people. Exhibit caring and concern. Give credit where credit is due and speak about people as though they were present. Counterfeits—like faking respect or concern or, worse yet, showing respect for some (those who can help you), but not for all (those who can’t)—diminish trust quickly.

3)       Right Wrongs—Make things right when you’re wrong. Apologize quickly. Make restitution where possible. Demonstrate personal humility, and don’t let pride get in the way of doing the right thing. Don’t rationalize, deny, or justify wrongs, and never cover things up!

4)       Deliver Results & Practice Accountability—If you need to build trust fast, deliver results. Results give you instant credibility and instant trust, demonstrating that you add value; that you can contribute and perform. Don’t over-promise and under-deliver, and don’t make excuses for not delivering. Take responsibility for the results and hold yourself accountable.

5)       Get Better—Continuously improve. Take feedback for the learning opportunity it is and increase your capabilities. When people see you as a learning, growing person, they develop confidence in your ability to succeed in a rapidly changing environment, enabling you to build high-trust relationships and move with incredible speed. (Efficiency costs the company less—improving their bottom line and your skill set.)

6)       Confront Reality & Clarify Expectations—Lead out courageously in conversation and take the tough issues head-on. Then clarify expectations by creating a shared agreement about what is to be done up front. Pin down the specifics (results, deadlines, or dollars and cents).

7)       Listen First—Really listen (genuinely seek to understand another person’s thoughts, feelings, experience, and point of view), and do it first (before you try to diagnose, influence, or prescribe). Listening first and speaking last helps you make better decisions, directly impacting the positive track record you’re building.

8)       Make and Keep Commitments—Say what you’re going to do, then do it. Keeping commitments is the quickest way to build trust in any relationship. Its opposite—to break commitments or violate promises—is, without question, the quickest way to destroy trust. Be careful with the commitments you make. Be sure you can deliver, and then do.

Trust is free and priceless. Once established, trust increases speed and reduces cost in all relationships and transactions, making you more productive and your employer happy. If you practice these behaviors, you will become more effective. You will save yourself—and your company—time and money. Most importantly, you will reap the rewards of being the employee that is so valuable—so trusted—that the company cannot afford to lose you.

The Speed of Trust continues to gain momentum around the world in our quest to be a catalyst for a global renaissance of Trust.  It was #5 on Canada’s respected Financial Times’ bestseller list over Easter weekend. 

When the going gets tough, projects, money, and jobs gravitate to trusted high performers.  The Speed of Trust teaches 13 behaviors common to high trust people and leaders throughout the world.  The last to be laid-off or outsourced are those “go to” performers that are trusted.  

As Chris Anderson, author of The Long Tail and Editor-in-Chief of WIRED magazine, stated in his interview with Stephen M. R. Covey on The Speed of Trust: “Money was the currency of the old economy; Trust is the currency of the new, global economy.” Stephen M. R. Covey is fast becoming the global CEO of Trust. Stephen will be speaking in Singapore, Hong Kong, and several other Asian cities in late May.

Fortune Magazine’s 2007 100 Best Places to Work found “…that trust between managers and employees is the primary defining characteristic of the very best workplaces.” This is based on the major findings of 20 years of research according to their research partner. 

Three of the five criteria for Fortune’s annual best workplaces top 100 are based on trust and the other two are strongly correlated to trust.

Think about your own experience. Who do you trust?  A friend? A work associate? Your boss? Your spouse? A customer? Why do you trust this person? What is it that inspires your confidence in this particular relationship? Ask people what they say behind your back, about you, about your company. 

Test it with your own experience: what are your conversations like with people who trust you? You can say the wrong thing, and they still get your meaning. Conversely, what are conversations like with someone when trust is low? You can be precise and measured, and they still interpret it the wrong way.

Now consider an even more provocative question: Who trusts you? People at home? At work? Someone you’ve just met? Someone who has known you for a long time? What is it in you that inspires the trust of others? 

Think about it—people trust people who make things happen. They give the new curriculum to their most competent instructors. They give the promising projects or sales leads to those who have delivered in the past. From a line leader’s perspective, results round out what trust really is and helps give trust its harder, more pragmatic edge. 

Ethics is the foundational dimension of trust, but by itself is insufficient. You can’t have trust without ethics, but you can have ethics without trust. Trust, which encompasses ethics, is the bigger idea and is career critical to you in this new “Flat World” economy.

91% of work groups are “taxed” by low trust without knowing it—how about yours?

Low trust can rob your team of results and personally cost you a promotion.  As a boss, it can cost you talent.  The number one reason for talent quitting is low trust in their relationship with their immediate supervisor. 

The Oklahoman newspaper recently asked Stephen, “What makes one company successful while another company flounders?”  “Why are some employees rock stars while others become disgruntled and irrelevant?”  And, why does William G. Parrett, CEO, Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu, state, “The SPEED of Trust is red-hot relevant”?  

High trust companies outperform their low trust competitors by 286% according to Watson Wyatt research. 

June 2007

Chief Exeuctive Magazine this month has an article entitled The Business Case for Trust by Stephen M. R. Covey

Almost everywhere we turn, trust is on the decline. We find low trust in our society at large, in our institutions and in our companies. Research shows that only 51 percent of employees trust senior management, and only 28 percent believe CEOs are a credible source of information. This compels us to ask two questions. First, is there a measurable cost to low trust? Second, is there a tangible benefit to high trust?

Few argue with the notion of trust.

Everybody is in favor of it and nobody is against it. But at the end of the day, many CEOs don’t really believe that internal organizational trust is directly connected to their company’s bottom line. Instead, they believe that trust is merely a soft, nice-to-have, “social virtue.”

One high trust behavior worth mastering is the career critical behavior of confronting reality and bringing bad news to your boss fast so he or she does not get blindsided.  Bosses do not like surprises and certainly do not want to be caught off guard by their boss if they find out first.  Bad news does not age well.  Stuff happens.  Your credibility will go up, not down, if you develop a track record of straight talk, confronting reality and taking responsibility quickly. Not raising the red flag may seem like the safe thing to do–laying low and hoping that someone else blows the whistle–but it is not.  Playing chicken with important information and not being quick to confront reality is not good for your credibility and thus your career.

Two decades ago I promised myself I would come to work everyday willing to be fired. Talking straight and confronting reality has proven to significantly increase my credibility with influencers and was directly responsible for several promotions and key assignments–well worth the perceived risk.

Now after years as the boss this behavior is one of the key traits I value in work associates and a powerful source of Trust.

According to Chief Learning Officer Magazine  we are smack dab in the middle of a leadership drought, and this dearth of qualified leaders is wreaking havoc in companies large and small.  This is no surprise to us at CoveyLink.  Our research has consistently shown that poor, low trust leadership at any level in an organization will ultimately translate into disgruntled customers, rising costs, lost profits, slower speed, thwarted growth, and an anemic bottom line. So, just how bad is the problem? 

From CLO Magazine:

“Even more disturbing is the impact these [leadership] shortages are having on growth. Some companies indicated they are literally sitting on capital, unable to expand into new markets or make critical acquisitions, due to a lack of leadership talent. In one large organization, there were more than 100 leadership vacancies . . . 

“The researchers, led by Dr. Eileen Antonucci . . . note that some 70 percent of companies in the study reported moderate to major leadership shortages. ‘Leadership shortages are not just inhibiting growth,’ Antonucci states, ‘they are driving up costs.’ Some companies are spending millions on recruitment as they scramble to fill key positions. The cost of training a parade of new managers and executives (not to mention money lost while these individuals ‘get up to speed’ in their new positions) is equally taxing.”

So what does all this mean to you?  From our perspective, this creates an opportunity for individuals to “become the solution” by making themselves more qualified, more trusted leaders, in short, more promotable to these crucial leadership positions. Our research indicates that leadership and trust can be taught and that people who build a strong reputation for producing results with integrity have more leadership influence and have a better chance to be promoted. (Incidentally, they are also those people who are more likely to succeed as entrepreneurs.)  At CoveyLink, we call this the SPEED of TRUST™.

“The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn.” — Alvin Toffler, Author of The Third Wave

When workers catch the vision of the strength of a high trust leader within an organization and work to be just that kind of individual, they suddenly become an invaluable asset in the workplace—one that gets noticed, one that gets promoted.  In essence, they develop into the very asset their struggling company most desperately needs. 

Says CLO Magazine,

“Of greatest concern are the costs of poor decision-making as companies are forced to place less qualified individuals into critical leadership positions. Poor leadership at the top of the organization can translate into millions in lost profits and missed opportunities.”  (July 11, 2005 Volume 2, Issue 27)

A poorly qualified leader is a leader who cannot be trusted to perform, and this problem often doesn’t show up until the profit reports come in.  The more critical the leadership position, the more critical the cost of poor performance.  We’ve said it before: the high cost of low trust can be measured and the dividend and speed of high trust in teams and organizations is measurable directly to the bottom line. 

We believe a powerful Global renaissance of trust has begun—trust in terms of capability, trust in terms of character.  Sparked by recent world events, business ethics, and the transparency of conversations enabled by the worldwide web, this call for a renaissance of high trust leadership is reverberating around the Globe.  It’s affecting our bottom line, it’s affecting our ability to compete, and it’s affecting our peace of mind. 

The Speed of Trust, is already in its 5^th printing less than three months after publication!  BusinessWeek just selected it as one of the top five career books of 2006 along with Jack Welch’s new book.  This is particularly impressive given that The Speed of Trust was only published for the last two months of 2006.