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.

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.

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

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.

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.