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.

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.

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.

Insightful article from Canada.  The Vancouver Sun Newspaper and my vote for the most beautiful city in North America.  Article on Trust Each Other.  Research contradicts common beliefs that trust is soft.  ”How do people -and societies -learn to trust?   Working with the ideas of Erikson, a University of B.C. psychologist/anthropologist came up with a groundbreaking new theory last year when he provided evidence that trust increases in societies that are committed to world religions and a functioning market economy.
Many judge free-enterprise markets to be ruthless, but Joe Henrich maintains that working markets have generally been a force for good over the last 10,000 years, helping to drive the evolution of more trusting societies. Given the impressive economic track record of Nordic countries in recent decades, combined with their effective social programs, there appears to be something for Canadians to learn from such studies of trust.
Societies in which citizens have a strong degree of faith in each other appear to have stronger economies and are less likely to promote selfishness. It’s hard to find fault with that kind of society.

We often ask the question: who do you trust? to organizational leaders and workers around the globe.  In both the public and the private sectors there is now an uneasy caution about who you can trust.  The more penetrating question is who trusts you?  Imagine if you could grow trust in an environment of ever decreasing trust.  What a competitive advantage that would be.  It is more important than ever for you to give people someone they can trust.  Starting with your self by behaving and leading in ways that inspire trust creates a ripple effect of influence.

Test this for yourself.  Think of the person you trust the most.  What is it like to work with or be with that person?  Do they have influence on you because you trust them?  Does it speed up business to work with them?  What IF?  What if, everyone on your team had that level of trust?  At worst it would be a lot more energizing to work together.  At best trust makes the playing field really fast and becomes a performance multiplier that has a ripple effect on your team and your organization.

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.

Showing loyalty by giving credit where credit is due is a way to make massive deposits in people’s trust account.  As Robert Townsend former CEO of Avis said: “It’s been my experience that the people who gain trust, loyalty, excitement, and energy fast are the ones who pass on the credit to the people who have really done the work.  A leader doesn’t need the credit…they get more credit than they deserve anyway.” As our friend and associate Dottie Gandy emphasizes: ” it is not only important to give credit to people for what they do it is also important to acknowledge people for who they are.”

In the new edition of The Carrot Principle:How the Best Managers Use Recognition to Engage Their People, Retain Talent, and Accelerate Performance authors Adrian Gostick and Chester Elton found that 79% of talent that left organizations did so for lack of appreciation and 65% in North America report they were not recognized in the least bit in the last year.  These two statistics alone are worth the price of this book but they have interviewed over 200,000 workers and the results will shock you.  I know it did me. This one is a must read for anyone who manages people regardless of the setting including parents and teachers!  Lack of giving credit is clearly one of the high costs of low trust.

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!

Arnold Palmer was asked:  How do you get over being intimidated by somebody?  Answer:  Beat them at golf. 

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.

No matter what your personal or organizational objectives are for 2009–Start with Trust!  Trust is the most overlooked, underestimated source of success in life.  Any attempt to change an organization overlayed on a low trust culture is destined to fail or at least be dramatically suboptimized.  The friction of low trust sabatoges even the most brilliant strategy.  On the career side even the most heart felt determination to change will be undermined by low self trust.  You must first keep commitments to yourself and build your credibility with yourself.   Your attempts to influence others when you have low credibility in thier eyes is risky.

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.

Yang Yuanqing

Stephen was pleased to speak again to Yang Yuanqing, Chairman of the Board of Lenovo.  Lenovo is rapidly becoming a major global brand after acquiring the IBM PC and as the one of the lead sponsors of the 2008 Beijing Olympics.  This merger was one of the most visable multinational mergers between a Chinese and a U. S. firm.  Stephen first met Yang Yuanqing when Stephen led a global executive team 2 day  meeting for Lenovo last year.  They have an impressive collection of talent and an excellent product and are poised to be a powerful force in their industry.  Of note is the decision that Lenovo made to drop IBM from their product  branding long before their rights to use the IBM name expired in their contract.   This was a bold vote of confidence in their global brand and reputation.  Well done!

Yang Yuanqing is a local rock star of business much as Steve Jobs and Bill Gates are in the U.S.  He was mobbed by dozens of press and TV cameras as he left the stage.  Stephen managed to speak to him for several minutes. Yang was genuinely pleased to see Stephen again.  We gave him as set of the Speed of Trust 13 behavior cards translated into Chinese.

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.

The Speed of Trust is a powerful way to recession-proof your career and your organization.  When the going gets tough; projects, money, promotions, and jobs gravitate to trusted high performers. The last to be laid-off or outsourced are those “go-to” players who are trusted. A 2005 study by Russell Investment Group showed that Fortune Magazine’s “100 Best Companies to Work For” (in which trust comprises 60% of the criteria) earned over four times the returns of the broader market over the prior seven years.

The May 2008 edition of Chief Learning Officer (CLO) magazine featured The Speed of Trust in an article entitled: Trust is a Competency.   This prestigious magazine is well known by leading executives around the world.  CLO called trust “a critical characteristic that is more essential to business performance than ever.”   The article goes on to say: “Increasingly more and more, leaders today are ‘rediscovering’ trust as they begin to see it with new eyes.  Looking beyond the common view of trust as some soft, intangible, illusive social virtue, they’re learning to see it as a critical, highly relevant, and tangible asset.  They’re discovering that trust affects—and changes—everything within an organization…literally every dimension, every activity, every decision, every relationship.  They’re also beginning to recognize that trust is quite possibly the single most powerful and influential lever for leaders and organizations today.”

Stephen concludes the article with this practical advice for executives: “So what is the role of learning practitioners with respect to trust?  I suggest it’s three-fold, corresponding to the three ways of seeing trust with new eyes:   (more…)

Ever thought of starting your own business? Our good friends, Ken Blanchard and Ethan Willis, have teamed up to write Ken’s next bestseller: The One Minute Entrepreneur. I first met Ken 23 years ago when I lived in San Diego, just after he had published The One Minute Manager and before it became the New York Times bestseller (and sold more than 12 million copies in 27 languages). It was Ken that introduced me to a new entrepreneur in 1986, Dr. Stephen R. Covey, who had an idea for a book.  We all know the rest of that story.  Every time I see Kenny, he asks me, “Link, what has become clear to you since we last spoke?”  A provocative question.  Well Ken, what is clear to me is that The One Minute Entrepreneur is a must-read book.

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.

Training Magazine announced today the top 125 organizations that invested the most in corporate training initiatives this year. Organizations were measured on quantitative (75 percent to total score) and qualitative (25 percent to total score) data. Criteria included: number of corporate trainers, level of employee retention, Training focused on business strategy, revenue spent on training, number of trainers certified in new 3rd party content, existence of a formal corporate university, % of payroll spent on training, leadership development, tuition assistance for employees and several other factors.  
Training magazine used an independent statistical company to process and score the data.

Many of the top 125 are the usual suspects like Aetna, Wells Fargo, Microsoft, IBM, Marriott, Baptist Health Care, Verizon and others are more surprising like US Naval Undersea Warfare Center and 1-800 Flowers.  Did your organization qualify?

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.

Stephen spoke to several hundred business people in Colorado last week  in anticipation of the the long awaited publication of The Speed of Trust.  The reaction?

Gaye Stockman, President & CEO of the Loveland Colorado Chamber of Commerce and Visitors Center, had this to say: “Covey’s The Speed of Trust presentation was an amazing event for the Loveland Chamber of Commerce and Visitor Center. Not only did we have a wonderful turnout of approximately 500 business professionals in Northern Colorado, but the support from sponsors leading up to the event was awesome. Rarely are we able to put together a presentation and have it become self-sustaining within such a short period of time. We managed to do it all within three weeks. Now that says something – not only for The Speed of Trust but about the public’s readiness to hear this message. Thank you for helping us spread this powerful message throughout our business community. We continue to hear from our members how great Mr. Covey’s presentation was.” 

I suggest that the speed of trust in this case was the trust the community had in Gaye and her team.