The Speed of Trust by Stephen M. R. Covey

Part 1: The One Thing that Changes Everything

Nothing is as Fast as the Speed of Leadership

- The number one job of any leader is to inspire trust

- Trust always affects two outcomes-speed and cost. When trust is low, speed goes down and cost goes up. When trust is high, speed goes up and cost goes down

- Trust is a function of both character and competence

- When you build trust with one, you build trust with many

You Can Do Something About This

- Trust is one of the most powerful forms of motivation and inspiration. People want to be trusted

- Trust is a function of two things: character and competence

- Covey identifies five waves of trust:

  1. Self trust: the key principle underlying this wave is credibility (four cores of credibility)
  2. Relationship trust: the key principle is consistent behavior (13 trust building behaviors)
  3. Organizational trust (inside the organization): the key principle is alignment (creating structures, systems, and symbols of organizational trust)
  4. Market trust (outside the organization): the underlying principle is reputation (your organizational brand)
  5. Societal trust: the key principle is contribution

Part 2: The First Wave-Self Trust (Credibility)

The Four Cores of Credibility

- Leaders need to be able to inspire trust and confidence in others

- Trust is about credibility. Credibility boils down into four issues: your integrity, your intent, your capabilities, and your results

Core 1: Integrity (Are you congruent?)

- Integrity includes honesty (telling the truth and leaving the right impression), congruence (walking your talk), humility, and the courage to do what is right

- The most massive violations of trust are violations of integrity

- How to increase your integrity:

  1. Make and keep commitments to yourself
  2. Stand for something
  3. Be open

Core 2: Intent (What’s your agenda?)

- Intent is about motive, agenda, and behavior

- Motive is your reason for doing something. The motive that inspires the greatest trust is genuine caring

- Agenda grows out of motive. It’s what you intend to do or promote because of your motive. The agenda that generally inspires the greatest trust is seeking mutual benefit (you want others to win)

- Behavior is the manifestation of motive and agenda. The behavior that best creates credibility and inspires trust is acting in the best interest of others

- When we believe people truly are acting in our best interest, we tend to trust them

- How to improve intent:

  1. Examine and refine your motives
  2. Declare your intent-this “signals your behavior”-it lets people know what to look for so that they can recognize, understand, and acknowledge it when they see it
  3. Choose abundance (win-win)

Core 3: Capabilities (Are you relevant?)

- Capabilities are the talents, skills, knowledge, capacities, and abilities we have that enable us to perform with excellence

- One way to accelerate the rate of learning, both individually and organizationally, is to learn with the intent to teach others what you learn (you learn most when you teach)

- How to increase your capabilities:

  1. Run with your strengths (and with your purpose)-identify your strengths and then focus on engaging, developing, and leveraging what’s distinctly yours
  2. Keep yourself relevant-engage in lifelong learning
  3. Know where you’re going-at the end of the day, people follow those who know where they’re going

Core 4: Results (What’s your track record?)

- How to improve your results:

  1. Take responsibility for results (focus on results, not activities)
  2. Expect to win-we tend to get what we expect, both from ourselves and from others. When we expect more, we tend to get more; when we expect less, we tend to get less
  3. Finish strong-results are all about finishing strong

Part 3: The Second Wave-Relationship Trust (Consistent Behavior)

The 13 Behaviors

- For the most part, the difference between those who change behavior and those who don’t is a compelling sense of purpose

- Make a sincere effort to understand what makes a deposit or withdrawal to another person and always try to act in ways that build trust

- The first five behaviors flow initially from character, the second five from competence, and the last three from an almost equal mix of character and competence

- Generally, the quickest way to decrease trust is to violate a behavior of character, while the quickest way to increase trust is to demonstrate a behavior of competence

- By behaving in ways that build trust with one, you build trust with many (news spreads)

Behavior #1: Talk Straight

- Be honest. Tell the truth. Let people know where you stand. Use simple language. Call things what they are. Demonstrate integrity. Don’t manipulate people or distort facts. Don’t spin the truth. Don’t leave false impressions.

Behavior #2: Demonstrate Respect

- Treat everyone with respect. Show kindness in the little things. Behave in ways that demonstrate caring and concern

- A good leader takes nothing for granted and recognizes the contributions made by everyone on the team

- Think about specific things you can do to show others you care about them. Call people. Write thank you notes. Give acknowledgement. Send e-mails of concern. Try to do something each day to put a smile on someone’s face

- Never take existing relationships for granted-particularly relationships with loved ones, family, and friends

Behavior #3: Create Transparency

- Transparency is about being open, real, and genuine and telling the truth in a way that people can verify

- Disclose relationships, interests, and conflicts ahead of time so that everything is always out in the open

Behavior #4: Right Wrongs

- Make things right when you’re wrong. Apologize quickly. Make restitution where possible. Practice service recoveries. Demonstrate personal humility. Don’t cover things up.

Behavior #5: Show Loyalty

- Give credit to others and speak about people as though they were present

- Go out of your way to give credit freely

- Make it a rule to never talk about family members in negative ways

Behavior #6: Deliver Results

- Clarify “results” up front. Make sure you thoroughly understand the expectation

- Before you make a commitment, make sure it’s realistic. To overpromise and underdeliver will make a withdrawal every time

- Try to anticipate needs in advance and deliver before the requests even come

- Establish a track record of results. Get the right things done. Make things happen. Don’t overpromise and underdeliver. Don’t make excuses for not delivering

Behavior #7: Get Better

- In seeking to get better, there are two strategies that are particularly helpful in maximizing your effort: seek feedback, and learn from mistakes (really all experiences)

- Continuously improve. Increase your capabilities. Be a constant learner. Develop feedback systems-both formal and informal. Act on the feedback you receive.

Behavior #8: Confront Reality

- Confronting reality is about taking the tough issues head on. It’s about sharing the bad news as well as the good, naming the “elephant in the room,” addressing the “sacred cows,” and discussing the “undiscussables.”

- Address the tough stuff directly. Acknowledge the unsaid. Lead out courageously in conversation.

Behavior #9: Clarify Expectations

- Create shared vision and agreement about what is to be done up front

- In every interaction-explicitly or implicitly-there are expectations

- Disclose and reveal expectations. Discuss them. Renegotiate them if needed and possible. Don’t assume expectations are clear or shared

- Clarify expectations both at work and at home

- Check for clarity by asking a few simple questions:

  • What have you understood from this conversation?
  • As a result of our interaction, what do you see as your next steps? What do you see as mine?
  • Do you feel that others are clear regarding expectations?
  • What can we do to make things more clear?

Behavior #10: Practice Accountability

- There are two key dimensions to practicing accountability:

  1. Hold yourself accountable
  • When people hold themselves accountable, it encourages others to do the same
  1. Hold others accountable
  • People respond to accountability-particularly the performers. They want to be held accountable

- Hold yourself accountable. Hold others accountable. Take responsibility for results. Be clear on how you’ll communicate how you’re doing-and how others are doing

Behavior #11: Listen First

- Listen before you speak. Understand. Diagnose. Listen with your ears-and your eyes and heart. Don’t assume you know what matters most to others. Don’t presume you have all the answers-or all the questions

Behavior #12: Keep Commitments

- Keeping commitments is the quickest way to build trust in any relationship

- Make commitments carefully and then keep them

- Don’t break confidences

Behavior #13: Extend Trust

- Demonstrate a propensity to trust. Extend trust abundantly to those who have earned your trust. Extend conditionally to those who are earning your trust.

Part 4: The Third, Fourth, and Firth Waves-Stakeholder Trust

The Third Wave-Organizational Trust (Alignment)

- The main principle of establishing organizational trust is alignment-ensuring that all structures and systems within the organization are in harmony with the cores and the behaviors

- To increase organizational integrity, work on creating a culture of making and keeping commitments within the organization

- To improve organizational intent, ensure that your mission and values reflect motives and principles that build trust

- To increase organizational capabilities, take steps to ensure that structures and systems in your organization are designed to attract and retain the talent you need to be competitive

- To improve organizational results, help people create a shared vision concerning desired results through a system that includes cascading goals and getting everyone on the same page (can also use a balanced scorecard). In addition, you can create a culture in which people have the opportunity to account for results-not activities-on a regular basis

- The seven low trust organizational taxes: redundancy, bureaucracy, politics, disengagement, turnover, churn among customers, fraud

The Fourth Wave-Market Trust (Reputation)

- Chapter focused on building the four cores of credibility and practicing the thirteen behaviors with external constituents

The Fifth Wave-Societal Trust (Contribution)

- Contribution is the intent to create value instead of destroy it, to give back instead of take

Extending Smart Trust

- Extending smart trust involves good people judgment (high propensity to trust) and good business judgment (doing the analysis)

- In doing the analysis, ask “What is the opportunity?” “What is the risk involved?” and “What is the credibility (character/competence) of the people involved?”

Restoring Trust When It Has Been Lost

- Though it may be difficult, in most cases, lost trust can be restored-and often even enhanced

- The path to restoration is to increase your personal credibility and behave in ways that inspire trust

- Generally speaking, a loss of trust created by a violation of character (integrity or intent) is far more difficult to restore than a loss of trust created by a violation of competence (capabilities or results)

- When others have lost your trust:

  1. Don’t be too quick to judge. Give others the benefit of the doubt. Don’t automatically assume that a failure of competence is a failure of character (many mistakes are not intentional).
  2. Do be quick to forgive-whether or not we choose to trust in the future, we always need to forgive