The SPEED of Trust: The One Thing that Changes Everything - by Stephen M.R. Covey
Date read: 2019-05-05How strongly I recommend it: 8/10
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Written by Stephen Covey's son, this book walks through the different ways you can build and destroy trust. Insightful in that it defuncts some common myths and is a good retrospective to see how you measure against the qualities that enable trust.
Contents:
- 5 WAVES OF TRUST - THE FIRST WAVE: SELF TRUST
- THE 4 CORES OF CREDIBILITY
- 5 WAVES OF TRUST - THE SECOND WAVE: RELATIONSHIP TRUST
- THE 13 BEHAVIORS
- BEHAVIOR #1: TALK STRAIGHT
- BEHAVIOR #2: DEMONSTRATE RESPECT
- BEHAVIOR #3: CREATE TRANSPARENCY
- BEHAVIOR #4: RIGHT WRONGS
- BEHAVIOR #5: SHOW LOYALTY
- BEHAVIOR #6: DELIVER RESULTS
- BEHAVIOR #7: GET BETTER
- BEHAVIOR #8: CONFRONT REALITY
- BEHAVIOR #9: CLARIFY EXPECTATIONS
- BEHAVIOR #10: PRACTICE ACCOUNTABILITY
- BEHAVIOR #11: LISTEN FIRST
- BEHAVIOR #12: KEEP COMMITMENTS
- BEHAVIOR #13: EXTEND TRUST
- 5 WAVES OF TRUST - THE THIRD WAVE: ORGANIZATIONAL TRUST
- 5 WAVES OF TRUST - THE FOURTH WAVE: MARKET TRUST
- 5 WAVES OF TRUST - THE FIFTH WAVE: SOCIETAL TRUST
My Notes
Simply put, trust means confidence. The opposite of trust-distrust-is suspicion. When you trust people, you have confidence in them-in their integrity and in their abilities. When you distrust people, you are suspicious of them-of their integrity, their agenda, their capabilities, or their track record. It's that simple.
One of the fastest ways to restore trust is to make and keep commitments-even very small commitments-to ourselves and to others.
When trust is low, speed goes down and cost goes up.
I know of leading organizations who ask their employees directly the following simple question in formal, 360-degree feedback processes: "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 question they might ask.
Trust is a function of two things: character and competence. Character includes your integrity, your motive, your intent with people. Competence includes your capabilities, your skills, your results, your track record. And both are vital.
Leadership is getting results in a way that inspires trust.
The first wave, Self Trust, deals with the confidence we have in ourselves-in our ability to set and achieve goals, to keep commitments, to walk our talk-and also with our ability to inspire trust in others.
It all boils down to two simple questions: 1) Do I trust myself? and 2) Am I someone others can trust?
Most of the time, it's not the huge, visible withdrawals like major ethics violations that wipe out organizational trust. It's the little things-a day at a time, a weak or dishonest act at a time-that gradually weaken and corrode credibility.
This author then suggested effective ways to follow up and to build trust. For example, if you've said "no" to a toddler and he doesn't obey, then you immediately go pick him up and move him away from whatever he was doing.
Your integrity, your intent, your capabilities, and your results.
Core 1: Integrity - It's walking your talk. It's being congruent, inside and out. It's having the courage to act in accordance with your values and beliefs.
A person has integrity when there is no gap between intent and behavior...when he or she is whole, seamless, the same-inside and out. This kind of authenticity is what I call "congruence." And it is congruence-not compliance-that will ultimately create credibility and trust.
A humble person is more concerned about what is right than about being right, about acting on good ideas than having the ideas, about embracing new truth than defending outdated position, about building the team than exalting self, about recognizing contribution than being recognized for making it.
These three "accelerators"-make and keep commitments to yourself, stand for something, and be open-will help you increase your integrity.
Core 2: Intent - Trust grows when our motives are straightforward and based on mutual benefit-in other words, when we genuinely care not only for ourselves, but also for the people we interact with, lead, or serve.
While we tend to judge ourselves by our intent, we tend to judge others by their behavior. We also tend to judge others' intent based on our own paradigms and experience.
It is important for us to actively influence the conclusions others draw by "declaring our intent."
Am I quick to see and acknowledge the contribution of every team member? Am I focused on a "win" for the entire team? Or am I primarily focused on my own "win"-on being the "hero," on being recognized for my own ideas?
Another good way to examine your motives is to use an adaptation of the "five whys."
One watch-out in declaring intent is to always be sure that you're being honest and real about it. To do otherwise is to come across as duplicitous and deplete trust. You also want to ensure that your intent is not merely self-serving. The very process of considering how to declare your intent will help you improve it.
Core 3: Capabilities - Our talents, attitudes, skills, knowledge, and style. They are the means we use to produce results.
To remain credible in today's world, we need to constantly improve our capabilities.
T alents - Our natural gifts and strengths.
A ttitudes - Our paradigms-our ways of seeing.
S kills - Our proficiencies, the things we can do well.
K nowledge - Our learning, insight, understanding, and awareness.
S tyle - Our unique approach and personality.
Unless you're continually improving your skills, you're quickly becoming irrelevant. And when you're irrelevant, you're no longer credible. And without credibility, you won't sustain trust-which will dramatically impact both speed and cost.
What is my current level of knowledge in my specific field? What am I doing to stay current? What other areas of knowledge am I pursuing?
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?"
The problem is that many people aren't into the idea of continuous improvement. So they're working in a company-maybe they've been there for ten or fifteen years-but instead of having fifteen years of experience, they really have only one year of experience repeated fifteen times!
Core 4: Results - If we don't accomplish what we are expected to do, it diminishes our credibility.
If I were considering hiring someone, to what extent would that person's track record and current performance influence my decision?
Our credibility comes not only from our past results and our present results, but also from the degree of confidence others have in our ability to produce results in the future.
In considering results, you always need to ask two critical questions: What results am I getting? and How am I getting those results? Most people only ask the what. They have no idea that the answer to the how may be doing them in.
It's vital to take responsibility for results-not just activities.
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.
The second wave, Relationship Trust, is about how to establish and increase the "trust accounts" we have with others.
If you're not a caring person now-but you desire to be a caring person-then go out and behave in caring ways. If you're not an honest person now-but you desire to be honest-then go out and behave in honest ways.
A Mercer "What's Working" survey revealed that only 44 percent of workers trust that senior management communicates honestly-which means that about six in ten believe their bosses are not honest about what they're saying.
Sometimes entire cultures are held hostage by a downward cycle of spin and posturing. This diminishes trust and creates an additional "withholding tax" where people withhold information and keep things "close to the vest." As a result, companies often have three meetings instead of one: the premeetings (to prepare and position), the meetings themselves (where, because of all the spin and withholding, very little discussion of the real issues take place), and then the "meetings after the meetings" (the smaller meetings where the real discussion happens and the real issues are aired).
A good leader takes nothing for granted and recognizes the contributions made by everyone on the team-even those people who appear to do the most insignificant jobs.
Never take existing relationships for granted-particularly relationships with loved ones, family, and friends. Avoid the common tendency to put more energy into new relationships and assume that people in existing relationships know you care. There is probably a greater need for demonstrations of concern in existing relationships than in new relationships.
Be transparent about not being able to be transparent (e.g., when the law or ethics preclude it).
The reality is that everybody makes mistakes. The issue isn't whether you will make them, it's what you will do about them. It's whether you will choose the path of humility and courage or the path of ego and pride.
When you build trust with one, you build trust with many.
When wrongs happen, and you quickly acknowledge them and apologize, in most cases you're able to move on.
One important way to Show Loyalty is to give credit to others, to acknowledge them for their part in bringing about results.
To exercise courage-to go to the person and talk to him/her about the concern-is also a demonstration of loyalty.
"The price of freedom is performance." In other words, when you perform-or deliver results-your performance gives you opportunities, alternatives, choices (freedom, indeed!) that you don't get in any other way.
The next time you plan to Deliver Results, make sure you thoroughly understand the expectation. Don't assume that just because you deliver what you may think are good results, you're going to hit the mark. If you really want to build trust, you have to know what "results" mean to the person to whom you're delivering.
I've learned to value the words of Elon Musk, founder of Tesla Motors, when he said, "I think it's very important to have a feedback loop, where you're constantly thinking about what you've done and how you could be doing it better."
If you're not willing to make mistakes, you're not going to improve.
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."
Confronting reality with facts-rather than with emotions or conflict-inspired trust, transformed relationships, and made success sustainable.
"How you receive bad news the first time determines whether you will continue to get bad news."
Keep in mind that clarifying expectations effectively is always a two-way street. People have to have the opportunity to push back, to help come to an expectation that is realistic and will work from both points of view.
When you communicate with others, recognize that clarity is power. One way of checking to see if your communication has been clear is to "check for clarity" by asking a few simple questions:
Hold yourself accountable first; hold others accountable second.
Listen First means to listen with more than your ears; it means to also listen with your eyes and your heart. Listen to yourself, to your gut feelings, your own inner voice, before you decide, before you act.
Generally, as long as a person is communicating with high emotion, he or she does not yet feel understood.
A person will usually not ask for your advice until he or she feels understood. To offer advice too early will usually only stir up more emotion-or cause someone to simply ignore what you say.
Although Keep Commitments is one of those behaviors that seem obvious and is just plain common sense, as the expression goes, "Common sense is not always common practice." And the impact on trust is devastating.
By being sensitive to the nature of commitments-both explicit and implicit-in different cultures, you will be able to build trust much more quickly than if you're insensitive or clueless.
In establishing a new relationship where you want to build trust fast, follow this process: Find a value-added reason to make a commitment and keep it... and do it again... and again... and again. As you implement this "Make-Keep-Repeat" cycle, notice how quickly the Trust Account grows.
When you're highly suspicious, you tend to try to validate everything, to analyze everything to death-which ends up decreasing speed and increasing cost. In addition, you miss opportunities. You cut off collaboration and synergy.
The third wave, Organizational Trust, deals with how leaders can generate trust in all kinds of organizations, including businesses, not-for-profit organizations, government entities, educational institutions, and families, as well as in teams and other microunits within organizations.
The underlying principle behind this wave is reputation. It's about your company brand (as well as your personal brand), which reflects the trust customers, investors, and others in the marketplace have in you.
The principle underlying this wave is contribution. By contributing or "giving back," we counteract the suspicion, cynicism, and low-trust inheritance taxes within our society.
With regard to analysis, it's helpful to consider three vital variables, which you can do by asking these questions:
The idea that trust cannot be restored once it is lost is a myth. Though it may be difficult, in most cases, lost trust can be restored-and often even enhanced!
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).