“The One Thing That Changes Everything!”

Looking at your business or personal relationships, what is that “one thing that changes everything?” That one foundational “thing” that, if done correctly, will explode the growth of any business or personal relationships. Vice verse, if done incorrectly, it will destroy your business and personal relationships over night. Taking it even deeper, it can make or break you as an individual having self worth. What is it? It’s The Speed of Trust!

Intuitively, most would acknowledge that trust is important. However, how big of an issue is it and how impactful is the “speed of trust”? Stephen M.R. Covey’s book, The Speed of Trust, does a fantastic job of capturing the essence of trust and its impact.

Looking at an organizational level, Covey provides the following statistics:

• “Only 51% of employees have trust and confidence in senior management.
• Only 36% of employees believe their leaders act with honesty and integrity.
• Over the past 12 months, 76% of employees have observed illegal or unethical conduct on the job – conduct which, if exposed, would seriously violate the public trust.”

Looking at relationships, Covey says to consider the following:

• “The number one reason people leave their jobs is a bad relationship with their boss.
• One out of every two marriages end in divorce”

What about on an individual basis.  Covey states: “consider the percentage of students who acknowledged that they cheated in order to improve their odds of getting into graduate school.

• Liberal arts students – 43%
• Education students – 52%
• Medical students – 63%
• Law students – 63%
• Business students – 75%”

Do you think that these students simply cheated just this one time to make the cut? I seriously doubt it. And, they say if you cheat once, it’s always easier to cheat the next time. Deep down, how do you think these students are doing today with respect to “self-worth”?  There is a strong correlation, guaranteed. Folks, trust is HUGE!

What’s the economics associated with trust? I’ll let you read the book and learn a much more comprehensive overview of the cost of trust. However, a formula which Covey offers is:

“Decrease Trust = Decrease Speed Increase Cost

Increase Trust = Increase Speed Decrease Cost”

Seems intuitive, right? But is it really a problem for you personally in your organization and your relationships. We work with a lot of organization, have a variety of relationships with individuals, and our experience is consistent with many of the statistics being shared above.

So, what do we do with this “crisis of trust”? Covey outlines “The 5 Waves of Trust – Self Trust, Relationship Trust, Organizational Trust, Market Trust, and Societal Trust.” Notice that the first wave starts with “self trust”. In the book, Covey discusses how “self trust” is gained, or lost through, “The 4 Cores of Credibility – Integrity, Intent, Capabilities, and Results”.  I believe it’s important to recognize that many think if you’re an honest person, or a person of integrity, you are “trustworthy”. Well, Covey challenges this and contends that “trustworthiness” is actually the combination of these 4 cores. For example, I might be the most honest, best intentioned individual you know; however, you likely wouldn’t trust me to do brain surgery on you or a loved one. Clearly, I don’t have the capabilities or results which would build this type of trust.

Moving on into the book, Covey outlines The “13 Behaviors” which will significantly enhance your ability to establish trust in both your personal and professional relationships. It truly is a great read and I encourage you to click through and get your copy.

In his LIFE Success talk a few weeks ago, Kirk Brittles, discusses Covey’s Speed of Trust and the great impact that trust has in all of life’s relationships. “Trust is built as you speak openly and honestly in a tactful manner. Developing an ‘I’ve-got-your-back’ attitude will help create a ‘Speed of Trust’ with everyone you associate with. Taking pride in yourself and your actions and being up-front, open, and honest when you make a mistake will only help you in the long run.” This success talk is one of many other talks existing in the LIFE compliment of products that we recommend plugging into and sharing with your teams.

With all of this talk on trust, I would be remise if I didn’t briefly go down the path of “trusting” and “distrusting” individuals. The question I get asked frequently is: “What do you do with a non-trustworthy individual?”  My response is, you have to find a way to bring trust to that relationship. At the point you bring mistrust, you become part of the dysfunction in the relationship. Mistrust occurs when you don’t stop and deal with the conflict or issue immediately with the person(s) involved. This topic is far beyond the scope of today’s message and there are multiple resources we would recommend in the event you would like to learn more. Please feel free to contact us for more specifics.

So, while I haven’t offered a lot of actionable content, I hopefully have given rise to the importance and impact of trust. Additionally, I have offered a few great resources to plug into to continue to assess, learn more, and take actionable dialog for personal development.

Please feel free to go to our blog and comment on this post or any of the others to provide and seek input from our community.

Have a FANTASTIC day!