Stephen M. R. Covey and Rebecca R. Merrill, The Speed of Trust: The One Thing That Changes Everything. Free Press, 2006.
- Prequel: The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People
- Related volume: The 8th Habit
Referenced in:
LifeandLeadership.com Summary
This excellent volume is co-authored by the eldest son of best-selling author, Stephen R. Covey. The book presents two main points:
- The ability to establish, grow, extend, and restore trust with all stakeholders – customers, business partners, investors, and coworkers is the key leadership competency of the new global economy. (21)
- Trust is something you can do something about – and probably much faster than you think. (26)
The first section presents a set of tables that powerfully illustrate the costly contrasts of low vs. high trust in all contexts personal and professional. One chart also shatters eight common myths such as trust is soft and slow, trust is built solely on integrity, trust cannot be created or restored, trust cannot be taught, and trust is too risky. The authors make a convincing case against each myth. They insist that trust is built on equal parts of character and competence, and that any leadership failure is a failure of one or the other.
The book progresses into its chief metaphor of the ripple effect of “five waves of trust,” or the five contexts in which we establish trust. As each of these is developed from the inside out, it sends out recurring interdependent waves of trust. These are summarized on pages 34-35, and each wave is developed in a separate section of the book.
1. The First Wave: Self Trust – the confidence we have in ourselves to achieve goals, keep commitments, and to inspire trust in others, i.e. to become a person worthy of trust. The key principle is credibility, which is increased as we give attention to the “4 Cores of Credibility” – integrity, intent, capabilities, and results.
2. The Second Wave: Relationship Trust – how to establish and increase the trust accounts we have with others. The key principle is consistent behavior, particularly in the “13 Key Behaviors” found in high trust leaders. The section alone is a gold mine.
3. The Third Wave: Organizational Trust – how leaders can generate trust in all kinds of organizations, families, and teams. The key principle is alignment, which is the organizational structures, systems, and symbols that decrease or eliminate seven major trust “taxes,” and create seven major trust “dividends.”
4. The Fourth Wave: Market Trust – the trust of those to whom we offer ourselves (or products) and upon whose loyal identification and enthusiastic patronage we depend. The key ingredient is reputation of company brand and “personal brand.”
5. The Fifth Wave: Societal Trust – creating value for society at large. The key ingredient is contribution, or “giving back” that counteracts societal cynicism and inspires others to give.
Woven throughout these pages is the belief that trust can be restored once it is damaged or restored. The authors hold out the irrational confidence that we can act in ways that help others to open themselves up to us again. In fact, their discussion of the second wave of relational trust is subtitled “how to behave yourself out of problems you have behaved yourself into,” and an entire chapter at the end discusses “restoring trust when it has been lost.” Thus the book is neither too soft nor too lofty. It is perhaps one of the best discussions available on the subject.
From the Publisher
From Stephen R. Covey’s eldest son comes a revolutionary new path towards productivity and satisfaction. Trust, says Stephen M.R. Covey, is the very basis of the new global economy, and he shows how trust—and the speed at which it is established with clients, employees and constituents—is the essential ingredient for any high–performance, successful organization. For business leaders and public figures in any arena, The Speed of Trust offers an unprecedented and eminently practical look at exactly how trust functions in our every transaction and relationship—from the most personal to the broadest, most indirect interaction—and how to establish trust immediately so that you and your organization can forego the time–killing, bureaucratic check–and–balance processes so often deployed in lieu of actual trust.
About the Author
Stephen M. R. Covey is cofounder and CEO of CoveyLink Worldwide. A sought-after and compelling keynote speaker, author, and advisor on trust, leadership, ethics, and high performance, Covey speaks to audiences around the world. A Harvard MBA, he is the former CEO of Covey Leadership Center, which under his stewardship became the largest leadership development company in the world. Covey resides with his wife and children in the shadows of the Rocky Mountains.
Stephen R. Covey is a renowned authority on leadership, a family expert, teacher, organizational consultant, and vice chairman of FranklinCovey Co. The author of several acclaimed books, he has also received numerous honors and awards, including being named one of Time magazine’s twenty-five most influential Americans. Covey lives with his wife, Sandra, and their family in the Rocky Mountains of Utah.
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