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FranklinCovey Blog | The Speed of Trust
You see it differently and that’s good!
I just had an interesting interchange with one of my associates who was shocked that I was not offended by her expression of an opinion that was the polar opposite of mine. I was shocked that she did not realize that it was safe and healthy to respectfully express your true perspective without sugar coating it. A difference of opinion can be a great starting point for growing trust NOT the end of it. Respectful straight talk confronting a different perspective adds to trust while walking on eggshells and concealing your true feelings while purporting to have a candid discussion is a counterfeit behavior that actually destroys trust.
Hidden agendas undermine authentic communication. Listening to the opposing opinions with the intent to understand and empathize builds trust. Remember empathy is not sympathy or agreement-simply understanding their perspective. Test this from you own experience. You trust people that authentically express their true opinions more than those that hide them and tell you what they think you want to hear. › Continue reading
The Ripple Effect
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 yourself, 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 the results of your team and your organization.
Author: Greg Link, The Global Speed of Trust Practice Leader at FranklinCovey
Feared Thing First
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 thaw them. Stay with this relentless follow-up and you will be very glad you did. One of two things will happen: 1) ou 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.
Author: Greg Link, The Global Speed of Trust Practice Leader at FranklinCovey
From the Desk of Stephen R. Covey: The High Cost of Low Trust
Most organizations have no clue of the enormous cost of low trust, and because most executives have no means of measuring its bottom-line impact, they have little motivation to seriously address it. To compound the problem, many employees feel like helpless victims of the problems in their organizations and see no clear way to influence their leaders. Learn specific, powerful things you can do that will profoundly impact the level of trust in your relationships, your team, your family, and your organization.
Q: Is trust really necessary in business today? Can you do business without it?
A: You absolutely cannot do business without trust. It is not only important, it is absolutely vital. For instance, even transacting with somebody when you are buying gasoline, you trust that you are getting quality fuel; you trust that the prices are within the market; and you trust that your money will be accepted by that person. There are just so many elements to the simplest transaction that require trust. But we are like fish that discover water last and are sometimes unaware of those implicit elements. Trust is the lifeblood of all relationships, of all transactions, and is so foundational and fundamental to everything in life.
Q: What are evidences of a low-trust environment?
A: Low-trust environments are filled with hidden agendas, a lot of political games, interpersonal conflict, interdepartmental rivalries, and people bad-mouthing each other behind their backs while sweet-talking them to their faces. With low trust, you get a lot of rules and regulations that take the place of human judgment and creativity; you also see profound disempowerment. People will not be on the same page about what’s important. Ultimately, the culture will become driven by urgency rather than importance because everyone is in it for themselves and for their own agenda.
Q: What is low trust costing us?
A: Low trust has a huge tax associated with it. It creates a culture of toxicity, just like you have toxins in your body. Imagine what it costs a body to be full of poison. And that is what a low-trust culture is-it is full of poison. You see people embracing and promulgating what I call the six metastasizing emotional cancers. Metastasize means they send their cancer cells through the body, mind, heart, and spirit of a person. They can also spread through relationships.
The six metastasizing cancers are criticizing, complaining, comparing, competing, contending, and cynicism. By competing, I don’t mean the healthy competition you find in the marketplace or in the basketball arena, but the kind of competition where you are competing for your own internal sense of worth.These emotional cancers are the forces that literally undermine and eventually destroy relationships. However, trust makes all things possible.
See other blogs by Stephen R. Covey at www.stephencovey.com