Maybe this happens to you all the time.  Maybe if I were quicker to extend trust it would happen more often to me.  But as it currently stands, sometimes I feel like I don’t know enough about a person—their character and competence—to trust.  Sometimes a person has behaved in ways that have broken trust.  Regardless, it is rare for me to trust an entire room full of people.  And it felt great!  You’ll laugh, but I felt tears spring to my eyes when I thought about it.  It didn’t mean I agreed with them on everything or that the meeting was easy, but things were easier to achieve because I assumed good intent.

I had worked with everyone in that room for at least three years and with some for over a decade.  I trusted them because they had kept commitments, they had talked to me straight, and they all delivered results.  Does this happen to you often?  Or never?  What else builds trust for Executive Mamas? 

Author: Jennifer Colosimo, Chief Learning Officer at FranklinCovey

Who would have thought a couple of years ago that giant corporations would be toppling overnight? That gas prices would rise sky high and then collapse again within a few days?  That the economic boom would implode into the worst recession in 50 years?

But even in unpredictable times like these, some companies still perform with excellence. How do they do it? What principles do they follow? This blog is a place where we will discuss exactly that. It is a place where we can share insights and successes.

The book Predictable Results in Unpredictable Times, a new book by Stephen R. Covey and Bob Whitman, chairman of FranklinCovey, captures four key principles for getting great performance in good times and bad.

First, winning companies slim down to a few key simple goals with clear targets and careful follow-through. Everybody in the firm knows the goals and what to do about them.

Second, winning companies maintain high levels of trust with their customers, employees, and suppliers. They are totally transparent about their commitments, what they can and can’t deliver. Only the most trustworthy companies survive the kind of turbulence we’re in now.

Third, winning companies do more of what matters. The mantra in tough times is “do more with less,” but the real question is “more of what?”  Winning companies focus on giving more value-not just cutting back.

Finally, winning companies recognize that everyone gets scared when things get uncertain. Instead of allowing themselves to be paralyzed by fear, they channel their anxiety into results. They unleash people’s best ideas and energies instead of suppressing them or micromanaging them.

Over the next few weeks we will talk more in-depth about these each of these principles, principles that we believe can help any company win, no matter how rough the ride gets. What principles have you found that are helping you win in these wild times?