Stephen M.R. Covey, the New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestselling author of The Speed of Trust: The One Thing That Changes Everything, is sharing the power of trust in a 13 city North American speaking tour.

In a recent interview with The Orange County Register Covey addressed the economic worldwide crisis of confidence and how he sees trust as the remedy.

• When leaders ignore or forget their principles, they behave in ways that cause others to lose trust and they loose moral authority, causing social and economic impact. Trust is not a soft social virtue but is a hard-edged economic driver. Financial markets work because of capital and liquidity, but these two elements are not enough. Currently, the government has stepped in to help out with liquidity, but trust cannot be artificially created.
• As the recession continues, the lack of trust feeds on itself, creating a perpetuating downward cycle where distrust and suspicion create more distrust. Scandals and gross trust violations cause suspicion and people are cautious, trying to protect themselves. Distrust produces more distrust in relationships, teams, companies, markets and economies. Transversely, trust can create a virtuous, upward cycle and become the standard. Then, when one behaves outside the norm, the individual must either reform or leave, while the organization continues to become a high-trust culture.
• Recently, a Fortune 500 company who has truly embraced trust experienced a massive reorganization and significant layoffs. However, these layoffs were approached quite differently. They said, “If there ever could be such a thing as a healthy reduction of force, we just experienced it.” They confronted the economic reality, were very transparent, worked out solutions with employees, talked straight, avoided manipulation and treated everyone with such respect that the survivors were more proud of their organization than ever before.
• Covey doesn’t advocate blind trust and indiscriminately trusting anybody and everybody as that is being gullible. He’s not a Pollyanna, but he also doesn’t believe that just because you’ve been disappointed you can’t trust anyone. Some managers don’t trust others because it’s risky. But, there’s a risk in trusting as well as in not trusting. When there’s distrust, it creates more bureaucracy, politics, disengagement, turnover and fraud. In the past, trust may have been seen as a soft, cuddly idea. Today, people see it more clearly.

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Author: Debra Lund, Public Relations Director, FranklinCovey