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.

 Click here to read more articles by Stephen R. Covey 

Author: Debra Lund, Public Relations Director, FranklinCovey

In 1989 I noticed a new book in a New Jersey airport bookstore.  It was called The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. I was a “road warrior,” a traveling consultant from Utah, and was mildly interested to find a book written by a fellow Utah native, Stephen R. Covey.  But I didn’t buy it.

That was exactly 20 years ago.

Since then Dr. Covey’s book has been called “the most influential business book of the century” (by the Wall Street Journal).  It stayed on the New York Times bestseller list for 5 years.  A “must-read” now translated into 38 languages, The 7 Habits is now in 20 million copies (and is arguably the most pirated business book in the world). Google “7 Habits” and you’ll get 14 million hits. 

In the early 1990s I started seeing this book everywhere.  When in 1995 I saw it on the desk of a high-ranking official in Saudi Arabia, I realized it was time for me to pick up a copy.

But I still put off reading it.

Meanwhile Dr. Covey was seemingly training the world in basic, unchanging principles that lead inexorably to success. More than half the employees of Fortune 500 companies were trained.  Towns, churches, and schools read the book together.  Presidents, prime ministers, and kings read the book.  Of course, above all, Oprah read it and featured it on her show.

In 1996 I sat in a dark auditorium in Orlando, Florida, with 8,000 other people to hear Dr. Covey speak. “I am a lighthouse,” he intoned in the darkness, telling a famous parable from the book, the story of a ship on the night ocean that tried to order a lighthouse to get out of its way.  His point-you can choose your course in life, but you can’t choose the consequences of your choice.

So I read the book-probably the last person on Earth to do so. I learned to focus on truly important things, not just urgent things. To listen-really listen-to other people for the first time. To think “win-win.” To get off the road, which was killing me, and find a real mission and purpose in my professional life. And to raise really super children (of course, I may be biased).

How has The 7 Habits impacted the world in the last 20 years? Hard to tell-not enough. Not nearly enough.

But I know how it’s impacted me. 

How has the book 7 Habits of Highly Effective People impacted you? We’d like to hear from you.

Author: Breck England