The Speed of Trust

Today, at a corporate leadership seminar, I was inspired by a lecture by Stephen M. R. Covey, the author of The SPEED of Trust: The One Thing That Changes Everything.  (Note that this is NOT the Stephen Covey who wrote "Seven Habits of Highly Effective People".  This is his son.  But he was just as inspiring to me today as his father ever was.  Given that my heroes are people who write books to help others improve their lives, I was like a kid at a rock concert who gets to meet the rock star, especially when I had a few moments to speak to Mr. Covey and have him autograph my copy of his book.

The "Speed of Trust" is about how central trust is to relationships, both inside and outside of work.  Where it fits for me right now is my struggles at work to collaborate with people across multiple sites who don't report to me. I've blogged before about how I'm trying to keep them engaged, trying to see what I might be doing wrong in conference calls that contributes to poor attendance and low energy.  I know that it's partly because they don't work for me.  Their bosses have different priorities and work for plant managers who's priorities may diverge from those of my boss.  Also, it's tough to delegate heavily to people who all live hundreds of miles away from me.  But I can't focus on the things I can't control.  What can I do differently to engage these folks, to make them excited about our project, to make them look forward to our conference calls and make them want to volunteer for responsibilities?

Trust seems to be the key.  This is trust in a much broader sense than most people think of it.  They already trust me in the narrow sense of believing that I'm honest, that I want what is best for the company, and that I'm a nice guy.  But that isn't enough to make them want to go the extra mile for me and for my projects.  Do they trust that I'll listen to them?  Do they trust that they can influence the strategies of the project, that I'll give them interesting, challenging assignments that take advantage of their strengths and interests, and that the work they do in this project will advance the interests of their plant site and their personal and career goals?  That is a higher level of trust that demands more than my reputation as a nice guy who knows what he's doing.  To gain this kind of trust, their is no substitute for 1:1 discussions where I SHOW them that I will listen, I ASK them about their skills and how they would like to contribute, I ASK them about their priorities, and I LISTEN to their input on the project plans.

Some of the other books I've been reading such as Stomp the Elephant in the Office: Put an End to the Toxic Workplace, Get More Done -- and Be Excited About Work Again have also emphasized listening and gaining input to get team members to own the strategy.  But I find the "Speed of Trust" to be more explicit about HOW to do this.