For the past couple of days I’ve been attending a “Speed of Trust” workshop at Snowbird ski resort in Utah.
The workshop is based on Stephen M.R. Covey’s soon to be released book entitled “The Speed of Trust“. Pictured to the left is Covey with Tom Heck, President and Founder of the International Association of Teamwork Facilitators.
Covey was interviewed by Tom Heck for the IATF. Listen to the interview HERE
Covey’s lead trainer for the Speed of Trust project is Barry Rellaford who is also a visiting faculty member at the IATF. Barry and Tom Heck (pictured to the left) are good friend who share a passion for building high performing teams.
My job was to participate in the workshop and then provide feedback on how to make it more powerful through experiential learning exercises.
A few of the key learnings from the workshop…
Trust (lack of it) acts like a “tax” on a team / company / system.
Here’s an equation that reflects the impact of Trust…
Normally, the equation would read like this:
Strategy x Execution = Result
Reality shows us the equation reads like this:
Strategy x Execution = Result – “Trust Tax” = Actual
Example:
Here’s what people often believe what’s going on:
— Strategy — Your team has a great strategy measuring 10 on a scale form 1 to 10
— Execution = Your team has perfect execution. So good it measures 10 on a scale from 1 to 1010 (Strategy) x 10 (Execution) = 100
THE REALITY is much different if trust is low on the team (which it usually is)…
10 (Strategy) x 10 (Execution) = 100 – 40% “Trust Tax” = 60
Most teams focus their energies on building better Strategy and Execution in order to improve / increase the Result. This, according to Covey, is a mistake. The team should focus on increasing (improving / building) trust so as to minimize the “Trust Tax”. Back to the example…
10 (Strategy) x 10 (Execution) = 100 – 10% “Trust Tax” = 90
In the above example the Strategy and Execution remained the same AND YET the final result improved all because the “Trust Tax” was reduced.
How do you increase trust (and decrease the Trust Tax)? This was the focus of most of the workshop.
We learned strategies to grow (improve, build, increase) trust in the following areas:
- Self Trust
- Relationship Trust
- Organizatinal Trust
- Market Trust
- Societal Trust
Because trust starts within, the program outlined the 13 behaviors of high trust leaders. Here are the first five:
- Talk Straight
- Demonstrate Respect
- Create Transparency
- Right Wrongs
- Show Loyalty
At the end of the workshop we developed a “Wave of Trust Action Plan”.
I highly recommend this workshop if your organization is ready to move at the Speed of Trust.
And finally, I have to share a picture from the top of a mountain (11,000 ft) near the training center (click on photo to enlarge).
