Room 211 in the Hoover Center for Business was quiet on April 4 as students listened to sophomore Aurora Landis speak about Stephen M. R. Covey’s book “The Speed of Trust.” Covey is continuing down the path of his late father, Stephen R. Covey, who wrote a number of books on principled leadership, including the famous “7 Habits of Highly Effective People,” which sold more than 20 million copies in 40 languages throughout the world.
Landis introduced the lecture by affirming the importance of trust in the business world and detailing Covey’s 7 Low-Trust Organizational Taxes: redundancy, bureaucracy, politics, disengagement, turnover, churn and fraud. She explained that Covey views these behaviors as taxes on the organization or behaviors that drain the life from an industry. If your business displays these taxes, it is most likely unsuccessful.
According to Landis, Covey believes that a business will be very successful if it practices what he calls 7 High-Trust Organizational Dividends: increased value, accelerated growth, enhanced innovation, improved collaboration, stronger partnering, better execution and heightened loyalty. Just as Covey compared his low-trust behaviors to taxes, he describes these behaviors as dividends or behaviors that add value to the organization.
Covey presents thirteen behaviors of high trust leaders in his book. The thirteen directions for behavior that Covey gives are talk straight, demonstrate respect, create transparency, right wrongs, show loyalty, deliver results, get better, confront reality, clarify expectation, practice accountability, listen first, keep commitments and extend trust. All of these behaviors, according to Covey, are necessary for success and trust in a business setting, as well as life in general.
Finally, Landis discussed what Covey refers to as the first, second, third, fourth and fifth waves of trust – sort of a model for building trust. The first wave is self-trust, which deals with personal credibility. The second wave, relationship trust, has to do with consistent behavior and the 13 behaviors listed above. The third wave is organizational trust, which deals with alignment of systems, and the fourth wave is market trust, which deals with reputation. The fifth wave discusses societal trust, which involves contribution. Landis told the audience that Covey uses the metaphor of “fish discover water last” in explaining this concept. In other words, fish don’t know water is there until it is taken away from them, and people don’t realize how often trust is taken for granted or how important it is until it is gone.