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Starting with Trust

It’s not easy sharing your name with the world-renowned author of The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. But that didn’t stop Stephen M. R. Covey, son of the late Dr. Stephen R. Covey, from becoming an acclaimed writer and thought leader in his own right. Today, Stephen M. R. is the co-founder and Global Practice Leader of FranklinCovey’s Speed of Trust Practice, and a global trust expert. With both a leadership focus and a robust hairline that differentiates him from his famous father, Stephen M. R. appeared as the first guest on the On Leadership series. The studio set contains facing chairs, a not-too fashionable throw rug, and walls adorned with the most influential books read by his interviewer (and for this work, his editor).

One book prominently displayed is The Speed of Trust by Stephen M. R. Covey. Originally written in 2006 with an updated edition published in 2018, The Speed of Trust is the best-selling guide for leaders, teams, and organizations looking to build high-trust cultures and relationships. Today, as trust between people, organizations and governments is at an all-time low, Stephen M. R.’s work is even more important. For him, trust wasn’t a focus that came from long musings in an academic ivory tower (although Stephen M. R. graduated from Harvard Business School so he has the elevator code to the top floor); rather, his insights on trust came through years working as a practitioner, leader, and executive. He felt the pull to share what he’d learned with others: “Having done the business side, I felt compelled to write and to speak and to do some of the things that my father was doing. I hadn’t done it prior because, at the time, I felt I had nothing to say, but then I found something I wanted to talk about. That was trust.” Trust, it would turn out, was “the one thing that changed everything.” For Stephen M. R., trust is the key leadership competency in today’s global economy.

“Today, as trust between people, organizations, and governments is at an all-time low, Stephen M. R.’s work is even more important. Trust is the key leadership competency in today’s global economy.”

A Practitioner’s Perspective

After graduating from business school, Stephen

M. R. started “at the bottom” at the Covey Leadership Center as a client developer. He learned the business and the needs of various clients. He was promoted to client manager and then as the leader over the client services group. Eventually, Stephen M. R. was asked to serve as the president and CEO. He built a great organization and brand, merging with Franklin Quest to form FranklinCovey. With trust, Stephen M. R. understood that most in the business world merely viewed it as a soft, social virtue. And the literature at the time looked at the topic in simplistic or overly academic ways. But his experience told him something different: Trust was practical, tangible, and actionable. He believed he could make a business case that treated trust as something both economic and learnable.

“Trust is practical, tangible, and actionable—something both economic and learnable.”

The Speed of Trust

Stephen M. R. put his expertise to paper when he authored The Speed of Trust. Now, when a book sells over two million copies and is translated into twenty-two languages, it’s at the top of the top in the business market. And that’s what The Speed of Trust has done. Stephen M. R. believes the book’s success has to do with its global applicability across cultures and organizations, and that the need for trust is greater than ever. Abuses and violations of trust at every level in society fill the news cycles. Bureaucracy, redundancy, fraud, and waste are often the results.

The Speed of Trust is the antidote to a low-trust world: it outlines how leaders and organizations can operate with high trust while understanding why it matters. But it’s difficult. Stephen M. R. describes the process like swimming upstream: You might work to be a high-trust player in a low-trust industry or take on the role of a trusted leader in a company that’s not known for trust. It takes work to learn to operate with high trust. Even after the effort yields positive results, the job of building trust continues as “models” become “mentors.” If it sounds complex, don’t worry: Stephen M. R. wrote The Speed of Trust to teach anyone how to do it.

Paradox: Crisis of Trust vs.

Renaissance of Trust

There’s a lot of “P” words at FranklinCovey, like “principles” and “paradigms.” But with The Speed of Trust we get to discuss another: “paradox.” In the midst of the world’s crisis of trust, there’s a concurrent renaissance of trust. You can see it in small pockets, spearheaded by innovative leaders dotting the globe. Stephen M. R.’s extensive travel allows him to engage these pockets of trust firsthand while keeping an eye on the larger global trends. The trust renaissance also shows up in “high-trust” organizations looking to strengthen their cultures and produce even better results. So, despite the world’s worsening trust crises, Stephen M. R. knows a growing number of leaders are abandoning the old notions of trust as a “soft” virtue and recognizing that its fruits reach all the way to the bottom line. So long as trust can be used as a hard, financial measure, innovative leaders will continue to work with Stephen M. R. to fuel its resurgence.

“The Speed of Trust is the antidote to a low-trust world: it outlines how leaders and organizations can operate with high trust while understanding why it matters.”

Leadership and Trust