Key insights from The Speed of Trust book

Have you ever wondered why some organizations thrive while others struggle? It's not just about strategy or innovation; it's about the foundation of trust within an organization. Stephen Covey suggests in his classic text "The Speed of Trust" that low trust causes friction, which slows down organizational processes and eventually leads to low-quality outputs. Trust is an economic driver. These, and many other studies, demonstrate that a high-trust culture is a leader’s magic wand that positively influences many diverse business outcomes. Here are 5 strategies that we work with senior leaders at Renergetics to strengthen their trust foundations: - Lead by Example: Being transparent, honest, and consistent in your actions as a leader. - Active Listening: Creating and encouraging an ‘open-door policy’ for communication and genuinely listening to your team's concerns and ideas. - Equipping Your Team for Success: Giving your employees the autonomy and resources they need to succeed. - Recognise and Reward: Celebrating achievements, big and small, to boost morale and positivity. - Promote Work-Life Balance: Support your team's well-being with flexible work arrangements and wellness programs. Trust is no longer a nice to have, it has become a must for top-performing organizations. Just like a sturdy building needs a strong foundation, organizations need a culture of trust. When employees feel valued, respected, and empowered, they're more likely to go the extra mile, innovate, and drive business success. What are your biggest challenges in building trust within your organization? #leadership #renergetics #trust #publicspeaking #consulting

Trust is the foundation of speed in startups. Without it, decision-making grinds to a halt. Execution suffers. Startups lose their agility advantage. Over the Easter weekend, I reread Stephen M.R. Covey's The Speed of Trust. It reinforced some critical lessons that are especially relevant in the fast-paced, ambiguous environment of an early-stage startup: • In a startup, almost everything is a hypothesis until proven. The key advantage is the agility to pivot based on learning. But this requires deep trust in your teammates' expertise. • While anyone can opine on business decisions like pricing, there are best practices and experience matters. Debating every decision across functions slows you down. A startup's mandate is to move fast, test assumptions, and iterate. • Trust your experts. Let the ex-CMO drive marketing. Let the tech lead make architecture calls. Consider diverse views on the overall direction, but empower functional leads on execution. • Yes, trust, but verify. Trust is not blind faith. But it should be the default mode. It's what enables a startup team's speed. Establish trust early, reinforce it constantly, and you'll move faster. These principles seem simple, but they're powerful. Developing the "speed of trust" is perhaps the most critical cultural factor for startup success. Where have you seen trust (or lack thereof) impact speed in a startup? What practices have you found effective for building trust quickly in a founding team? #startups #leadership #trust #founderlessons

Leaders: Trust is one of the cornerstones of your success. If you cannot be trusted, you cannot truly lead. You might be able to pull people through sheer will or force of personality, but over any sort of long-term you will not take teams to greatness. In a similar fashion, your ability to perform well on the job will determine how willing your team is to follow the vision you lay out for them. Asking your teams to be elite when in fact you are remarkably mediocre will never create the outcomes you need to achieve success. Instead, a disparity between your performance and that of a high-performing team will foster resentment among your employees and motivate top performers to seek employment in a place where they feel they can learn and grow. In his book ‘The Speed of Trust’, Stephen Covey reminded us that there are two very important components to trust -  competence and character. Without good character a leader will never be fully embraced by a team. Show me an employee that is constantly on guard around their manager (or feels spoken over or constantly blamed by them…) and I’ll show you one that isn’t nearly as productive as they could be. And while you might initially trust someone because of their outstanding character, this will wane over time when you determine that they are not talented enough to lead you or get the job done. Both talent and trust are crucial. The term ‘competence’ can be a bit tricky in that it comes in many forms, not just work outputs. How one handles challenges impacts a leader’s competence level as does the the ability to lift up others by holding them accountable inside of a growth mindset leadership style. And let’s not forget that professional demeanor matters too. To be a great leader you must be trusted by your employees. Leaders must never forget that they are the sum of the parts of the teams that they are work with. Success in a leadership role is directly tied to not just the quality of the team but one’s ability to lead it.