 Hi and welcome to the leaders room brought to you by the Eclipse Leadership and Governments Center My name is Michael Kossler and I'll be your host for this edition of the leaders room today We're in Kuala Lumpur for Eclipse 6 leadership energy summit Asia Earlier I had an opportunity to chat with one of our guest speakers Steven M. R. Covey a global authority on trust leadership and Modernization culture Steven is also the author of the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal best-selling book the speed of trust Here's what Steven had to say about how trust is the thing that changes everything So so Steven I got asked you have read all your dad's books, you know, and I've read your book Yeah, in fact if the bookstore has the latest Revision to it. I'm gonna get it. Do they I don't know. I haven't good Get you to sign it because your original copy is on my desk back in the United States. There's an updated edition I just came out saw that so Tell me one story about your dad. What's one thing your dad told you, you know Piece of advice and anecdote that to today you still use to guide yourself. Yeah Well the anecdote is when he earned his doctorate. I remember telling him Hey, I was 14 years old and I said dad congratulations. You're in the doctorate and he said well Thanks, son. That's nice and this is important and then he said but you know, here's something you ought to think about This this doctorate is an achievement. It's a good thing. I'm glad I did it. It's important what would be more important is to earn an Honorary doctorate to be given an honorary doctorate because that is given to people who have made a contribution And while an achievement is important Making a contribution is far more important always remember that life is about Contribution not about accumulation And I might even say life is about contribution not just achievement Now again, there's nothing wrong with a cheap right, right? That could be part of a contribution But always have the focus be to serve to give back to make a difference to matter. He talked about you know going from survival to stability to success to significance To learn the lyrics to live to love to learn to leave a legacy That's what Eclipse is about too. Well, he must have been an incredible human being. He was he was so let's make the transition To you and let's start at the end. What's the contribution you're making I? Feel like my mission is to help increase trust in the world And we are living in a world of declining trust in societies in organizations and institutions and relationships and You know, I like to say that distrust is contagious It tends to perpetuate itself and in a low-trust world We all become a little bit more more careful more cautious more guarded because none of us want to get burned The problem with that is that people respond back more careful more cautious more guarded And what we find ourselves Michael is perpetuating a vicious downward cycle of distrust and suspicion creating more distrust and suspicion and everybody feeling justified in the process but what if instead we can counteract that and Create trust and confidence when there was only suspicion before and have that spread To become a virtuous upward spiral where trust and confidence create more trust and confidence And when people see a leader that they can trust because of their credibility their character Competence and when that leader models the behaviors that build the trust and they say there's a better way to lead sure You can get results and you can do it in a way that inspires trust and people they get they gain hope they say well This leader is doing it, you know Warren Buffett's doing it Tony Shae's doing it as apples and these other people are doing it They're getting results and they're doing it in a way that builds the trust inspires trust And suddenly there's more hope more optimism that you can still perform and compete the highest level and Doing the way that builds trust and we need more of that in the world And so to be able to say there's a methodology of how you can get good at building trust on purpose That's what I'm up. I think I know what you're gonna say to my next question But I want to focus on the subtitle to your book. Yeah, the book is the speed of trust the one thing That changes everything interpret that for me. What's what's the essence of it trust the one thing that changes everything? I'll tell you a little story about it when I when I was submitting that as my subtitle my publisher said you can't say this That's that's too bold. That's the one thing that changes everything You can't say that and I said here's why I am saying it It does if high trust is like a rising tide It lifts every boat. Yeah, if you get good at trust as a leader Suddenly your ability to do everything else you need to do as a leader has just gone up It's multiplied as a multiplier for everything the ability to collaborate to partner to team to engage to attract retain inspire people To execute strategy to innovate everything goes up with trust and distrust by contrast works the other direction Everything goes down with distressing taxes everything and so And you can take anything you're looking at You can do better if you start with trust and so it's that's why I said it's the one thing that changes everything I I affirm that and I reaffirm that as I as I published the updated edition that this remains The one thing that changes everything and so that's not a nice Platitude, you know, that sounds like a great marketing tagline It is a reality and every dimension of leadership goes up with trust, okay So earlier when we were talking a few moments ago, you said results Yeah, and there's a there's a line in your book that says that trust is a hidden variable of the Organization success model. Yeah, what is that model and how does trust fit into it? Yeah, well if you look at most kind of organizational success for me as people kind of say look you got you got to have a good strategy Yeah, you got to execute the strategy that equals results strategy times execution equals results, right? And I fundamentally buy that but too often there's firms that on paper have a really good strategy And on paper they have the ability to execute and yet they're not performing at all So there's something else happening Okay, and I call it a hidden variable and the hidden variable is trust when there's low trust It will take a good strategy and diminish it dilute it tax at your buddy to execute it goes down dramatically It's slow at a minimum it slows down But it will also you'll be limited in what you can do it dilutes it it taxes it and so strategy times execution multiplied or diminished By trust the hidden variable is trust it makes good things better And it takes and when the trust is high and it diminishes dilutes taxes all your strengths when the trust is low And so most people never think of it this way They the thing is just a nice soft social virtue, right? I'm saying now This is an economic driver, and it multiplies or diminishes it Everything else that we're trying to do and that's the hidden variable is trust