FranklinCovey and Simon & Schuster Announce Update to Best-Selling Book, The Speed of Trust: The One Thing That Changes Everything, Authored by Stephen M. R. Covey
Updated Edition Includes New Anecdotes, Examples, Data and Covey
Afterword: The Top 10 Reasons Trust is More Relevant Today than Ever
Before
SALT LAKE CITY–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Trust continues to be a leading driver of successful business strategies
across the globe. Organizations with high-trust cultures are able to
significantly boost their results, increasing speed and lowering costs.
Today, Franklin
Covey Co., a global firm specializing in organizational performance
improvement, and publishing giant, Simon & Schuster, announced the
updated edition launch of The New York Times and Wall Street
Journal best-selling book, The
Speed of Trust: The One Thing That Changes Everything by
author Stephen
M. R. Covey.
The Speed of Trust has been updated with new anecdotes, examples
and data that demonstrate not only the power and importance of
high-trust cultures, but how to systematically create them. Author
Stephen M. R. Covey has also written a new afterword, which includes the
Top 10 Reasons trust is more timely, relevant and vital today than when
the book was originally published in 2006. These areas affect personal
and professional results and give keen insight into using trust as a
driver to improving performance.
Since its original publication in 2006, there has been a dramatic shift
in how businesses operate, the services they provide and the culture
needed to perform in today’s collaborative world. Trust remains at the
crux of their strategic priorities, their employee relationships and
their influence in the community. At the World Economic Forum in 2018,
Marc Benioff, Chairman and CEO of Salesforce, said, “Trust has to be the
highest value in your company.”
Covey leans in to these current trends and identifies trust as the
element needed to bridge the divide in the evolving global economy in
the new afterword of The Speed of Trust. He shares his Top 10
Reasons Trust is More Relevant Today than Ever Before, which are
summarized below:
Stephen M. R. Covey’s Top 10 Reasons Trust is
More Relevant Today than Ever Before (The Speed of Trust)
#1—We live in a world of declining trust: While trust does tend
to ebb and flow in different industries, with different stakeholders,
and in different societies, trust as a whole is increasingly under
attack. As a result, we tend to become more cautious, more guarded, and
more suspicious, perpetrating a vicious downward cycle of distrust and
suspicion, where everyone feels justified in the process.
#2—Trust is the engine of the sharing economy: The sharing
economy is beginning to complement—and in some cases—replace traditional
forms of commerce and exchange, particularly through technology and
digital trust. Industries that were once led primarily by specialists
are being disrupted, overwhelmingly influenced and often even driven by
average, everyday people.
#3—The nature of work today demands increasing collaboration:
More and more teams are made up of people from different departments,
buildings, and even countries. The collaboration that needs to take
place in these diverse teams is vital to the type and quality of the
work needed today. We certainly have technology tools for collaboration;
the question is whether or not we have the trust.
#4—Change is the new normal in a disruptive world: Change is
happening at an extraordinary and unprecedented rate—not only the pace
of change, but also the amount of change and the type of change, which
is commonly characterized by disruptive technologies. Unfortunately, the
more perishable commodity in a high-change environment is trust.
Paradoxically, trust also happens to be the only means by which people
can generate the speed, commitment, and inspiration necessary to
successfully navigate such rapidly shifting terrain.
#5—Our multigenerational workforce necessitates a different approach
to how work gets done: Millennials—and those in the generation that
follows—are effectively motivated, inspired, and engaged in different
ways and by different things than the generations that came before them.
The very nature of our workforce today puts an even greater premium on
trust, and bridging generational gaps is one of the great leadership
challenges of our time.
#6—Trust is the critical enabler of strategic initiatives: Consider
some of the factors that become either driving or restraining forces to
outstanding (or even adequate) organizational performance—factors such
as engagement, execution, innovation, retention, recruitment,
partnering, collaborating, teaming, productivity, safety, sales,
mergers/acquisitions, and leading change. When you move the needle on
trust, you move the needle in every one of these areas, and often that
movement is disproportionately high. The data is irrefutable.
#7—Trust itself has become a key strategic initiative: Teams and
organizations around the world are making trust—in and of itself and
apart from being linked to other initiatives—the intentional
focus of how they operate, both internally and externally. When you
outperform your competitors, it’s clear that the market has greater
trust, or confidence, in your organization, your products, or your
services.
#8—“Culture” has reemerged as an imperative for organizational
success: Organizations striving to build a winning, sustainable
culture are coming to understand that if they don’t have—first and
foremost—the foundation of a high-trust culture, all other efforts are
insufficient. A high-trust culture is the starting point for any other
sustainable cultural modifier.
#9—Yesterday’s style of management is insufficient for today’s
leadership needs: Trying to operate in today’s world with a Command
and Control style is like trying to play tennis with a golf club; the
tool is completely ill-suited to the reality. The style of leadership
that succeeds in today’s world is one of “Trust and Inspire”—trust the
people you work with and inspire them to make a difference.
#10—Trust is the new currency of our world today: When most
people think of currency, they typically think of money. But another
kind of “currency” that’s even more important in creating sustained
success in today’s global economy is the currency of trust. When people
see a country, an organization, or even an individual as credible or
deserving of trust, the trust dividends that accrue afford access,
opportunity, and influence that money alone could never buy.
To download the complete afterword with the Top 10 reasons, go to http://www.speedoftrust.com/.
“Since the publishing of The Speed of Trust, the last 12 years
have solidified my original thinking that trust is the one thing that
changes everything,” said Stephen M. R. Covey. “As I have worked with
hundreds of executive teams and organizations, success has been created
as trust has been built. This success is further evidence that trust is
the predominant factor in building winning cultures and that it is a
learnable skill that can position teams and organizations with an
undeniable competitive advantage.”
The continued relevance of The Speed of Trust has placed it in
the pantheon of must-reads by many of today’s most respected CEOs. On
Glassdoor’s Top
CEOs of 2018 list, the #1 CEO, Eric Yuan of Zoom Video
Communications, listed The Speed of Trust as his #1 recommended
read.
Yuan stated to Glassdoor, “The big thing I learned from this book is
that especially for start-up companies, speed is everything. You’re
competing with the legacy companies and quite often you have to make
tough, critical decisions… how to build a company at full speed at the
same time without creating major problems is the challenge. But if trust
is already there, it is very easy. If I trust you, I know your
intentions are good. Even if you tell me, ‘Eric, this is a huge mistake.
Can you fix that’ I trust you and I can make the fix.”
The Speed of Trust lays out a framework to establish, grow,
extend and restore trust with key stakeholders including customers,
business partners, investors or co-workers. Covey asserts that trust is
more than a soft social virtue. It’s a hard-edged economic driver that
makes organizations more profitable, people more promotable and
relationships more energizing.
The updated edition of The Speed of Trust is available now. Visit www.speedoftrust.com
to learn more about the updated release and to view a video of Stephen
M. R. Covey describing the power of trust and about the role trust plays
in building successful businesses.
Visit www.franklincovey.com
to learn more about their Speed of Trust offerings or to schedule
Stephen M. R. Covey as a keynote speaker.
ABOUT FRANKLIN COVEY CO.
Franklin
Covey Co. (NYSE:FC) is a global, public company specializing
in organizational performance improvement. We help organizations and
individuals achieve results that require a change in human behavior. Our
expertise is in seven areas: leadership, execution, productivity, trust,
sales performance, customer loyalty and education. FranklinCovey clients
have included 90 percent of the Fortune 100, more than 75 percent of the
Fortune 500, thousands of small and mid-sized businesses, as well as
numerous government entities and educational institutions. FranklinCovey
has more than 100 direct and partner offices providing professional
services in over 160 countries and territories.
Contacts
Media
Debra Lund
801.244.4474
Debra.lund@franklincovey.com
Travis Rust
801.817.5378
Travis.rust@franklincovey.com
