Friday, July 27, 2007

Book: "The Speed of Trust," by Stephen M. R. Covey

Prediction: this book will become the all-time best selling business/management/leadership book in history. I'm not saying it is necessarily the best book, but I'm not sure anyone has ever been more passionate about their content and its meaning to society in general.

I first read the book at the recommendation of a co-workers executive coach. Two chapters in and I gave a copy to my coach; he also thought it was good and we began talking about its subject matter on a regular basis.

03/2008: Our company (we're a mortgage lender) began experiencing troubles due to overall industry changes and I used Covey's "Four Cores of Credibility" as part of the focus to keep from imploding along with many others. In particular, we constantly reminded ourselves to "behave our way" through the changes being imposed upon us.

04/2008: I went to a CoveyLink Speed of Trust workshop to get more depth on the teachings and also to become a workshop facilitator.

Trust is mentioned twice in our company's Statement of Values and is so important to working with people well. Lincioni, in his book "The Five Dysfuntions of a Team" introduced me to Building Trust as the first point of having a good team - before mastering conflict you have to build trust.

We've given away almost a hundred of these books to our employees so far and I have another 250 stacked in my office.

Do you think I like the book?

Danny

July 20, 2008: I'm continuing to study this book and use the behaviors to help me lead and manage with more purpose. For some thoughts about how Trust plays out go to http://focusandreflection.blogspot.com/ or http://alethes-values.blogspot.com/ .

11/01/2008: I've started a project surrounding this book and what scripture and Biblical references tie to the 4 cores of credibility and the 13 behaviors. It can be found at http://thespeedoftrustingodseyesproject.blogspot.com/ .

2/21/2009: rarely a day does not go by that I do not think about trust, accountability, and behaviors. My "in God's eyes" project has been a bit stemied with all the changes occuring in my life. Or, I should say, writing the posts up have been stemied. It has been great living and learning how the teachings in this book matches up to scripture.

Did Covey mean for that to happen? I don't know, but living out the behaviors to build upon the disciplines of practicing Christianity has been a blessing.

3/21/2009: every so often, I have to stop and thank God for putting such meaningful books in my path to help me practice Christianity. Thank you Lord.

8/30/2009: well, we did implode along with many other mortgage companies, yet, I can review the past and see how blind my trust was through the years. If I'd had the training this book teaches and the wisdom and strength to carry it out, I believe things would have been much different. The main fault was Behavior; too many agendas different from the company's.