The Trust Edge: How Top Leaders Gain Faster Results, Deeper Relationships, and a Stronger Bottom Line

Think about what it feels like when you don't have trust in a relationship, whether it's professional or personal. You constantly doubt the intentions and motivations of the other person or company. Things often take longer, and the whole experience can be more stressful.

And with trust, that relationship is richer and more rewarding. In business, trust within a team means greater productivity, higher morale and staff retention. It can also mean greater innovation, and more revenue. According to the author, trust, not money, is the currency of life.

The problem is that trust is a rare commodity today, especially in business. "The Trust Edge" highlights the importance of trust, and shows us how to build an environment of trust in our lives, in our teams, and in our organizations.

The author, David Horsager, is a business strategist, professor, and keynote speaker who researches trust and its impact on leaders and business. His clients include the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, ING, Wells Fargo, and other leading companies.

So, keep listening to find out some simple ways to show compassion to your team, a few tips to build character, and several strategies to start building trust with colleagues or clients online.

The book is broken up into five parts. Part one outlines the importance of trust in today's workplace. Part two outlines the author's eight pillars of trust, which are clarity, compassion, character, competency, commitment, connection, contribution, and consistency.

Part three covers how to extend trust, and rebuild it when it's been broken. Part four outlines how to build trust in a globalized Internet world, and part five talks very briefly about the risk involved in trusting others.

Let's start by looking at some of the research about the importance of trust.

The author quotes a compelling study conducted by the Columbia Business School. Researchers found that organizations with high levels of trust had returns to shareholders three times higher than organizations with low levels of trust.

Another study found that 80 percent of customers stop buying products or services from companies when their trustworthiness is called into question. And, fewer than two out of five employees today have trust in their senior leaders.

Lack of trust can also dramatically raise prices with your suppliers. Research from a study of 453 buyer-supplier relationships found that costs were five times higher with the least-trusted supplier than with the most-trusted supplier.

Statistics like this paint a gloomy picture for the business world. But the good news is that we can change things, at least in our own situation. We can invest time and energy into building trust with the people around us. And as the author points out, this trust can pay incredible dividends over time.

Trust doesn't happen overnight. It often takes months to build, and as we all know, it can be destroyed by one moment of carelessness or inattention. So, how do you even start to build trust with the people around you?

This is where the author's eight pillars come in – and he devotes one chapter to each of them. He discusses why they're important, and outlines several things you can to do to strengthen that area of your life.

Let's look at a few of these pillars, starting with compassion.

Stop and think about the people you trust most in your life. Chances are, most of them are compassionate, empathetic people. And this can include organizations too. Trust can be built by caring more about others than you do about yourself, and showing empathy for other people.

The author profiles Starbucks in this chapter because they've proven over the years to be a compassionate company. They offer health insurance and other benefits to almost all their US-based employees, including the part-timers. They spend more on benefits than they do on their coffee beans and other raw materials.

The result is that Starbucks has an incredibly low employee turnover rate for its size, at 16 percent. Similar fast-food organizations have a turnover rate of 300 percent.

There are four key ways to show compassion. For these, the author uses the acronym LAWS, which stands for Listen, Appreciate, Wake up, and Serve Others.

Start with listening. Use active listening skills to pay attention to what other people are saying to you. Be patient, and stay focused.

Showing appreciation also helps you develop compassion. And there's a lot you can do to show appreciation to your team and colleagues.

If you find out about someone's achievement, big or small, call them to congratulate them on their hard work, or send them a handwritten note. Companies that fail to recognize the hard work and talent of their teams often lose talented people to other organizations that do.

Remember that work is only part of a person's life. Stay flexible with your team, and trust them if they need to leave early or take a day off. They'll repay that compassion and trust ten-fold, the author says.

Waking up is the third element of compassion. And the author's not referring to getting out of bed every morning. He's talking about being truly engaged in your work, life, and relationships. Show your compassion by being present with the people around you, and finding meaning in what you do.

The last element of compassion is to Serve Others. If you put other people first, they'll learn to trust your motivation and intention.

Another of the eight pillars is character, which the author defines as integrity joined with good morals. These two things enable you to choose what is right, over what is easy.

The author found some very intriguing research on the importance of character in the workplace. For example, in a 2002 American Management Association survey, 1,500 managers were asked what they wanted from their leaders. The number-one answer, with 82 percent of the responses, was integrity.

Another study also found a direct relationship between profits and integrity. Cornell University discovered that an increase of just one-eighth of a point in behavioral integrity could increase profits by two and a half percent. In a normal sized hotel, as an example, this is an increase of $250,000 – just by hiring more people with integrity.

Although the statistics are compelling, we don't need them to prove what we already know. We get back far more than money by doing the right thing, even when no one else is looking.

The author points out that building character isn't easy. You have to start by monitoring your thoughts. Every action you take, and decision you make, starts with a thought. If you think about telling a white lie, or you think of others with cynicism or disrespect, you're more likely to do something that reflects those negative thoughts. Good input leads to good output.

Another way to build character is to be accountable. Surround yourself with people who have high expectations of you, and be responsible to yourself first. This doesn't mean you'll never make a mistake. But it does mean that when you do, you will want to take quick and appropriate action to set it right.

We also really liked pillar number six, which is Connection. Trust is built on relationships, and you can't create good relationships unless you really try to connect with people. This is also true for companies.

The author shows what this looks like with Caribou Coffee, a brand that's next to Starbucks in size in the U.S. The company was started by two newlyweds on vacation in Alaska. Their goal was to create coffee shops that were really personal.

Even though the author isn't a daily customer at his local Caribou Coffee, the staff have still tried to make a real connection with him by remembering his name, and remembering what drink he likes. They greet him personally when he walks in, however rarely, and his favorite drink is often waiting for him before he even gets to the cashier.

He's now been to scores of Caribou Coffee shops around the country, and this kind of personal connection is the norm in all of them. The company instills that connection with a simple acronym: BAMA – B, A, M, A. This stands for Be Excellent, Act with Urgency, Make a Connection, and Anticipate Needs.

The author didn't have to call HR to find this out. He asked a simple question to one employee. She explained the acronym, and its importance to every employee, right there in the store.

The Caribou story shows what's missing in many businesses today. There's no real connection between customers and the brand or organization. But if you care enough to create that kind of connection, you'll build loyalty and trust with your customers, and your employees.

The author goes over the other five pillars in great detail. There's nothing particularly new or groundbreaking. But, that doesn't detract from the value of what's here. These lessons are worth repeating, and we could all use a reminder on how to build trust using each of these eight elements.

Another valuable chapter is chapter 13, which focuses on how to rebuild trust after it's been broken. This could be the trust of your brand, or even your own personal reputation.

The author says trust has to be rebuilt slowly, with small promises that are kept every single time. If you try to rebuild trust too quickly after a mistake it will only make things worse. But there's a lot more you can do.

Make sure you apologize thoroughly. A sincere apology includes the following statements: "I'm sorry. It was my fault. What can I do to make it right or solve the problem?"

Whenever you apologize to someone, try to incorporate those three messages into what you say.

Rebuilding trust in a brand, rather than a person, takes a lot more time, and is more difficult to do. The author provides 15 tips you can use to rebuild an organization's trust.

First, acknowledge the need to address issues and take personal responsibility for your role in events. Empathetically listen to everyone who was involved, apologize sincerely, and act on a solution. If ethical or judgmental trust was broken, change leadership.

There are many more tips in this list, and the chapter as a whole. This is a great addition to the book, because so many firms and organizations today have lost the trust of their customers.

The last few chapters look at how to build trust with people you might never see in person. How do you build a deep, trusting relationship with a colleague, boss, or contractor who might live half way around the world?

First, don't use email for important or sensitive conversations. Miscommunication and misinterpretation happens often through email, because there's no tone of voice or body language to reference. So, it's easy to take something the wrong way as you're reading.

You also need to make guarantees. Whether you're selling a product or service, people want to know they'll get their investment back, if for some reason you can't meet their needs. The online retailer Zappos has built trust with its customers because of its guarantee: you can return any product, for any reason, free of charge, within 30 days. That kind of guarantee inspires a lot of trust with customers because they have nothing to lose.

There are also some great tips in this last chapter on making your company website or blog more credible.

So, what's our last word on "The Trust Edge"?

We think this book gives an insightful and practical look at the value of trust. Granted, there's nothing really new in here, but that doesn't mean the book isn't worth your time. It's a great refresher for all of us on why trust is so important. And, it's full of good advice on how to slowly start building trust in your own life.

The author did an excellent job of backing up his approach with plenty of research. He was careful to quote studies and a wide variety of consultants and other resources within the text. There's also a detailed appendix in the back of the book.

We appreciate that he pulled so much information from credible sources because it helps make his case stronger and more compelling. It's also fascinating to see just how important trust is to a business's bottom line – in facts and figures.

Another plus is that the book is set up with the busy reader in mind. The text is broken up with plenty of subheadings, quotes, and activities to help you apply the information you're reading. Important concepts are written in a bigger font and highlighted in red, so it's easy to skim the book and find key points.

All in all, this is a good book to remind you how important trust is in achieving success.

"The Trust Edge," by David Horsager, is published by Free Press.

That's the end of this episode of Book Insights. Thanks for listening.

Click here to buy the book from Amazon.