Capability Amplifier EP#80 - David Horsager; The Most Researched Expert on Trust

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Welcome to Capability Amplifier. Question to ask yourself today is how do you drive results? And if you struggle with your employees, your clients, your marketing, maybe your net promoter score, or your marriage, maybe your relationship with your kids, there's one key challenge that you have and it's one simple word. It is trust. And the question to ask yourself is how do you create trust in the most effective way? I have a very special guest today. He's a fellow Minnesotan. He's from a small town not too far from where I grew up in Minnesota. His name is David Horsager and he's the most research expert on trust, organizational trust and leadership in business. Now here's one little nugget for you. Research has proven that output, morale, retention, innovation, loyalty and productivity increases when trust increases. And he's also the author of many books, but his Latest is trusted 8 Pillars that Drive Results. John C. Maxwell calls it a pivotal guide for today's leader. So, David, what a pleasure to have you here today, sir.

Thank you so much, Mike. Great to be here.

First of all, I want to add this. You're the most researched man on trust, organizational trust and leadership in business. I think the best way to get this rolling is what exactly does that mean and why does it matter?

Well, I'll tell you. First of all, I believe, and this goes back to my grad work a couple decades ago, is that a lack of trust is the biggest expense of an organization. And I believe trust is always the leading indicator. More than ever, it's that everything else lags. So people think, Mike, they think, wow, we got a leadership issue. You never do. The only reason you follow a leader or not is trust. Unless it's a dictator. Oh, we got a sales issue. No, we never do. And unless it's a commodity, the only reason I buy or not has something to do with trust. The only way in your world, you know, the only way to amplify a marketing message is increase trust in that message. The only way to deal with the diversity issues of our day is the biggest Harvard study shows diversity on its own pits people against each other. The only way to get the value of diversity, which is true and research based, is increased trust. Same with innovation and everything else. The only way to increase innovation in a team is increase trust in the team. Then they share ideas, creativity goes up. So we saw most people solve them. We don't believe the real issue. I believe the root issue is always a trust issue. And that goes back to my grad work and we put out a big study Every year on trust and leadership globally.

All right, so I'm going to just say one more thing, and then I'm going to ask you a couple personal questions for everyone who's listening right now. I think the biggest reason why I wanted to have you here today is for our viewers, our listeners, they're looking for how do I first of all build and contain and create the maximum amount of trust with my teams internally? Because when you've got that, you're going to get teamwork and you're going to get more results, right? And that means happier clients and customers on the other side. I'm a big marketing fan and a freak, and so are so many of the people who listen to and watch this as well. And they're always going to say, how do I get the leg up? What's the latest in the research? How do I gain the maximum amount of trust in the shortest period of time that's genuine, authentic, and real? So someone raises their hand and says, I've been looking for someone just like you. How do we start working together?

Absolutely.

So.

Well, I'll tell you what, this is the sad part. What you want is in a quick, great interview session because we want to go back and forth today as you want a quick answer. And of course, the problem is the framework. And people have said, oh, well, you need three points in a speech. Isn't it supposed to be just short? And I said, but those eight pillars, you know, even.

My first book, when it came out, they said, you know, seven cells better than eight. I'm like, hey, I talk on trust. And eight came out of the research. Eight research funnels. So I think for even. Just a quick. Even though I could speak about each of the pillars for a full day, I think in three minutes, just for a common language, maybe I should share the eight pillar framework. This has been, you know, validated as the way trust is built globally. So here we go. Okay, so these eight, you have to go against these, and you might use different ones first, whatever. But clarity number one, people trust the clear and they mistrust or distrust the ambiguous or the overly complex. Most people, as you know, even in marketing, think they're clear when they're not. Number one is clarity. Number two is compassion. People trust those that care beyond themselves. It's hard to follow someone, buy from someone, or, you know, be accountable to someone, don't feel like cares beyond themselves. The most trusted person in the world actually is not Oprah or the Pope. It is actually Mom. Every year in the study, people Trust their moms because they have this care beyond themselves. Number three is character. We trust those that do what's right or what's easy. There's a whole lot more. We have a seven step framework for building this into companies. So many companies de incentivize character they actually want. But anyway, character number four, we thought character was everything or many did, right, but it's not. Number four is competency. I might trust Mike to take my kids to the ball game because he's got character and compassion, but not give me a root canal. You've got to stay fresh and relevant and capable. This is something you've done with all your businesses is we. What's the newest way of doing this newest way of marketing? If you're selling the way you were 20 years ago, I don't trust you. Leading the way you were 10 years ago, I don't trust you. You got to stay fresh and relevant and capable. And the next pillar is commitment. We trust those that stay committed even in the face of adversity. You think of anybody that's left a legacy, Mom, D. Mandela, Gandhi, Jesus or Joan of Arc, and you'll find someone that's trusted because of their commitment, you know, beyond themselves. So the next pillar is connection. This pillar really showed the willingness to connect and collaborate. You know, if I'm looking in big companies or global governments, I see counter forces of connection, maybe siloing or selfishness. And you can find counter forces to each of these. The seventh pillar is contribution. And really remember, even though these are denoted by C words, they were actual research funnels in the research, not some kind of just trite motivational piece. It was so this, this contribution word, really the key words that came out of this research funnel was results, outcomes, performance. So you've got to contribute results. You could, you could be a compassionate, high character person. But I don't get what I wanted. I'm not going to trust you. You got to contribute results, right? And the final pillar, of course, and this really matters in marketing, consistency, whatever you do consistently is what I try. The only way to build a reputation is consistency. The only way to build a brand is consistency. If you're for good or bad. If you're late all the time, I will in fact trust you to be late. So I mean, that's a quick overview. But, but let me just say a couple things about this. I really believe you can solve every leadership, organizational and marketing issue against these eight. This is the language. I'm not no ego about it, I hope. I mean Just we were on six continents and we talk about how to contextualize and everything else, but most people are actually solving the wrong problem. We got an engagement issue. You never do. The only way to increase engagement is increased trust. We got a net promoter score issue, referral issue. The only way is increase. Even people that say, oh, you like Cs, David, what about communication? Isn't it ever a communication issue? It's not. Communication is happening all the time. Clear is trusted, unclear isn't compassionate is hateful, isn't. And so forth down the list. So that's a quick glimpse for you. And now I'll listen a little bit more. But I had to kind of give context.

All right, well, first of all, you turn on the fire hose. I appreciate that. And also for everyone watching, listening, one of the things that you can do, because David mentioned that he's been doing this research for a long time. And if you go to one of his websites, it's trustedge.com, there's a tab that says research on it. And you actually give away your trust Outlook white papers, which I'm looking at it right now going back all the way to 2017. Yeah, so you've got.

That's the latest ones we give away. But, you know, I think in 2014 might end. Be in there. And my grad work is available from 20 years ago, too, but yeah, okay, so.

And we'll talk more about your. Your new book as well. But now I want to switch gears just a little bit, which is what got you interested in trust in the first place. And what's your why behind what you're doing, why you're doing it, and who you're doing it for?

Well, I tell you, I moved back, you know, actually been in Arkansas after college and moved back to Minnesot. I'd been director of a youth and family organization. I'd built some leadership curriculum. I got to share it. U.S. coast Guard Academy, other military, a bunch of places. And basically this is back in the 1900s. I have to tell my kids. And basically I had this epiphany. I still remember where I was. It wasn't some big spiritual experience. It was just like I was down in Arizona and I was out on the deck. Lisa and I were my wife, and I didn't have kids yet. So we're after this day. I said, the problem they think they're having, not the real problem. It's actually a trust problem. It's not a leadership problem. That's not a sales problem. It's a Trust problem. And it was just intuitive at first that led me to say I need to. I didn't even know why I would go do graduate work or get a degree, you know, higher degree or all that kind of stuff. But I just decided to. And the research back then no one was almost no one was doing any research like this. Now everybody's talking about trust. All these books have been coming out. But back then think there was nothing in this space to speak of. Hardly. And so we kept finding it to be true. Then we used it in companies. It actually works. This first company we did kind of deeply small 600 person company said you saved us 2 to 4 million in attrition costs in 6 months or you did this or we tripled sales here or we were now that was all good. But when you say authentically the real why it changed me and, and I can think, I mean it changed how I parent. It changed me as a husband. It continues to change me. How I parent my teenagers now is different. Like this trust work. And I can tell you several stories of where I saw something like oh my goodness, that's, that's my issue. And I, by the way these eight pillars I even talk about, I'm not perfect at any of them. I just know they're true from the research. I'm learning every day. So that's, that's that journey. There's more to that of course, but there's some other significant points. One, when I started my first company, we had $1.40 to our name. Move into a basement apartment with black mold, no windows, bathroom or kitchen, and an 86 year old Clara Miller's home. That's where Lisa and I started. And that was a trust experience. Living there for two years.

Growing up under a great leadership in my parents. You can learn from terrible and toxic leadership. You can learn from greats. And there's stories you can read, especially my first book. But in some of my talks about my dad and how he engendered trust on this farm in the poorest county in Minnesota and why people loved working for him. So there's a lot of threads there. But probably why am I so passionate about it? I actually unlike people that you know.

I did the research. I've seen it firsthand, I've seen the case studies and I've seen it in my own life. So the passion is deep. Good.

And just as one of our connection points are, we actually were born and raised very, very close to each other.

You are from North Central Minnesota, Verndale, Minnesota. Tiny little town, 500 people. Of course, I grew up eight miles from there on a 1500 acre bean farm, but yeah, not too far down. Just, you're just southeast of the cities where you grew up.

Yeah. And you just said the cities. That's very Minnesota. Yeah, up into cities there, you know, So I grew up in the Mankato area in a tiny town with 763 people. Eagle Lake, Minnesota, where I had, I kid you not, an alfalfa field behind us, corn field in front, soybeans to the left, soybeans to the right. So surrounded by tractors, probably a bunch of toxic chemicals. And then, you know, my best friends were all farm kids as well, so. And my dad was raised on a farm in north central Iowa. So we have that in common. And well, here's what I'd like to do.

You know, again, you said it really well in the very beginning, but everyone's looking for some hacks. My goal is to get folks exposed to your mind and your ideas so they can expand their capabilities. And I want to get practical and tactical with some trust building exercises. So I'm going to give you some four examples and, and I'd love to get your input and feedback, which is, and I'd like to do operational trust, team trust, marketing trust, but also family trust, kid trust. You've got four kids, age, you said 11 to 18, is that correct?

12 to 18 now 12.

18. Okay, so. And I've got an 18 year old. And so I think let's begin and just do a scenario which is every business owner who's watching or listening to this right now, they want to get more productivity, innovation, creativity from their teams. The more the team feels like there's trust and depth of relationship, they're willing to work smarter, work harder, work longer. They're tied to an outcome, they're tied to a vision, they're tied to a mission. So if you are leading a workshop with me and my business right now, or for that matter, anyone, and we were going to talk about some really effective mechanisms for generating trust on a core level that makes an impact rapidly, what would you say to me? Or do I have to get a little more granular than that?

Got a lot to go on there. I could go a lot of different directions. I'm going to jump right in though.

We do an exercise, I actually share it in the trusted leader. Take the word, the out. Like Facebook just trusted leader is the book. But I share the trust shield exercise. But it gives a little more life. We've had companies say, I Mean, so many things have changed. I've had by people doing this exercise. But let me just, let me just give a little what's behind it. So one of the studies, we found 92% of leaders, excuse me, 92% of employees would trust their senior leader more if they were more transparent about their mistakes. Not just transparent, but if you're a leader, I mean, I walk next now by presence of companies and presence of countries, and they're scared to death they're going to be found out they've got imposter syndrome and all this. If you want to engender trust, I would push you a little bit as a leader to just be a little more open about your mistakes. Now, first, let me just say this.

Trust is bigger than you think. Some people have said trust is transparency, trust is vulnerability. That's not true. I mean, some kids are so transparent on Facebook, I don't trust them for a second because confidentiality is also trusted. So we have to think as leaders, we have to be confidential and transparent. But with your teams, I'm going to bring family in right away here. We're jumping around.

Yep.

So I had my oldest daughter, who is now 18, in college. She remember, we started with nothing. Lisa and I, we struggled. I lost everything a few different times with buying and losing everything with companies and different things. And she didn't see so much of those first 10 years of Lisa and I. And then we grew a little bit and I get flown around in jets, sometimes private and picked up in sedans and all that kind of stuff. And she was 13 years old or so, we're out for a walk and she looked up at me and she said, dad. I don't know if she was talking about boys or academics or what, but she said, dad, you wouldn't understand. You're perfect. And that might sound sweet, but you and I both know I got a big problem if she's saying that at 13, three years old, no problem. Be their hero. I knew she's not going to share her life with me if she thinks I'm perfect now. So what I thought is, now everybody else knows I'm not perfect. My wife knows. I don't know what happened. But in those years, things grew. That first book became a best seller. You picked up a Jets, whatever. And so I made an intention right then. And this is how the research and this changes me. Wasn't like I was trying to hide or be perfect so much, but it's what they see. And so I started on walks with her, sharing the times I made a mistake, the time I lost all of our money before she was born, when I bought and sold a business and made a mistake. Mistakes I made that day with my team. I talk about encouraging my team, and I didn't do it great today. Whatever it was, what happened, it changed our relationship forever. This willingness to be transparent about your mistakes. That. Okay, we can use that as a leader. We can also use that at home. Even parents are trying to hide from acting like they're all perfect, and they were perfect as kids or whatever. And the kids, all of a sudden, what do they just learn to do? They just learn to hide stuff better, you know, not come to you. So, I mean, that's. That's one minor but can be powerful way that this can work.

All right? And.

If, like, I get the kid one. And that's something I've really done my best with. Our son, Zach, and my wife and I, too. The one thing I will say, I've messed up in so many ways, but we've always had a. Like, he could never go to one of us and say, but mom said, or try to play us against each other. We always had a unified front.

Unified front, yep.

And I've, like, any time, like, he's. We just have been so transparent. And again, I'm going to go kind of deep here, but one of the things that we. We've never punished him for telling the truth. And the second thing is I grew up in an environment where I got hit a lot. It was just part of discipline and growing up. And my dad just hit me because his dad hit him. You know, it was that kind of a thing. And it happened, you know, when I was probably 14, 15 years old. I mean, he let me have it, and it was. And the truth is, depending on how you look at it, I had it coming. You know, I wasn't. I was not an angel. Wasn't the easiest kid to deal with. But when Zach was really young, he bit me really hard, and I reached over and I just tapped him on the side, and his face just. He just fell apart. And I remember looking at him and saying, I will never, ever raise my hand to you ever again. I just, like, I recognize the pattern that I grew up with, and I stopped it. And I think that was something that helped with the trust.

Side of things. I don't know why I went down that. That path, but I think it. It has to do with recovering from a big mistake, recovering from a behavior pattern that your employees see, your partners see.

Do you have a recommendation on how to recover so they don't think, oh, he just wants something different from me. And it's not manipulative.

I'll tell you a quick, quick thought here. So how do you. Basically the core question here in a way is how do I rebuild trust even? Right. Meaning we've all made mistakes.

Yeah, that's nailing it for sure.

So in some of our work, I have a 10 step process for how you rebuild trust. If you're British Petroleum and you have a big oil spill or whatever, but whether you're a big company or you're an individual, it actually comes down to one thing. And it is not the apology, it's what you did. But most people think they rebuild trust on the apology. Let me explain this. I'll give you a story to explain it a quick one. CEO from the Netherlands came to America. We became friends. He was here a couple weeks. I said to him, hey, what's the first thing you notice in America? He said, you want to know the truth, David? I said, yeah. He said, in America, you've got a bunch of lying apologizers. They all say they're sorry and they don't mean it. That was the people on his team that he got put with. And he said, I got this guy comes in, I'm sorry, I'm late. He just says it every day, he's late every day. I'm sorry, I'm late, I'm sorry, I'm late, I'm sorry. So the point of this is, it doesn't mean you don't need to apologize. You probably apologize to your boy, but you don't ever rebuild trust on the apology. The only way to rebuild trust is to make and keep a new commitment. And if you would have said to your son, I will never do that again, but you kept doing it, it wouldn't have mattered at all. But when we make the only time we. And we all make mistakes, but you have to. The only way to rebuild trust ever is to make and keep a new commitment. And by the way, as long as we're a little bit personal on this, this matters with ourselves too. You might have heard the idea. Love your neighbor as yourself. What does this kind of speak to? Well, if you don't love yourself at all, you have a hard time loving others, right? And this is true. Find someone that doesn't love themselves at all, they have a hard time building love in a relationship of any kind, right? It's the same with trust. If you don't make and keep commitments, you don't trust yourself. So you have a hard time believing any other team will, anybody else will. And you have a hard time building committed relationships with others because you don't trust anybody, because you can't keep commitments. So why would anybody else? And just to take this one step further, when I was losing 10 years ago, I lost 52 pounds in five months and kept it off and whatever. But maybe later I'll tell the story of the transformation, one of the quick, really, what was behind it. But I will say this. One thing I did was.

I said to my team, if I'm not my high school weight by May 1st, I'll give you $2,500. By the way, at the time, that was an enormous amount. You know, if I added that all up, and my wife's like, what are you doing? And what I knew is commitments mean a lot to me, and I knew if I made a commitment, I would keep it. And. But more than that, this isn't a story of me being the hero. This is a story of this. I knew if I didn't keep that the biggest cost from the $2,500 multiplied the biggest cost is I'm going to lose trust on myself, and that's way worse. And that, that. That's just. I had to leverage that into my own life. And so, you know.

An idea is if you want to rebuild trust, it all comes down to one thing. Even if you need some other steps in the process, you have to make and keep a new commitment. Got it? Got it.

And you're suggesting that you make a public declaration to your audience, to your. To your team, to your family, to your. Your wife.

Healthy accountability is. You know, there's a statistic. I actually showed it to a team today. Basically, one of the big studies said if you have a goal, you have 10% of it, 10% chance of accomplishing it.

Oh, have goals.

Have goals. 10% chance. If you have a goal and you have accountability, you have 95% chance of accomplishing that goal if it's reasonable goal. So, yes, you have to have accountability. Now, I will say one other little caveat here, though. I don't know that I. In some place in your life, you want agape, unconditional love and not a nagging, critical system. So I would argue in a. Your closest partner, or for me, my spouse, my wife, I. She shouldn't be my accountability partner and everything. She should be my best friend. And she, frankly, she watched me go in the freezer and get ice cream when I said, I'm gonna stop and stop, you know, but it became my decision and she knew I had other accountability for that kind of thing. Now, there's built in accountability with any relationship to a degree. But you want, I would say your spouse to not be this place of critique. There's got to be a place for unconditional love also, because we're all imperfect. But you need great leaders and high trust leaders do seek healthy accountability. You got to get it somewhere.

Yeah. And I, I have long said you don't want to make your spouse your coach or your coach your spouse. It creates a, an ugly relationship. And I also found that making business partners, you know, at some point, it's just too mushy of a line and it's like, which mode are we in? That you get into mode confusion and that turns into a power struggle. It also turns into resentment.

You need to preach that more because there's plenty of people that need that and divide everything because, I mean, it's just, that's a truth. Yeah, I'm just putting up a bang right on that.

Okay, good. Yep. Yep. Well, let's get into. So we talked a little bit about team. We talked a little bit about, a little bit about spouse here. But.

I'm going to give you again a real life scenario. What I've lived this many times before, which is my first business cost me my first marriage. I married my high school sweetheart and at some point, you know, the trust was lost. And part of that is because she knew I put my business before the marriage. And that was old, old fear driven behaviors. It was afraid of not being enough, not having enough. I was drive, drive, drive, drive, drive non stop. And I just wasn't present.

And I'd say on multiple occasions my businesses just about destroyed my current marriage of 20 plus years at this point. And I think it, it also.

Disintegrated the relationship and trust that I had with my son Zach, where he just knew that if some shiny object came along, you know, I was chasing it unconsciously. Of course it wasn't, it wasn't conscious, but I just didn't have my priorities. And again, I know that I had really old traumatic fear of running out, not being enough, not having enough loss.

Performance stuff, being funny, you know, just like egoic and ancient stuff that I, I certainly saw in my own dad. So I think it, it went down on an epigenetic level. It wasn't. So it was deep. And I'm, and it took me a years really to rebuild.

My marriage for a while where I definitely my behaviors just eroded trust with Vivian. And I have my own perspective. But I'm curious what you would say to the over busy shiny object following fear driven entrepreneur who first of all recognizes and realizes that that machine, that ugly monster that lives inside you needs to be recognized, acknowledged. But also how do you rebuild trust that's been destroyed and disintegrated for what could be decades.

I can relate first of all to drivenness. You know, when, when I think back of not having anything and genuinely that by that October we had 80 cents in our home account, 60 cents in the business account. The first year we built, we, we had our first company.

I remember you brother. I know that, right?

Yeah. I mean black mold on the walls. We lived there for two years. The day we moved out, there was 2 inches of water in that basement. I mean, you know, I didn't want to go back. I probably all had also had an ego of I can. You know, we grew up in northern Minnesota. You can do this on your own. Our parents, I mean, you know, he built his farm from nothing. It wasn't a hand me down Farm. It's 1500 acres because he bought the first 80, the second 80, the third 80.

And there's just an innate driveness. But if I found health to it, a few things for me. One is back to the point we made earlier is accountability. Had an accountability group that knows me so well. Family, faith, friendships. So by the way, we started meeting 28 almost 30 years ago actually in college, Thursday nights. This is something guys don't usually have by the way. It wasn't a go together, get drinking, do whatever. It was. It was, you know, and I can say I didn't start it, but it was the right group of guys. And we would say how you doing? You know, how are you treating your girlfriend? Well, how are you? I mean stuff you wouldn't talk about. And now we get together still. We just had our five day weekend. Each guy shares for about three hours. And it's a, how are you doing treating your wife? You know, with your, how are you doing your business? How are you doing all these things that we've committed to and that accountability each year has been a correcting, very healthy thing. And that's really close. That's not a mastermind group like I have. That's not somebody's other thing. This is accountability. That knows you personally, that knows your, your, your faith, your challenges, your, your kind of leanings.

Like yeah sounds like character and personality just as much as anything. If you're going that deep and that potentially that dark.

Yeah. And there has been. And, and I'm not going to share it publicly about some of them, but some. There's a, you know, a couple guys that have come out of some very tough things that I don't think would have happened any other way except for. Because of this kind of healthy accountability where there's unconditional love and a willingness in that to get in there each other's grill. And you know, we want. Genuinely want the best. And that means you gotta stop this and how are we gonna do it and figuring out a way forward. So it might be a place for a tip here. I don't know. Do you wanna. Can I give you a little change?

Keep them going.

Yeah. So this is, you know, it kind of fits because we asked this question. I'm going to share even in that accountability group.

I will argue there are three key questions that take an idea to an action. They are the three most overlooked, underused questions that actually drive strategic clarity. They're not what you might guess. And I'm not against the other questions that are very important in life. As an example, the why isn't one of these questions. The why is very important. As you know and I know and we agree with. If you don't have purpose behind it, you might not last 10 days on something valuable. Right. Maybe we agree with Collins and I do like Collins and agree that the who is a good question. Having the right who's on the bus is important. But the problem is these are not the questions that take an idea to an action. And I know we can go deep here and have pushback and all kinds of things about this. Get your why, get the right who's in your team and all that. But the actual idea that gives the questions that actually take that give clarity, that lead to hope, that lead to action are these three. Okay, try to listen as if for the first time to your listeners. And by the way, just ahead of time, this is the truth. These three questions, people have said it tripled their sales in 90 days. I can tell you this is the core of what helped me lose £52 in five months. We've had people say it saved their marriage. We've had people, a big. One of the biggest healthcare companies in the world say it changed their company. So here they are. Well, they might. You know, what I learned as a farm kid, even a professor farm kid, is that I need it simple to actually use it. So it's simple sounding but not always easy to do. Three questions take an idea to an action. Number one, how, how am I going to do it? Number two is way more important. How. And the most important question of all is.

How. This is the. This is harder than you think. People have to get better and it might take seven times, but you've got to ask how until you can do something today or tomorrow, and you always can. I've taken global governments through this. The biggest companies in the world, they stop too early. So we say, I mean, you know, if you get really simple, you say like salesperson, okay, how are you going to get more sales tomorrow? You know, this quarter? I'm going to call more people. How are you going to call more people? I'm going to make a list. How are you going to make a list? You got to go down until you can apply something today or tomorrow. Until you tell me something you will do today or tomorrow, I don't trust you. But that final how is so freeing because it gives hope. Like for me in the weight loss story, as an example, I would ask people around the world that travel in planes like me and you know, go to banquets and all this stuff. I'd say, how do you stay fit on the road? I mean, this has been tough for me. How do you stay fit? And they, around the world they'd say the same thing, eat less, exercise more. And that was not clear enough. But how do you do it? And I came to a few ideas that I asked how until I could apply them tomorrow morning. And that's not clear enough. Until you can do something. You can't do everything, but you can do something. So one example, a doctor, he was 80 years old, came up to one side of the stage. He said, here's an idea for you. I don't know if you'll like it, David, or use it, but it's an idea. Most men in America, if they just wouldn't drink their calories, they'd lose 30 to £50 in a year. They could eat exactly the same. What Now I'm not a no judgment, I'm not a legalist about alcohol. But that was not my problem. I just never liked alcohol that much. But my problem was I'd get on an airplane and I order a couple Cokes. Two Cokes is a bad, you know, meal of 400 calories or something, right? Coca Cola. So I made a change. First it was a changes to Fresca. Zero calories in a Fresca, right? So I could pick it up, look at it. Oh, no calories. I can do it. Okay, so the point is I've got to get to a how that I can apply. It's the same with teams or companies. I mean, I've had CEOs that we want a better culture here. How are you going to do that? We want to be more clear. How are you going to do that? We're going to communicate more. How are you going to do that? We're going to be hold people accountable until they get to a how. They can apply today or tomorrow, it doesn't matter. That final how takes work, but that is where the clarity is. That leads to hope, that leads to action. So under that part, I'm not dismissing a why or who or other questions. I'm saying on that, the questions that actually take ideas to actions, you got to get to final hows. It's the same in teams. In a team, a final how has a who, when and where. Co leadership is terrible. Collaborative leadership is great. You gotta, if you don't have one person on a final task, 50% less chance of it getting done according to the data. You gotta get a place. You know, that final how is absolutely clear.

Okay, that was good. You know, one of Dan's most recent books is called who, not how and it's about creating collaborative partnerships. And it's also the foundation of what Dan calls the free zone, which is when you've got two non competitive collaborators and magical things happening to ask the question, the who question, who is it who can solve? But when it's something as core as this, I can see where a. First of all, understanding the how makes finding a right who a lot easier because you've asked the hard question, the triple how.

But that final how to me could be the who right on. This is the way I think about it. And by the way, I don't disagree with Dan here either. And this is there's nothing like having the right who's together. But to me that's a how. How do I then it's okay, that person would be a great collaborator. How do I connect with them? How do I provide value to them? How do we start the relationship if we don't have a how to move, to connect even? It doesn't matter, you know, so this is just a way of pushing toward action. But you know.

No, I'm with you. So now I want to ask you another question which has to do with your data. So you, you do this deep dive every year and you've got your trust, outlook, white papers that are on your site and one more Time for everyone. I'm going to give you the location. It's trustedge.com and then you just click on the research tab. But you've got this thing you said, the science behind research funnel. So funnels. What I want to know are, and this is maybe me, because I just don't know. What I don't know is what the hell are research funnels? And then what are the biggest findings? And tied to this is you do these every year. So what changes year over year? Is it the data, the research? Is it the way you're smart enough.

To remember all three of those questions at once? You might have to come back to me. I've got to write these down.

What our research funnels, research science behind it.

So the science here is basically at first we're doing LIAs, or what's called a basically research of research, what's out there. And then we might do actually survey. I've done both, starting with research of research. What's all out there so far, looking at all that data. Then we might do surveys. We've done global studies most of the time. Our outlook as an example is a plus or minus 1.8% margin of error or less sometime, depending on which countries, Venezuela, whatever, it might go up to 3% or it's always less than that margin of error. And so those would be surveys. And they're always, you know, benchmarked against the census. So they're fair, you know, valid surveys. And then sometimes, like this year's outlook, we did also interviews of leaders because it was an executive edition. So we did interviews and you base it on, you know, questions that are fair to ask. So then from those findings way back originally, basically we were just putting in funnels, like what are the commonalities of, you know, what builds trust? Like, so these eight kind of, they became eight funnels. So there's other words just like that. Results 1. The core word that came out was results. But what was like it. And we had, you know, just like any research piece, there are some things you get, okay, performance fits there. Okay, outcomes, okay, results. That's all that contribution pillar. That's all that. That research, the. The connection one. But another big C word actually came out of that was collaboration. But basically all the things that kind of like what does the. If you look at the intent and meaning of what builds trust in this way, it was this competency and capability. Funny enough, two top C words came out of the same funnel there again. And that was okay, that's the meaning. Like, I Might trust, you know, that. That golfer to play golf, but not to be alone with my wife as far as character, but, you know, competency. So. So that's that part. So we're judging. And then last year, I believe it's the University of Northern Colorado, just their research lab through triangulated revalidation. And you can look at this on the site, and it's all there, too, but kind of revalidated these eight as the way trust is built globally. There's been a couple PhDs written on this too, but basically there's a mix of ways we've research this, but the funnels are kind of the meaning of intent. So that's it. That's why I don't want to say it's just a C word. It's a. It's a. It's a understanding of the meaning of it. Okay.

Okay.

So then you said something more interesting, too. What was the other question?

Well, it's. It's basically what changes year over year. Is that the data? Is that the research?

Yeah.

So, like, if I go through and I burn through. So you got a whole bunch of reports here. Some of them, like you say, go back to 2014.

Yeah.

It's like, why do I need to read all of them?

Does it matter? Yeah, it depends. We do two things. One, sometimes we use some questions that are benchmarked. Okay. And sometimes we use new questions to learn new things. So there is new trends and ideas and thoughts. And the most significantly new one, actually there's less survey data in this latest one, the 2021, because we actually partnered with a firm that did a bunch of interviews. So we got more of our data that way. But basically, certain things stay the same. Certain things change. You asked for some of the newest. A few changes. Okay, first of all, let's just go overall. Trust, institutional trust is down steeply since Nixon and Watergate. Right. Because, you know, 80% of Americans had trusted government to do what's right now, like 6 or 7%. So, you know, big institutions, if you take education, educational trust in the institution is down steeply. That's why we have charter schools, private schools, and homeschooling up like crazy media. Big media is not trusted. Little media where it's only what you believe and you find it yourself on some Internet, you totally trust that one, even though they're not necessarily valid. You know, it's like, it's big. Certain institutions, even the institution of religion, about the same number of people believe in God as did 80 years ago in America. And yet any metric that would show it going to a place of worship, giving toward a place of worship, you know, having a Bible study, those actions are down steeply. So institutional trust has changed. That would be the biggest example of change of some things. Let's jump to a little more relevant to founders and entrepreneurs and leaders that are listening. Something very interesting in last year's study is the number one reason people want to work for an organization last year, ahead of being paid more, ahead of a more fun work environment with a ping pong table, ahead of more autonomy. Number one was trusted leadership. People want to work in a place they can trust the leadership. So I mean that's part of, that's. We saw that for a few years running and that's partly why we, you know, why I wrote Trusted leader, because I kept seeing people either want to be a leader that's trusted, they can influence the most that way, or they want to follow leaders they trust. And so yeah, a couple nuggets for you. I'm afraid I could, you know, could go all over.

No, this was, it was useful. So I only have a couple, couple more questions for you which again, my opportunistic entrepreneurial mind is looking at this going, so how do I make money with this? What if I built an app or a service around this data or what you learn here or what are the low, what's the low hanging fruit that you see in virtually every organization when you walk in and you start consulting or advising?

Yeah. I'll give you two quick examples. Number one, if you can just learn this eight pillar framework. You know, we have, we have out of the institute six ways we measure trust. Everything from enterprise trust, index of big studies, all the way down to, you know, self assessments to a diagnostic and whatnot. That some of them simpler, some of them more validated and difficult. If you can look at your organization and just think how, you know, how we doing on these pillars and find a weaker one and circle that and how, how, how that until you do something differently to strengthen it, you will, it'll affect the bottom line. Trust always affects the bottom line more than anything else. Think about this. What's a lack of trust do. What's a good example of a lack of trust? A lock. Why do I put a lock on anything? I don't trust you. What's the cost of that lack of trust? I gotta buy the lock. That's money. Biggest cost though is time. Now I've got to open it. You don't need all the research. Think about this Text someone you trust. How long does that take? Now try to text someone you don't trust. How long does that take? How are you gonna take this? How are they gonna take that? It's always a big cost. So. So first of all, if you build any of those pillars, you will always increase efficiency in some way. Of course, start at your biggest opportunity. If you can see, oh, we have a huge compassion issue. People don't feel cared about. If we have, you know, whether you use our assessments or you just do it in your head, think. Just go through 1 out of 10 in your company and say, does this advertising show clarity, compassion toward the client, connection? Does it give results that we talked about? Contribution. Okay, let's. Let's increase this part of it and show results. The ad will get more sales or whatever it is. Now, the other, if you don't know where to start. Clarity is the first pillar for a reason. If I'm going to go into an organization every time. The commitment pillar, that's hard to change quickly. The character pillar, that's hard to change quickly. I can make a change under clarity and see results in two weeks. There's always an issue with clarity somewhere. Clarity expectations, clarity of vision, clarity of, you know, a lot of salespeople are clear on how cool they are and how long they've been in business without being clear on the benefits of that product to me, and so they aren't selling. So there's these. This. If you don't know where to start, you can find. And if you increase clarity in certain ways, consistency will go up. If you increase clarity in certain ways, like vision, commitment from your team will go up. If you increase clarity in certain ways, you know, character will go up because you're living out your values. So that's where I would start. If you don't know where to start.

Okay. One of Dan's cornerstone trainings have to do with what he calls the four Cs, which is clarity, confidence, courage, and commitment. So when I hear that, and I know you've built your practice in your IP and your own bubble, but there's a lot of similarities and connections here.

Truth. That's the good news.

Yes.

And confidence is almost a synonym of trust. And so those others and I actually, funny enough, I said, I've always said if there was going to be a 9th C, it would be courage to do it. So that's really interesting that you say that.

Yep. Yep. So here's my last question for you. So besides sending everyone over to trustedge.com, trustedge not trusted.

Trustedge.

Trustedge. I'm sorry. I can't believe I did that. Trustedge.com. i hope I didn't do that more than once.

No, I hope that. Just trust edge.

Okay, good. Trust edge. There we go.

I have one other thing to share with them because just.

I know we're gonna get to the book.

Okay, well, I just. We'll get to it. But what I want to say is if they go to trustedleader, not the. But just trustedleader.com, there's a special free webcast for the next week that is beautifully produced. It's a masterclass in being a trusted leader. And it's free. You don't even have to buy the book. You don't have to buy the book. Just go.

Okay, that's awesome. That's so good. So we've got trustedleader.com that's number one. We've got your personal website, which is davidhorsager.com, h O R-S-A G-E-R.com we got that in the lower third and also in liner notes. And again, trust edge.com so.

And I might have been mistaken. Trustedleaderbook.com for that one. Free. The webcast Trusted leader book.

But trustee.com.

Great.

I was just checking that out. Trusted Leader book. So Trust leaderbook. Com. All right, There we go. Yes, that worked. I always test these out.

Love it.

So I'm going to ask you another question that will support you, which is, so for someone.

Who is a right fit business or client, who you work with, and you consistently see remarkable transformational results. So I'm giving you a layup question here. For someone who would self identify and say, okay, I want more trust in all parts of my world, yes, they can go to your webinar. They can get that for free. But you know what? Would you. Who is your right fit? Who?

We have two main clients. On the one side, it's actually executive coaches that want to be certified in our work, and we help them help their clients solve the root issue of trust. So we have the tools and community to equip them. So simply great executive business leadership and life coaches that they are that want to come into a community, they might be certified in some other things, but they want this so they can help solve the root issues of their people and help them grow their business or solve their challenges. That's one. The other side is companies, and we deal with some of the biggest companies in the world. But I will tell you something that's interesting. Some People think, oh, the poisonous companies, they need trust, right? They're the best clients. We almost never work with them because they just want image work, they want to look good, they don't want to actually do the work. We're usually working with actually some of the best high performing companies that know they want ongoing high performance. They get the impact of trust. They're not embarrassed that they're doing some work on this root issue of trust. So that can be everything from, you know, some of the base universities in the world to it can be corruption issues like we're dealing with around the world too. But it's often these great companies that I could name that, you know, almost any. A lot of the Fortune 100s are on there.

John Deere, FedEx.

GM, I mean, whatever. So Walmart, that was this week. I know, we did some more.

So anyway, yeah, well, congrats just being able to work with the brands and the partners you do. That would be another conversation that I want to have with you and I or you and I sometime, which is how do you build. Actually I'm just going to ask it, what the hell. So and we don't have to go super deep but like you've been doing this a long time. How do you build the trust and get past the who the hell are you and why should I listen to you phase? So a Walmart says come on in and meet with us, talk to us and we're actually going to pay you for it. Other than the fact that you've written a bunch of books, you've got the credibility card. But what else?

I, you know, this sounds a little trite but is either they see the research or they have a somebody shares. I mean the Walmart thing, somebody said you got to take a look at this. It's almost because one thing we don't do well and one of the reasons I've been, you know, been so enlightened by you and asked for your help is we have not been great at marketing or sales. We are great at solving these issues and being in them and creating, you know, creating high performing cultures on trust. And so in a way, even though we're on six continents and whatever, we've really stayed small compared to where we can be. But that's because we basically have only grown on referrals. And then people see the research and like, oh wow, they can do that. You know, they build it this way. We've gotten a little bigger. A lot of people now they might take the great place to work survey and they Find a deficiency of trust. And now they Google who helps build trust and like, oh, and they end up with us because of someone else's survey, actually. So that's happened plenty of times. Also.

Awesome. Well, I'll tell you what. You and I will have an offline conversation. Cause just as I'm listening to you, my little busy beaver braids going kind of wild on what I think are some opportunities you're doing.

I need your help.

Yeah. Yeah. All right. Well, that's music to my ears. I think there'd be a really fun collaboration here, so. Well, here's what we're going to do. I'm going to leave this at a really simple place which is get a copy of David's book, which is trusted. Eight pillars that drive results. And that's@trustedleaderbook.com. you also get his awesome informational webinar that'll get you down the path. We did a massive fire hose. First of all, you talk as fast as I do, David, it's probably going to. Drives some of our Texas friends nuts. I used to get that all the time. It's like, I like that guy, but he talks too darn fast. And I can just imagine right now our friends in the southern parts are like, what in the hell? I got a. This is. Most people have to play their podcast. Podcasts. I put it at 1 1/2 to 2x. You're probably at 0.75 for us today because we're like three gerbils on amphetamines. But, you know, what are you going to do, Minnesotan?

Yeah, sure, you betcha.

Yeah, that's right. We talked about faster, but. Well, anything else that you want to leave our friends with today? Other than share this with your friends, subscribe, push that little reminder ding dong thing on YouTube, leave a comment, et cetera, et cetera. But what else do you want to ask for or leave us with?

I really appreciate this, Mike. It's been, it's been a joy. I know you have an amazing audience and a high trust audience and obviously anything we can do to help them be the most trusted in their industry or even more trusted, we'd love to help. And you gave all the ways to find out. You can call us by the way. We do phone calls still our team, we answer the phone. We love talking to people, so.

Telegraph.

Exactly.

Taxes. No, go ahead.

If I was going to give a final quote other than trust is always the root cause, I might just say this. And it aligns so much with what you teach already and Dan teaches. And that is it is business and life. It's the little things done consistently that make the biggest difference, not the big things. So as trust is concerned, as success is concerned, as marketing is concerned, little things done consistently, you know, that is what builds trust over time. And, you know, I hope that everyone listening will become and join me, actually, in trying to become an even more trusted leader.

I love it. Well, David, it's been a pleasure. Really appreciate this and the time. And for everyone listening, watching, make sure again, you comment, share this thing. And if you like this episode and you want more like it, let me know. I listen to pay attention to all your feedback. So thank you, David.

Thank you. Appreciate it. Mike.