Leveraging Thought Leadership Live featuring Stephen M. R. Covey

And welcome, welcome, welcome. This is Peter Winick. I'm the founder and CEO at Thought Leadership Leverage, and you're joining us on the LinkedIn Live version of our podcast here at Leveraging Thought Leadership. And today, I'm so excited for today. I've got an amazing, amazing guest that needs no introduction, but I'll give him a short one anyway. So Stephen M. R. Covey. who was the— is the bestselling author of Speed of Trust, and more recently, as of hours ago, now a Wall Street Times— Wall Street Journal bestselling author of his new book, Trust and Inspire, which is fantastic. And I'm like super geeked out that I've got my autographed copy because that's— that geeks me out. And he's also the CEO— has been the CEO of Covey Leadership, practice lead at Covey under Speed of Trust. We can go on and on about his Accomplishments and attributes, but I'd rather just dive in. So we're going to mix up the format a little bit here. And before we get into some of the business objectives and the typical things that I talk about, let's just dive into the book. Give us the quick overview of what is Trust and Inspire and why it's so critical at this moment, like just the way the timing of where we are today.

Yeah, absolutely. Well, first of all, thank you, Peter. It's always great to be with you. And the premise is this: is that the world has changed all around us. We all know this, and yet our style of leadership hasn't kept pace. We're still operating too much under a dated, antiquated model we might call command and control. We just become better at it, more advanced, more sophisticated, more enlightened in our command and control. But we're still operating too much out of, out of, out of an archaic model in a changing world. And, and so we need to become relevant in this new world of work. With all these changes that have gone on in the marketplace, the changes in technology disruption, the changes in the workplace, you know, work from home, work from anywhere, remote work, hybrid work, intentionally flexible work, with so much diversity in the workforce, multiple generations, different expectations. And people today have choices and options like never before. So, all of these changes have kind of created a new reality of a couple of key things that in order for companies to succeed today, they've got to, you know, build a high-trust culture that inspires so they can attract, retain the best people. I mean, right now, we've got the great, you know, the great resignation going on or the great reshuffling. The Great Reexamination, whatever you might call it, where it's hard to keep people. And nothing is an attractor better than a high-trust culture that inspires people. And so, that's vital today. And also, we, the second, that's the first imperative. I call that win in the workplace.

Yep.

The second imperative is to win in the marketplace by collaborating and innovating so we stay relevant in a changing world. And here's the thing. In today's environment, you can't command and control your way to a great culture that inspires. And you can't command and control your way to collaboration and innovation. It just doesn't work anymore, as if it ever really did. And so, I'm trying to say there's a new way to lead in this new world. And I'm trying to name it and describe it. It's trust and inspire.

And what I like about— well, I mean, there's several things that I like about it. But if we sort of compare— Speed of Trust was really about this capability of developing trust, that it didn't need to be a function of time of a relationship, that there were actual things that you could do, anyone could do. So I would call that sort of a capability development. And it was a little bit of an aha because we always thought trust was like charisma or whatever, and you broke it down to a capability. This is clearly a leadership book, right? This is about, you know, those of us of a certain age—

Like us.

You know, came up in a world where we were probably brought up in a command and control world professionally. And you replicate what you see and what works. And now the world has changed on us. And even when we were coming up, it probably wasn't the best approach because that comes from the factory. And we go back in history, it comes from manufacturing and all that sort of stuff. But it was what everybody did. So there's a lot of leaders that need to sort of rejigger their toolbox, if you will, to say, ah, You know, I was pretty good at this command and control thing. People listened when I snapped. And now there's a new thing. I want to throw out a couple of questions that people have written in prior to this that I thought would be interesting. Yeah. So one question that I got that I was thinking a lot about is, how do leaders build trust at scale? Right? Because leaders can't— you know, if I'm leading a 10,000-person organization, statistically, I mean, that's just that one-on-one piece. It's not a function of one-on-one. So how do I do— how do I inspire Trust and inspire at scale if I'm a leader?

Yeah, it's a great question. And, and, um, so if you think about it, um, the, the work that we do with the one, how we build with trust with the one, can actually have an effect on the many as it becomes a model that can get replicated, that people can see. And especially with how we build trust with the one who's hard to build trust with can demonstrate how we could build it with the many. And people start to become aware of it. And so, my main answer would be if you always view trust and the creation of trust as an inside-out process.

Right.

Meaning, we always look in the mirror. We start with ourselves. Do I trust myself? Do I give to my team a leader who they can trust? And then, I go first. So, I model the behavior as best I can privately one-on-one but also publicly. I'm trying to model the behavior. I'm trying to go first around the behavior that I'm hoping that we see in our team, in our culture, rather than waiting on others. If I feel like we need more transparency, I lead out with transparency.

Right.

If I feel like we need more respect, I lead out by demonstrating respect to everyone. I lead out by clarifying expectations. I lead out by listening first and modeling that. I lead out by even extending trust. So modeling leader, and the leader goes first. And you, yes, you do it privately, one-on-one, as you build that trust. But you also do it as best you can publicly. But even as you build it privately, word gets out that, you know, this is who Peter is. This is how he does. And look what he did with me.

Right.

And if, and people start to say, gosh, if he's this way with, you know, if Peter's this way with this person, maybe he would be that way with me too. And they, and they start to see that When they see kind of an alignment, a congruence, an authenticity between who you are in private one-on-one and who you are in public, they start to say, ah, Peter's a person I can trust. And that kind of reputation precedes you and begins to help you build trust faster at scale.

Yep. Well, and that public and private is, is a little bit different today, given that our sort of public personas could be a function of social media and all these other things. It's not just out and about. I mean, public is, is a broader concept today. So a couple other questions I, I want to throw at you. One, one is, um, this was an interesting one, you know, what about from the other side of this? What do you do when you've been burned? How do you allow yourself to trust again? Because 99.9% of people are good people most of the time, yet we can all recall an experience where we've been taken advantage of, our trust has been violated, whatever the case is. How do you, how do you, how do you move forward from that?

Yeah, I think it's a great question because we've all had it. We've all been burned. I've been burned too. And the key insight is this: don't let the fact that you can't trust one define how you view everybody else. And yeah, most people can be trusted, but not everyone. And but if you allow the fact that you can't trust some to become your paradigm for how you view others, then you'll never— you won't even see the possibilities or the opportunities. They'll pass you by. You won't build that trust. And so, I do acknowledge there is a risk in trusting people. I know that. You know that. Our viewers know that. There's also a risk in not trusting people. And I think not trusting people can often be the greater risk. And so, be smart about it. Try to use good judgment. If someone has burned you, then it's probably not, you know, and they consistently burn you, it probably wouldn't be smart to trust that person.

Well, so stay there for a minute because it's okay to not to continue to extend trust to someone who has violated your trust.

Absolutely.

Where it's detrimental to you long-term and it costs you actually more is to extrapolate from that, well, I can no longer trust anyone or people like that or whatever the case may be. That's really the issue. Absolutely.

So it's, it's maybe it's not smart to trust this person, but, but it would be equally unsmart or even worse to have that fact that I can't trust this one now affect how I view everybody else.

Right.

I'll give you a quick illustration of this.

Sure.

Warren Buffett, you know, the great investor, also an operator, you know, and this was a decade plus ago when everyone was reporting to him. So, he acquired some 77 companies. He got 77 CEOs of these acquired companies reporting to him. How do you manage 77 people? You know, you got to have trust, right?

Right.

Well, he was burned by one of them who basically took advantage of a situation, did some front-loading. You know, front-running, I think it's called, recommended a company that he buy that he had an interest in, didn't disclose it.

Yeah.

It wasn't technically illegal, but it was unethical. So, here's what happened though. So, Warren has 77 direct reports. One of them violated his trust. He ended up parting ways with that person, you know, let him go. But what he didn't do was allow that one and being burned to define how he treated the other 76. He stayed trusting of the other 76. And the danger would have been if, if he would have allowed that one experience to say, you know what, maybe I shouldn't trust these other ones. And maybe they might burn me too. Because yeah, it can happen. But if you have good expectations and accountability to the trust being given, most people will rise to the occasion and prove themselves worthy. So either way, there's a risk. But I think the greater risk is when we don't trust. And I think that's our biggest challenge today. We're not trusting enough as leaders.

Yep. So next question I've got that I thought is kind of an interesting one. What is the role of trust and inspire in thought leadership? Right, because as a thought leader, right, people are— you're a leader of sorts, right? And therefore, I would assume you can extrapolate that the principles here as a thought leader would apply to anyone in the thought leadership space, that you can also trust and inspire as a thought leader. What's your What are your thoughts on that? Have you thought about that?

I have. Yeah, I think so. In fact, when I was writing this book, there'd be several times as I worked with my editor where we would come back to this question: do I trust my reader? Do I trust my reader to both get, get this? But also, there were times where I wanted to be a little bit didactic and really just say, here's the main point, take this out. And I was I was doing little brackets.

Underline it, right, right.

Yeah, I was doing little brackets. I was basically doing the underlining for them. And then I stopped and I said, wait a minute, what if they take away something completely different? Why don't I trust my reader? If they view what I think they should be underlining, let them underline it themselves. They'll value it more than if I kind of bracket it in a way that says, you, this is what you're supposed to be underlining. Trust them. Trust the reader. And so, even the way I wrote it, I said, I'm going to trust my reader and hopefully inspire the reader with insights and with ideas that they can apply and find to be of value. So, that was always a mindset of, you know, as an author, I was always trying to say, look, I want this to be insightful and I want this to be also readable and relatable and actionable. And I trust My reader to get it. I think another area, Peter, as well is that the fact that I'm putting this out there, in a sense, I'm saying, look, most people are good and responsible, and someone might take some of these ideas and use them themselves. But no one owns an idea. You only own a particular expression of an idea, how you might say it. But I choose to kind of have an abundance mentality. Believing that most people are good and most people would give credit or attribution. And there might be a few that don't. But I've seen some people so afraid to share their thought leadership out of fear of what if someone takes advantage and steals it, that, that they don't put it out there. Now, again, I'm—

Well, I think that was— but I think that was an old-school way of thinking of, well, if I put it all out there, and this is a good segue for us, If I put it all out there, which you do in the book, because when I first read about the book before I read it, I'm like, oh, okay, this might be abstract, this might be theoretical, whatever. It is very, very applicable because trust and inspire, that's, that's an abstract concept, if you will, but it's very, very concrete, right? It's not, you know, some woo-woo high-level stuff. But my point is, is people say, well, you know, if I, if I spent, you know, whatever, $25, $30 or whatever on the book, It's all there. What the heck did they need me for? And I think that the concept of, you know, CoveyLink and Franklin Covey is, is, is proof in the pudding that the more you put out, the better it is. There are people that will read the book and take the book and everything's in there and don't need any help. And that's okay, right?

That's okay.

That's great because they never would have been your client on the, on the business side of the house anyway. And they got value from the book and they're spreading your ideas and benefiting from it.

That's great.

But sort of move that into— this is a good place for us to segue into sort of the, the business side of this. What is— how, how do you envision— I'm sure you put a lot of effort into this— Trust and Inspire getting out into organizations at scale? What are the ways that folks can consume this en masse at large organizations to get these ideas out?

Yeah. Well, first of all, I'll come back to the idea that we really— I really feel strongly, and it's conveyed in this book, that That we've— that the way we're going to solve our problems and our challenges today is we've got to unleash the greatness inside of our people, unleash the potential.

Yeah.

And command and control won't get it out. Trust and Inspire can and will. And that's— so that's needed. Every organization needs this. Industries need this. Society needs this. We're operating in a, you know, for all our progress, we're still operating in a primarily command and control world. And, and, um, it's just we're more sophisticated, more enlightened with it.

Yeah.

And so we need this, and, and that belief matters because, you know, this is all about trying to elevate people, elevate society. And therefore, I want to get this out there, and I want these ideas to become a useful and, and workable alternative to the command and control that we know doesn't work. Where do we move to? I want it to be Trust and Inspire. And the way we'll do that is to get it out there, not only by name but by description. But also, we need models of it.

Right.

We need mentors of it. We need people that are doing this. They're saying there's a better way to lead, Trust and Inspire. And they use the language. They use the tools. They're applying it. So, that's what we're trying to do. We're trying to give leaders and organizations a better way to lead in our new world of work. that's relevant for our times. Trust and inspire. And so, in doing this, we're creating tools and processes. And of course, you can always speak about it. You know, the very first step is writing about it. That codifies it. That captures it, putting it down. And it's a great way to do it. And most of us have passed that threshold of recognizing this is actually going to be good for our brand and our business to put it out there.

Right.

And we'll get a lot more business in the long run this way And the very little bit of people that maybe don't hire us because they got it in the book, they wouldn't have hired us anyway.

Exactly.

So, but so you codify it with a book. But then, you can develop speaking around it.

Yep.

Coaching around it. Consulting around it. Tools, processes, measurement tools of how trust and inspire am I as a leader? And how trust and inspire is our culture? And measure that.

And each of those derivatives, it's the same idea, right? So I've seen the card deck and some of the other things. Each of those has a different use case, has a different target market, has a different price point, right? And I think that's that, that the robustness of the suite of offerings is the way to go to market to get these ideas out. Because the reality is, you know, for better or worse, we can debate that, you know, Even though this book is a bestseller, right, as of hours ago, that is not— that is but one way that people consume information, and it's not the dominant way anymore, right?

Right.

So one big company that embraces this could really push this out to 100,000, 400,000, 500,000 people in a very, very different way than selling, you know, 20,000 books or 50,000 books or 100,000 books can. You have to both.

Absolutely. And you want to sell the books, but you also really want to have this content reach people where they're at. And not everyone consumes a book. And also, that may not be the most effective way to learn the material compared to another way through an online learning experience, through a coaching process, through a learning map, through a learning journey, through a workshop, through a seminar, through a presentation. You know, through all the combinations of the above, and it's often combinations. And this has happened where, where, you know, sometimes we've started right at the top where I'm working with the CEO. And, and we want to build a Trust and Inspire culture. And so we start with, with the CEO and his or her team. And they take it to their team; they take it to their team. And ultimately, it's been cascaded. That's happened.

Right, right.

On more than one occasion where We have different modalities, different, you know, ways that people can access the, the, the, the content, the ideas, and apply it in their world for their different roles. And it would be different for a senior executive than it would for a frontline worker. But the idea would be, if you've got content that applies, that's based on principles, that applies at all levels— and not all content applies at all levels, some might just be for senior levels.

Sure. Right.

That's OK. But you just want to make it accessible, tangible, actionable. And there's more than one right answer to how you would do that. And, and so different modalities, different audiences, different length of time, different implementation application.

Yep.

But the possibilities are extraordinary. But the whole idea would be to say, look, we can help your team; we can help your organization to the degree you want. Build this kind of trust and inspire culture, trust inspire team, trust inspire leaders. And we have tools and processes and methodologies at every level and also based upon what works for you and your team and your culture. That's the idea. And it's really exciting because—

Oh, it is.

Because then you can have impact at scale and go beyond the book. The book alone will be really enough for some people where all they need is the idea. And they can run with it. And, and like you say, in this book, I tried to make this book really practical, actionable.

Yeah.

Um, and for others that the book's nice and they, they want a hands-on experience or process or coaching, and that's how they learn best in their culture.

Exactly.

And you can, you can, you know, create it once and, and then sell it many, many ways.

I, I want to go back to something that you touched on that I think is important that not a lot of authors and thought leaders necessarily think about. But one of the purposes/benefits of writing a book is it's a forcing mechanism to codify your thinking. Because my guess would be— we were talking before we went on air— you know, you've been working on this for 6 years.

That's right.

So these ideas have been swimming around in your head for a long, long time, and you have different concepts and whatever. And we don't have 6 years' worth of your notes and everything here. I'm sure there's probably 10x the amount of stuff that, that was in your mind that made it to the book. It forced you to codify it so that every word mattered, every diagram mattered, every illustration in there mattered. What is the best way to go this? And I'm sure you probably wrestled with, is this the best way to talk about this model, or this way, or this way, right? And, and that codification piece, how, how does that resonate?

Well, Peter, you're right on. The That's the power of trying to do a book. And for that matter, it's even when you give a speech, you might have ideas rolling around and you got to give a speech. You only have so much time. You've got to really convey it, condense it, codify it. And in a book is especially this way. So here's a quote I'll give that is so useful. It's Oliver Wendell Holmes. He said, I, you know, he's an Englishman. So he'll use this word. I wouldn't give a for the simplicity on the near side of complexity, but I would give my life for the simplicity on the far side of complexity. So here's how I interpret that. Initially, you know, you're all over the map. You might, you might be simplistic and simplistic with your simple ideas, but it's not robust. You haven't waded through the complexity, the realities of life.

Sure.

And you've got to do that. When you, when you, when you write a book, you realize I've got to answer these realities and these questions. And so you got to wait, you know. So if you, if you just write the book without wading through that, it will be simplistic.

Right, which is not the same as simple, right?

It's not the same as simple. It'll be simplistic and it'll be seen as trite and a platitude, not relevant. But if you wade through the complexity, the danger is you can get trapped in the complexity and many do middle of it, and you come out with a book It's, you know, all over the map. And because you haven't gotten through the complexity, what you want to do is get through the— you want to go through the complexity and come out on the other side of having gone through the complexity with a simplicity, a simple, elegant solution. Because then it's robust and it could be profound because it's paid the price. And that's what writing a book causes you to do because, you know, Yeah, well said. A stick book won't sell in the long run because it won't add value. But a simple book, a simple and profound book can and will sell because it's paid the price and is weighted through the simplicity. And so, for Trust and Inspire, through all of that complexity, you come out and what is a trust-inspired leader? It's 3 things. Simple. You model, you trust, and you inspire.

Right.

Modeling is who we are. Trusting is how we lead. And inspiring is connecting to why it matters.

And there's a depth and a thoughtfulness to each of those that you've put out there. And I guarantee you, you've been on sort of book mode. You've had to answer that question lots and lots of times.

Yes.

It's not even a second thought. There's only— it's only those 3. It will always be those 3. That's the way it is, right? But there's a depth to those, right? When you apply a situation or where is this organization today? How do we go from here to there? Whatever. Same simple but not simplistic framework that could unleash the power of pretty deep issues.

Absolutely. And the process of writing, I waded through the complexity, came out with the simplicity. And again, what I am also, I just want to add this, that this book is not trying to be the end-all be-all of leadership. It's trying to focus on leadership style, the style of leadership that's going to work today because there's other elements of leadership that this is not addressing. But this is saying the style is to be a trust and inspire leader, not a command and control leader.

Yeah.

So just as we model, you trust, you inspire.

I want to segue for, for a couple of minutes that we've got left into, you know, obviously, when this first came into your mind, it was in a pre-COVID world. Remember those days? Those days we roamed the earth, you know, like free-range chickens or whatever. But there's something so much more relevant in this sort of remote work, COVID, this time of change and flux and whatever that we're living with. So again, you know, we talked about earlier, Yeah. One of the mantras of sort of command— maybe it wasn't, or is enlightened command and control, as you talk about, is management by walking around. Let them see you. Go out amongst the people, be there, whatever. Well, if Walking around means you can't show up in my home office right now. So how do you, how do you trust and inspire in a world where the default mode isn't, we're all in this place Monday to Friday, 9 to 5, or whatever that is? How do you, how do you do that?

The principle is, is connection. And how you connect is going to look different, feel different, and be different in different Modalities, different contexts. You know, your remote work, is it a hybrid work environment? Is it on-site combinations? You know, intentionally flexible. But you can do those 3 stewardships. You can model. You can trust, meaning be trusting. And you can inspire by connecting with people through caring and belonging. And it could be as simple as this. I've seen some leaders in Zoom calls or Teams calls where they, they're connecting with their team, and then they're saying, in advance, they've asked someone to stay on afterwards.

Right.

They private message them during the thing saying, can you stay on? Then they, then the meeting ends and they stay on and they say, hey, just want to check with you, see how you're doing, how things are going. And you just wanted to see if there's anything I can do to help.

When you look at that, so, yes, so, and I would call that sort of a a tool or a tactic. And I think what happens today, unfortunately, is many people are looking for the hack. What's the easy way for me to be a trusted and inspired leader? And I would argue, I don't want to put words in your mouth, there isn't an easy way. It's a principle-based process and methodology, and you can't fake it. Now, there are some, like that tip of, can you stay on for a moment? Just want to check in, like an agendaless check-in. Great. But if all you do is that without an understanding and an application on a daily basis of the It's, it's not true.

Precisely. The, the principle matters more. The principle is caring. But there's a variety of— there's a lot of practices. If you separate the practice from the principle, then it could be seen as manipulation. It'll actually backfire. It could be seen as they don't really care, he's just trying to go through the motions. But when they feel like you care, and then you also reinforce that with things that you do and steps and actions, That accelerates the building of trust in a virtual world and where it's more difficult because they see, it's like the iceberg. The greater mass of the iceberg is what matters. That's the principle. The technique, the practice is the tip of the iceberg. And you don't want to sever the two. You want to keep them together. And in the long run, who you are will come through more clearly than some technique you use. But the technique can be helpful to help you manifest and express and connect in ways that are useful. But it always starts with, you know, that inside-out character-based approach. And that certainly, that's the work that I do is based upon that. And, and Trust and Inspire, you can't fake it. It's really how I view people, that there's greatness inside of them. And my job as a leader is, as a leader is to unleash their potential, not to try to contain them. And that's not something I fake.

Exactly.

That's something I believe. And want to do. So that's the idea.

Yep. So as we, as we wrap now, first, haven't gotten the book, run, don't walk, get the book. That's not you. You've got it. You, you've read it, but everybody else should get the book. Um, any final thoughts, words you share with us? And I just want to thank you for not just this book, but for consistently putting out high-quality, amazing work into the universe that benefits so, so many of us. So thank you for that.

Well, wonderful. Thank you, Peter. Let me just say 2 thoughts. First, I appreciate you and the work that you do to encourage thought leaders to make a difference. You know, the whole idea of thought leadership leverage is all about saying leverage is impact and you can have more impact. And so yes, you can also build a business model around it that can be sustainable so that you can have more impact yet again. You know, because we adopted the mantra, I think I shared this in our earlier call, If there's no margin, there's no mission. And so, if you're really mission-driven as a thought leader, to build, to be able to scale that, to be able to build a business model that works will enable you to reach more people with your mission.

Right.

And to have a greater impact at scale and have, you know, and feel like your purpose is being better met. And so, that's, and you're playing a great role in that because Many times us as thought leaders, we're so altruistic. We so much want to make a difference. We often don't focus enough on the business model and the business of thought leadership, which is also important so that we can have the mission and the purpose of thought leadership. And you help bridge that gap, Peter. So, I commend you for that.

Thank you so much.

And then the second thing would be that I really believe, I really hope that our viewers will be inspired by this book because I think you're going to find that this is so useful, so practical for where we are today. And I didn't anticipate the pandemic when I started writing this, but it just accelerated everything I was talking about right now.

Sure.

And we need this kind of leadership in our world. We all want it. I mean, don't we all want to be trusted and inspired? And you think about someone who is that kind of leader for you in your life, or that kind of person for you. You remember that person and you can remember everything about them and what they did for you. What if we could become that kind of person for others? And imagine if we could do this at scale and, and we could literally impact companies and industries and ultimately even a society. And we can't get ahead of ourselves because it's done one person at a time, but. This is trying to describe, name, and codify the kind of leadership that, that was going to work today, that is relevant today, that we all want today— trust and inspire. And we can become that kind of leader, and we can help others become it too. And in the process, I think we can elevate our world. So that's my goal with this, is to, to build a better world through a better way to lead in a new world of work— trust and inspire.

Well, thank, thank you again. Thanks for, thanks for coming in today. Appreciate your time. Thank you so much.

Always great to be with you, Peter. Thanks, my friend, and thanks to our, our viewers.