LEADERS MAKE TIME TO ASSESS TRUST LEVELS WITHIN THEIR TEAMS

I am back from a two-week vacation to sunny Florida. It was good to see so many friends and relatives. And it is also good to be back home!

As readers of this newsletter know, I served as a licensed facilitator for Covey Leadership Center/Franklin Covey for 25 years, teaching “The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People” to Georgetown University employees.

Through facilitating that workshop, I learned and re-learned the value of trust in the workplace. Stephen Covey thought trust was so important for effective and productive organizations that he created a term to measure the amount of trust in interpersonal relationships: “The Emotional Bank Account.”

While I was administering the Continuing Legal Education Department at the Law Center, I created a survey that asked my colleagues to assess their level of trust in myself and my right-hand person. I handed out the form and asked people to submit their answers anonymously. When we received all the surveys back, we sat down and reviewed them.

We learned a great deal and revised certain leadership policies and behaviors.

As many of you know, Stephen Covey’s son, Stephen M.R. Covey, followed in his father’s footsteps, speaking, writing and consulting about leadership for companies and non-profits around the world. The younger Covey has also written several books.

One of those books is “The Speed of Trust,” which emphasizes the importance of trust in building relationships from the executive suite to the front lines. In this book, Covey discusses the critical need for trust between and among colleagues, between employees and customers, and between investors and executives.

Recently, a friend and colleague in the coaching space, Lynne Brown, admitted online that she, like me, is a big believer in the principles first espoused in “The Seven Habits” and later presented in “The Speed of Trust.”

Lynne, however, went one step further than me. She converted “The 13 Behaviors of Trust” included in “The Speed of Trust” into a Survey Monkey Assessment for work teams.

She then administers the survey to team members anonymously and facilitates a team retreat about how to enhance their trust behaviors with one another. Lynne then administers the survey quarterly for one year for their check-ins and course corrections.

Lynne has graciously agreed to share her survey form with my newsletter subscribers. I thank Lynne profusely and encourage you to use her form, which I have printed below.

Use it wisely and well.