This totally changed the perception that this division was just a hobby. They had delivered results! And that delivery built trust—trust in the people in that division, trust in the culture, and self trust and team trust in the lives of those who got that product out and made it happen.
On the home front, a few years ago Jeri and I gave our then twelve-year-old son, Christian, the job of taking out the garbage cans and bringing them back in. That’s a big job at our house because the heavy cans have to be taken down a long, steep driveway to the street, which can be difficult when it’s snowing. As parents, we have been thrilled with the way Christian has carried out this responsibility. We only told him once. He never talks about it. But every Wednesday night when I come home, the cans are out. When I come home on Thursday, they’re in. He just delivers.
Part of the reason why we’re so thrilled with Christian’s behavior is that we’ve known the opposite. When his brother had the same job, we had to remind and remind and remind—and it still didn’t get done half the time.
Both when this job has been handled responsibly—and when it hasn’t—the impact on the Trust Account (and on speed and cost) has been huge. We’ve found that we are much quicker to listen to requests and to extend privileges when a child delivers results and the account is high.
And the same dynamic plays out at work, where producing results almost always gives a person more choices, more options, more flexibility. Pete Beaudreault, the former CEO of Hard Rock Café and Sbaarro, put it this way: “The price of freedom is performance.” In other words, when you perform—or deliver results—your performance gives you opportunities, alternatives, choices (freedom, indeed!) that you don’t get in any other way. You gain infinitely more flexibility with others, including in making work-life balance decisions. And the stronger your performance, the more flexibility you have.
Deliver Results is how you convert the cynics. It’s how you establish trust fast in a new relationship. It’s how you gain flexibility and choices. It’s how you can restore trust quickly when it has been lost on the competence side. It’s also the first half of the way I define leadership: getting results in a way that inspires trust.
I don’t think you have a full trusting relationship until you are actually at the point that you deliver success repeatedly. When one of my major suppliers says we want to have a trusting relationship, I think, “What a lot of rubbish that is!” I turn around and say, “I don’t trust you. I am not going to trust you until you repeatedly deliver success to me.”
—PETER LOWE, IT DIRECTOR, HOME OFFICE, UK
CLARIFY “RESULTS” UP FRONT
At times, I talk with people who deliver results, but fail to get the response they expect. They anticipate a $1,000 deposit in the Trust Account, but end up with a $10 deposit, or worse—a withdrawal. And they wonder why.
In almost every case, it’s because they didn’t take the time up front to establish clarity around what was expected. What they considered “good” or even “great” results were only “mediocre” to the people to whom they delivered. Either that, or their “results” were in a completely different ballpark than the one in which they should have been playing—like the parent who works 80 hours a week to provide a lot of extras for a child, thinking it should make a huge deposit, when what the child really wants most is the parent’s time. Or like the product development team that works feverishly to create product features the customer doesn’t even care about.
At an IT conference in the United Kingdom, chief information officers and other IT professionals discussed technology and trust in organizations. One of the key takeaways was that while technology creates many exciting promises, unless basic results are delivered day in and day out, these promises don’t mean a thing. At the conference, Paul Coby, then CIO for British Airways, said:
My perspective on trying to build trust is that I don’t get in the door to talk about the next great thing we’re going to do in BritishAirways.com, or some other great new development, unless I’m delivering 24/7 IT operations . . . . [W]hen you’ve done that, you can then talk to them about more creative ideas.
In today’s economy, taking time to define results up front is particularly vital because a large percentage of the workforce is employed in jobs where it’s often difficult to demonstrate measurable results. Thus, it’s important in each situation to define the results that will build trust, and then deliver those results—consistently, on time, and within budget.
The first thing you do is deliver statistics—results. If you don’t have mission-critical systems up and nothing else happens, you don’t get to vote.
—JP RANGASWAMI, FORMER GLOBAL CIO, DRESDNER KLEINWORT WASSERSTEIN
TRUST TIPS
Now on the bell curve, we see the competence cores coming more fully into play. On the left side of the curve, you see below-expectation delivery, revealing the need to strengthen Integrity, Capabilities, and, of course, Results—most often by defining them up front. On the right side, you see the delivery of plenty of Results, but with no consideration as to whether those results are even the ones you should be focused on (e.g., an employee working like crazy, but not on the boss’s priorities . . . or that parent working extra hours instead of spending time with a child). Again, a focus on Integrity (particularly congruence), and on aligning Capabilities and defining Results, will help you move toward the “sweet spot” on the curve.
As you work to Deliver Results, you might try one of the following:
• The next time you plan to Deliver Results, make sure you thoroughly understand the expectation. Don’t assume that just because you deliver what you may think are good results, you’re going to hit the mark. If you really want to build trust, you have to know what “results” mean to the person to whom you’re delivering.
• The next time you plan to make a commitment to Deliver Results, stop and ask yourself if the commitment is realistic. To overpromise and underdeliver will make a withdrawal every time.
• With customers or with coworkers, try to anticipate needs in advance and deliver before the requests even come. The great Canadian hockey player Wayne Gretzky said, “I skate to where the puck is going to be, not to where it has been.” Anticipating needs will give an added dividend to the deposit in the Trust Account.
SUMMARY: BEHAVIOR #6—DELIVER RESULTS
Establish a track record of results. Get the right things done. Make things happen. Accomplish what you’re hired to do. Be on time and within budget. Don’t overpromise and underdeliver. Don’t make excuses for not delivering.
BEHAVIOR #7: GET BETTER
The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn.
—ALVIN TOFFLER
As a young boy growing up, I used to snow ski every winter. I worked really hard at it and I got better and better every year. I knew I was getting better, not only because I could perform better, but also because I was regularly falling down. That might sound counterintuitive, but I came to realize that if I wasn’t falling, I wasn’t pushing myself hard enough to improve.
At age eighteen, I hit my peak as a skier. That’s when I started to become more conservative. I had different motivations. I didn’t want to fall anymore. I didn’t want to break a leg. So I quit taking risks.
I’m still a good skier, but I haven’t improved in over 25 years. I’m completely living in the past, relying on the skills I learned years ago. Skiing is one of those sports where there is a “degree of difficulty” variable, represented by green circles (easy runs), blue squares (difficult runs), and black diamonds (most difficult runs). Today if you put me on a simple green run, or a moderate blue run, I’d still look pretty good. But if you put me on a double-black-diamond run with the steep hills and moguls, I’d look ridiculous. I tried it a few winters ago, and quickly realized that I could no longer keep my balance or stay in control.
One of the reasons people stop learning is tha
t they become less and less willing to risk failure.
—JOHN GARDNER, AUTHOR OF EXCELLENCE AND SELF-RENEWAL
Today we live in a double-black-diamond world. Technology, globalization, and the knowledge worker economy have increased the degree of difficulty and put us in a more challenging context. To try to apply the same skills we’ve always had in this demanding new context is like trying to apply green-run capabilities on a black-diamond run.
Unless we improve our capabilities dramatically, we’re going to be inadequate to the challenge. And in today’s increasingly competitive environment, it will be very obvious. It’s like my skiing: On the green runs, I may look the same as another more competent skier. But if you put us both on the double black diamonds, we’re obviously worlds apart.
Clearly it’s the double-black-diamond skiers (and leaders) who really inspire trust.
GET BETTER BUILDS TRUST
Get Better is based on the principles of continuous improvement, learning, and change. It is what the Japanese call kaizen, and it builds enormous trust. Like Deliver Results, this behavior is an example of how one of the 4 Cores (Capabilities) can be turned directly into a powerful relationship-building tool. When people see you as a learning, growing, renewing person—or your organization as a learning, growing, renewing organization—they develop confidence in your ability to succeed in a rapidly changing environment, enabling you to build high-trust relationships and move with incredible speed.
The opposite of Get Better is entropy, deterioration, resting on your laurels, or becoming irrelevant. With the pace of change in today’s world, if you aren’t making a conscious effort to Get Better, you’re not just standing still; you’re getting farther and farther behind. You’re becoming less and less relevant because those around you are moving rapidly ahead. Thus, simply staying where you are will not inspire trust; it will diminish it.
Get Better has two common counterfeits. The first is represented by the “eternal student,” the person who is always learning but never producing. The second is represented by author Frank Herbert’s observation: “The people I distrust most are those who want to improve our lives but have only one course of action.” It’s trying to force-fit everything into whatever you’re good at doing. It’s the manifestation of psychologist Abraham Maslow’s thought: “He that is good with a hammer tends to think everything is a nail.”
EXAMPLES OF GET BETTER
A good example of Get Better is the manager I mentioned in the chapter on Capabilities who studied for two hours early every morning until he became highly competent and an expert in his field. Other examples include Jack Canfield, coauthor of the Chicken Soup book series, who reads at least one book a day, and Bill Gates, Oprah Winfrey, Mark Cuban, Arianna Huffington, and Warren Buffett, who—as fast, constant learners—were relevant not only when they founded their companies but have continued to be relevant through changing times. I like how author and consultant Liz Wiseman puts it: “It’s not what you know, it’s how fast you can learn.”
Anyone who stops learning is old, whether this happens at twenty or eighty. Anyone who keeps on learning not only remains young, but becomes constantly more valuable regardless of physical capacity.
—HARVEY ULLMAN
A good athletic example of Get Better is Karl Malone, the power forward who played for 20 years in the NBA. In Malone’s rookie season, he shot a poor 48 percent from the free throw line. Recognizing that he would be shooting many free throws throughout his career, he decided to turn this weakness into a strength. He worked hard at it, and became a 75 percent foul shooter for the rest of his career, which is outstanding for such a big man.
In addition, after his rookie season, Malone decided to train with weights with a different-in-kind level of intensity that had never been seen before. When he showed up for the following year’s camp, it quickly became obvious that he had been working out to the extreme and was in far better shape than when the prior season had ended. It also became obvious that his teammates were still playing at the same level. As a result of his efforts to Get Better, Malone not only vastly improved his own game and became a first-ballot Hall of Famer, he was likely the catalyst for elevating the level of strength and conditioning for the entire league. Jerry Rice, the great NFL football player, had a similar impact on football, and Tiger Woods has had the same on golf.
An excellent business example of Get Better involves a beloved brand—the Danish company LEGO—which had a near death experience in 2003. The LEGO brick became the center of a toy construction system in the late 1950s and enjoyed great success into the new millennium. But when faced with increasing international competition, the watering down of their brand, internal silos, and slow response to consumer desires, they concluded they had three strategic options: go out of business, sell to a larger competitor such as Mattel or Hasbro, or reinvent. They chose to reinvent and focused heavily on building a culture of innovation and getting better. They have since become the top toy company in the world, still basically centered on one product—the LEGO brick system.
We’ve had the privilege of working with the LEGO Group and have found their leadership and employees to be highly credible examples of the principles and behaviors of trust—particularly around getting better. Their turnaround was led by Jørgen Vig Knudstorp (typically referred to as JVK), a former McKinsey consultant who moved from consulting with LEGO regarding strategy to taking charge of implementing it. Under JVK’s leadership, profits grew from 900M euros in 2003 to nearly 5B euros in 2017, the number of employees increased from 5k to over 17k, and the company continues to expand its reach into nations and homes around the world. In 2018, LEGO was ranked #2 on Global RepTrak’s list of Most Reputable Companies in the World. Their improvement is due to creating a truly innovative culture, built on their founding maxim: “Only the best is good enough.”
Whether it’s called renewal, reinvention, re-creation, innovation, disruption, continuous improvement, kaizen, or getting better, the need for this behavior has become a requirement for succeeding in a double-black-diamond world.
HOW TO GET BETTER
In seeking to Get Better, there are two strategies that are particularly helpful in maximizing your effort: seek feedback, and learn from mistakes.
Seek Feedback
Seeking and effectively utilizing feedback are vital to quality improvement. In my own life, feedback has been a part of every successful endeavor I’ve been involved in, from internal surveys and external customer visits at work to regularly asking Jeri, “What can I do to make life better for you?” at home.
I remember one time I did not want feedback on a particular product development project, and when I got it anyway, I ignored it. Imagine my chagrin later when the tepid market response validated what the feedback had been saying! I’ve learned to value the words of Elon Musk, founder of Tesla Motors, when he said, “I think it’s very important to have a feedback loop, where you’re constantly thinking about what you’ve done and how you could be doing it better.”
Appropriately seeking feedback and acting on it is the hallmark of a learning, growing, innovating company. Marriott sends me an e-mail feedback request nearly every time I stay at one of their hotels, as does Delta Air Lines nearly every time I travel on one of their flights. Amazon.com asks me to rate every order I place through a third-party seller, and my feedback becomes part of that affiliate’s performance rating. Almost all large organizations do some type of employee feedback survey, asking questions about employee satisfaction, engagement, etc. What differentiates the best from the good companies is not whether they ask the questions, it’s how they respond to the answers.
Feedback is so vital to improvement that, as I’ve said, we’ve included an in-depth 360-degree trust feedback instrument as part of our Speed of Trust programs. It’s always fascinating to watch people learn how to work through the process—comparing their own perceptions of their strengths and weaknesses to the perceptions of others, and sometimes h
earing things that startle them, cause them to reframe their paradigms, help them open their minds and hearts, and create a path to positive change.
As we tell our participants, it’s possible to put too much emphasis on feedback or overreact to it, and in the process, discount your own instinct and vision. In addition, feedback often tells you more about the person who is giving it than about you. However, even this information can be enormously helpful in building trust because it gives you insight into the meaning others are bringing to the relationship and what behaviors make deposits in the Trust Account you share with them.
You also need to be sure to thank those giving the feedback and let them know how you plan to implement it. When people see you taking their input seriously, it not only inspires trust in you, it also creates an environment of growth and change. As we discussed in Deliver Results, however, you need to always be responsible in following through. Otherwise your expression of intent will create a withdrawal, and you’ll be worse off than had you not solicited feedback in the first place.
Learn from Mistakes
As I discovered on the ski slopes, if you’re not willing to make mistakes, you’re not going to improve. Often people aren’t willing to make mistakes because they’re either afraid to fail or they’re focused on looking good. But smart people and smart companies realize that making mistakes is part of life. They see mistakes as feedback that will help them improve, and they become expert in learning how to learn from mistakes.
Most often, in fact, it is the failures that bring about the breakthroughs and insights. Albert Einstein said, “I think and think for months and years. Ninety-nine times the conclusion is false. The hundredth time I am right.” In commenting on the process of perfecting the lightbulb, Thomas Edison said, “I didn’t fail ten thousand times. I successfully eliminated ten thousand materials and combinations that didn’t work.”
The SPEED of Trust: The One Thing that Changes Everything Page 23