Covey's Behavior that Build or Maintain Trust #13: Extend Trust

"Extend Trust" is the 13th behavior put forth by Covey in The Speed of Trust, 2006, p. 222ff:

Demonstrate a propensity to trust. Extend trust abundantly to those who have earned your trust. Extend conditionally to those who are earning your trust. Learn how to appropriately extend trust to others based on the situation, risk, and credibility (character and competence) of the people involved. But have a propensity to trust. Don't withhold trust because there is risk involved.

To be trusted, you need to be able to trust others. If you can't trust others maybe it's because you can't trust yourself. People who don't trust themselves often don't trust others. If you find that it's self-trust that you lack there are ways of building up trust in yourself so that you will find others trustworthy

My goal here is to help entrepreneurs climb all the way to the top. How am I doing?

Entrepreneurship is the life's blood of all my professional activities. It makes them go. It informs my connection strategy.

It makes Sherpa Real Estate , my real estate referral business, go. See www.yourstopforrealestate.blogspot.com.

It powers my Sherpa Literary. Go to www.timswritingblog.blogspot.com for my ideas on writing and publishing and read my mystery for free at wwww.kearneymusicschoolmurders.blogspot.com or buy it from Amazon.com more cheaply than you can print it out.

It fuels my publishing enterprise, By and for Writers go. See www.byandforwriters.blogspot.com where you can get a poem or a short story published.

Covey (2006)'s 12th Behavior that Builds or Maintains Trust #12: Keeping Commitments

"Keeping Commitments" is the 12th behavior put forth by Covey in The Speed of Trust, 2006, p. 214ff.

This is what he says:

Behavior #12--Keep Commitments--is the 'Big Kahuna' of all behaviors. It's the quickest way to build trust in any relationship--be it with an employee, a boss, a team member, a customer, a supplier, a spouse, a child, or the public in general. Its opposite--to break commitments or violate promises--is, without question the quickest way to destroy trust. (p. 215)

He quotes a colleague: "When you make a commitment, you build hope; when you keep it, you build trust." (p. 215)

But implied in this commitment is a mechanism whereby the person your building trust with can see that you've kept your commitment.

In Covey's words:

The counterfeit of this behavior is to make commitments that are so vague or elusive that nobody can pin you down, or, even worse, to be so afraid of breaking commitments that you don't even make any in the first place.(p. 215)

To sum up, he says: "Say what you're going to do, then do what you say you're going to do [how, when, and where you said you were going to do it]. Make keeping commitments the symbol of your honor. Don't break confidences. Don't attempt to "PR" your way out of a commitment you've broken." [p. 219]

My goal here is to help entrepreneurs climb all the way to the top. How am I doing?

Entrepreneurship is the life's blood of all my professional activities. It makes them go. It informs my connection strategy.

It makes Sherpa Real Estate , my real estate referral business, go. See www.yourstopforrealestate.blogspot.com.

It powers my Sherpa Literary. Go to www.timswritingblog.blogspot.com for my ideas on writing and publishing and read my mystery for free at wwww.kearneymusicschoolmurders.blogspot.com or buy it from Amazon.com more cheaply than you can print it out.

It fuels my publishing enterprise, By and for Writers go. See www.byandforwriters.blogspot.com where you can get a poem or a short story published.

Covey's 3rd Principle Behind Listen First: Mutual Benefit

Mutual Benefit is the third principle behind Listen First (Covey, The Speed of Trust, 2006, p. 208ff.

It's pretty clear what it means--you have to find in it the kernel that will benefit you both. If you spend all your time listening and not benefiting or if the speaker 9is trying to tell you something and he or she is getting nothing from it there is a problem.

Two words here: mutual and benefit. If I spend all the time saying things that won't benefit others, I'm missing the boat. If someone says something to you, find the benefit in it for you and act on it so that they will see you're benefiting from their input.

My goal here is to help entrepreneurs climb all the way to the top. How am I doing?

Entrepreneurship is the life's blood of all my professional activities. It makes them go. It informs my connection strategy.

It makes Sherpa Real Estate , my real estate referral business, go. See www.yourstopforrealestate.blogspot.com.

It powers my Sherpa Literary. Go to www.timswritingblog.blogspot.com for my ideas on writing and publishing and read my mystery for free at wwww.kearneymusicschoolmurders.blogspot.com or buy it from Amazon.com more cheaply than you can print it out.

It fuels my publishing enterprise, By and for Writersgo. See www.byandforwriters.blogspot.com where you can get a poem or a short story published.Dey

Covey's 2nd Principle Behind Listen First: Respect

Covey (The Speed of Trust, 2006, p. 208ff) gives three principles behind Listen First. His second is respect.

You have to respect the person to whom you're listening. You may not like them, or favor everything they do, but you have to respect the for something. If you don't respect a person or can't get to a place where you can respect that person for something what are you doing in a relationship with that person.

My goal here is to help entrepreneurs climb all the way to the top. How am I doing?

Entrepreneurship is the life's blood of all my professional activities. It makes them go. It informs my connection strategy.

It makes Sherpa Real Estate , my real estate referral business, go. See www.yourstopforrealestate.blogspot.com.

It powers my Sherpa Literary. Go to www.timswritingblog.blogspot.com for my ideas on writing and publishing and read my mystery for free at wwww.kearneymusicschoolmurders.blogspot.com or buy it from Amazon.com more cheaply than you can print it out.

It fuels my publishing enterprise, By and for Writersgo. See www.byandforwriters.blogspot.com where you can get a poem or a short story published.Dey

Covey's 1st Principle Behind Listen First

Covey (The Speed of Trust, 2006, p. 208ff) gives three principles behind Listen First: understanding, respect, and mutual benefit. I added hearing, being fully present in the conversation, and being open.

Understanding means you comprehend what is being said. You see how it relates to your behavior or your ideas. You grasp its relationships with other things and the consequences of whatever you're being told, and the places it came out of. In short, you understand.

When you understand something you have a kind of "aha" moment. You're walking down the hallway coffee in hand and it hits you. You finally get it.

This is what Covey means by understanding underlying listening.

My goal here is to help entrepreneurs climb all the way to the top. How am I doing?

Entrepreneurship is the life's blood of all my professional activities. It makes them go. It informs my connection strategy.

It makes Sherpa Real Estate , my real estate referral business, go. See www.yourstopforrealestate.blogspot.com.

It powers my Sherpa Literary. Go to www.timswritingblog.blogspot.com for my ideas on writing and publishing and read my mystery for free at wwww.kearneymusicschoolmurders.blogspot.com or buy it from Amazon.com more cheaply than you can print it out.

It fuels my publishing enterprise, By and for Writersgo. See www.byandforwriters.blogspot.com where you can get a poem or a short story published.Dey

Covey on Counterfeit Listening

Covey (The Speed of Trust, 2006, p. 208ff) gives gives us "Listen First" as one of the behaviors that build or maintain trust, "Listen First" (p. 209)

He also gives the counterfeit, or fake version, of listening, "pretend listening":

It's spending 'listening' time thinking about your reply and just waiting for your turn to speak. Or, it's listening without understanding. In either case, you're not influenced by what others have to say, and usually those you 'listen' to don't fee understood, even though you've given them the time.

I've certainly been guilty of that, and it's hard to listen when what someone is saying to you is hard for you to take. If you only pretend to listen to someone who's talking to you, you might actually harm your relationship with that other person. You might be better to say: "You know I can't really focus on this now. Can we find a time to talk about this when I can really listen to you?" Then if the person says they have to talk about it right now, you can deal with it. Maybe you can listen for a few minutes, think about what the person is saying, and then talk with them in more depth later.

My goal here is to help entrepreneurs climb all the way to the top. How am I doing?

Entrepreneurship is the life's blood of all my professional activities. It makes them go. It informs my connection strategy.

It makes Sherpa Real Estate , my real estate referral business, go. See www.yourstopforrealestate.blogspot.com.

It powers my Sherpa Literary. Go to www.timswritingblog.blogspot.com for my ideas on writing and publishing and read my mystery for free at wwww.kearneymusicschoolmurders.blogspot.com or buy it from Amazon.com more cheaply than you can print it out.

It fuels my publishing enterprise, By and for Writersgo. See www.byandforwriters.blogspot.com where you can get a poem or a short story published.Dey

Covey's Listen First, Tim: hear what is said.

Covey (The Speed of Trust, 2006, p. 208ff) gives three principles behind Listen First: understanding, respect, and mutual benefit. I added two more: hearing, being fully present in the conversation, and being open.

You not only need to be present in the conversation, be open to new ideas and opinions even those you don't necessarily like to hear, and hearing.

Hearing is more than listening. It's absorbing what is said. If someone says something to you and you listen to it then go on with your life as though that person had never said it, you're listening to that person but not hearing what he or she said.

My goal here is to help entrepreneurs climb all the way to the top. How am I doing?

Entrepreneurship is the life's blood of all my professional activities. It makes them go. It informs my connection strategy.

It makes Sherpa Real Estate , my real estate referral business, go. See www.yourstopforrealestate.blogspot.com.

It powers my Sherpa Literary. Go to www.timswritingblog.blogspot.com for my ideas on writing and publishing and read my mystery for free at wwww.kearneymusicschoolmurders.blogspot.com or buy it from Amazon.com more cheaply than you can print it out.

It fuels my publishing enterprise, By and for Writersgo. See www.byandforwriters.blogspot.com where you can get a poem or a short story published.Dey

Listening, principle 2: Be open

Covey (The Speed of Trust, 2006, p. 208ff) gives three principles behind Listen First: understanding, respect, and mutual benefit. I've added two more: hearing, being fully present in the conversation, and being open. Last time I talked about being fully present in the conversation. This one is be open

You have to be willing to accept what others in the bring to you. If your stuck on something, or determined only to do one thing, then all the listening in the world will not help you.

Be open to new ways of thinking and behaving. They might be better than your own. They can help you, you only have to be willing to entertain the notions seriously. Do it, and it can change your life in (good) ways you never dreamed possible. You don't have to follow to the end every idea you hear.

I did so with real estate. I did so with social network theory. I did so with social media and blogging and so forth. If I hadn't been open to new ideas, I would be a far different, and lesser, a person than I am now.

My goal here is to help entrepreneurs climb all the way to the top. How am I doing?

Entrepreneurship is the life's blood of all my professional activities. It makes them go. It informs my connection strategy.

It makes Sherpa Real Estate , my real estate referral business, go. See www.yourstopforrealestate.blogspot.com.

It powers my Sherpa Literary. Go to www.timswritingblog.blogspot.com for my ideas on writing and publishing and read my mystery for free at wwww.kearneymusicschoolmurders.blogspot.com or buy it from Amazon.com more cheaply than you can print it out.

It fuels my publishing enterprise, By and for Writersgo. See www.byandforwriters.blogspot.com where you can get a poem or a short story published.Dey

Behavior that builds or maintains trust #11: Listen First, part 1.

Covey (The Speed of Trust, 2006, p. 208ff) gives three principles behind Listen First: understanding, respect, and mutual benefit. I would add two more: hearing, being fully present in the conversation, and being open.

The first thing about listening first is you must be fully present in the conversation. No television on. No talking to two people at once. No thinking about where you're going for lunch. No looking around the room while the other person is talking. You are with that person, the two of you, your eyes are on theirs, and your ears are attuned to what he or she is saying.

This is a challenge for me. I usually am doing two or three things concurrently, so focusing on one is difficult for me. I have to squeeze myself into a box. But I can do it, I think.

If you're not sure about something, ask someone who knows you.

My goal here is to help entrepreneurs climb all the way to the top. How am I doing?

Entrepreneurship is the life's blood of all my professional activities. It makes them go. It informs my connection strategy.

It makes Sherpa Real Estate , my real estate referral business, go. See www.yourstopforrealestate.blogspot.com.

It powers my Sherpa Literary. Go to www.timswritingblog.blogspot.com for my ideas on writing and publishing and read my mystery for free at wwww.kearneymusicschoolmurders.blogspot.com or buy it from Amazon.com more cheaply than you can print it out.

It fuels my publishing enterprise, By and for Writersgo. See www.byandforwriters.blogspot.com where you can get a poem or a short story published.Dey