[upbeat intro music] - Hello, I'm Nido Qubein and welcome to Side by Side.

My guest today is a global authority on one of the most desired values one can possess trust, as the inventor of the enterprise trust index, the director of the annual trust outlook study and the author of the national bestseller, the trust edge, he's helped individuals, organizations, and governments on developing that value in their organization.

We'll be talking about the importance of trust for us individually and organizationally with David Horsager.

- [Man Narrator] Funding for Side by Side with Nido Qubein is made possible by: - [Women Narrator] Here's to those that rise and shine, to friendly faces, doing more than their part.

And to those who still enjoy the little things.

You, make it feel like home.

Ashley HomeStore.

This, is home.

- [Man 2 Narrator ] The Budd Group is a company of everyday leaders making a difference by providing facility solutions through customized janitorial landscape and maintenance services.

[outro tune] - [Man 3 Narrator] Coca Cola consolidated is honored to make and serve 300 brands and flavors locally.

Thanks to our teammates.

We are Coca-Cola consolidated your local bottler.

[intro music] - David, welcome to side by side.

I've heard you say that the lack of trust is the biggest expense a company can have.

What do you mean by that?

- I think it's the biggest expense an organization and individual or anybody can have.

And it goes back to my grad work almost two decades ago.

If you think of it, trust is always the leading indicator.

So we kept seeing, you know, it's not a leadership issue.

The reason we follow a leader and I was trust, it's not a sales issue.

The reason people buy are not as trust.

It's not a marketing issue.

The only way to amplify marketing messages trust.

But when you look at costs, you think of, well, a good representation of a lack of trust might be a lock, right?

The only reason I put a lock on something is because I don't trust you.

So what's the cost?

Going to buy the lock that's money.

The biggest cost is time.

Now I've got to open it.

So without all the research I gave, so well, text someone you trust, how long does that take?

Done.

Now, write a text to someone you don't trust, how long does that take?

How are they going to take this?

How are they going to take that?

The cost that cost attrition at cost retention across engagement at costs in every way, whenever there's a lack of trust, there's always a cost.

And it's the biggest - actually it affects the bottom line.

- So, so trust not money is the currency of business.

Always.

- Always trust is always the currency.

It speeds things up.

So if I, if I trust you, I don't have to check up on you.

If I don't trust you, I gotta check up on you.

Attrition goes up, engagement goes down.

It's always - trust effects every - if we see the kind of the swish of my, of my original research was like everything good, when trust increased, everything good went up and everything bad went down, costs, attrition, retention, everything else.

- You're known as the global trust expert, because you've been at this for almost two decades, you've done extensive research.

You have helped companies, individuals, governments.

In fact, what would you say is the, your most unusual finding about trust?

- Well, I think, I think in one way, it's more complex than people think so we can think, oh, I know trust.

That's just integrity or that's just this, or that's just that, I think, I think we do have to define it and see it for what it is because like people will say to me, we'll trust.

That's just transparency.

That's just vulnerability and there's truth to be more transparent, but some of your kids are so transparent on social media.

I don't trust them for a second because confidentiality is also trust or I can be, it takes a long time to build trust.

Well, on 9/11, complete strangers trust each other in a moment.

And they ran the same direction.

You know, if they're running the same direction, we can think the confidence is trusted.

If that ever looks like arrogance, it's not.

We can think if I extend more trust in my team, I'll get more out of them until I get too much.

So we, we have to think bigger about what it is and see it as the root cause.

That's some of my newest writing is because people either think trust is something you have or you don't, and it's actually something you can build every day or it's, it's not, doesn't really affect the root issue.

And I believe it absolutely affects the root issue more than anything else.

- And you publish annually an index on trust.

What is that?

Why do you do it?

Who benefits from it?

- Yes.

So the trust outlook is our annual study and I think it's the biggest trust and leadership study that comes out of North America.

It's a global study.

It's generally only plus or minus 1.7, 1.8% margin of error.

It's significant.

So we're just looking at the trends of what's happening in trust.

As we watched, as you can imagine, the last couple of decades, institutional trust dropped dramatically in, especially in North America, but we're watching trends.

We're seeing who's most trusted and why those kinds of things.

That's the trust outlook.

That's our annual study out of the Institute, the index we also created, I think some of the best ways to measure trust in organizations.

So the enterprise trust index is how we would go into a big university, a big organization and show gaps of trust and close them.

And then of course you're trying to affect sales retention or whatever.

- So to have trust in an organization.

You must first somehow define it, explain it, expect it, reward it.

How does a leader do that?

- Our definition out of the Institute, back to my grad work.

Trust is a confident belief in a person, a product and organization.

And when I confidently believe in you, everything changes.

So we start with that common definition and then what happens a whole lot of these great outcomes.

- And how do you measure trust?

- Well, it depends on that.

We measure it against these.

- Is it behavioral, I mean, - Okay.

Eight traits, if you look at our big index were using my work with 30 years of Accenture data and benchmarking everything, but it always comes down to eight traits, eight traits that came out of the research.

So it's there "C" words, but not for some motivational lists, but they, these "C" words represent how trust is built and they're comprehensive.

I believe you can solve every organizational leadership issue against these eight, doesn't mean I know how, doesn't mean I have some big ego about it, but it's always a function of these eight and most are solving the wrong things.

- What are they?

- Yeah, quickly.

So we trust the clear and we mistrust or distrust the ambiguous or the overly complex.

We trust the current.

- How does someone make a message, announcement, a communication clear?

- There's a whole lot of work to that.

It depends.

So I could say, as a manager, let's give a simple idea first, simple idea manager.

I remember when I was leading the first organization that I had, I was younger than all of my staff.

I wasn't getting what I wanted.

I got absolutely clear, wrote it down.

I thought it wasn't their fault.

It was my fault.

And from that time I started going through this little ODC method, just in my head, ODC, not OCD, ODC.

Was I clear about the outcome?

What's the outcome?

- What I expect - Exactly, exactly.

Paint the picture of the outcome, not micromanaging, but what's the outcome?

"D", deadline, many managers and leaders don't give a deadline because they're afraid it will create conflict when not giving a deadline will almost ensure we have conflict because I say, I want to see that soon.

I'm in Friday, you met next week, and it doesn't mean the end.

You know, many of us leaders, we have something it's ambiguous out here, but I can say I'd like to see the progress in six weeks or whatever these see as clarifiers are you, are you clear about this?

Just feed that back to me.

Are we clear about this?

Just giving a little space for clarity that little ODC model.

It's one way that a manager can quickly use to say, - Outcome, outcome deadline, clarifiers - Right - That was clear.

Number one.

- Clear - What's number two?

- One idea under it we spent a whole day or more.

- Of course - Of course.

But the second pillar is compassion.

Turns out people trust those that care beyond themselves.

It's hard for people to be committed to someone, to be accountable to someone.

If they don't feel like that person, even if they don't care about them, if they don't have a care for a mission or something beyond themselves, the, the, the, the, or people beyond them.

So, so the, the most this'll be interesting from the global study.

The most trusted person in the world to the most people is not the Pope is not Oprah.

It is - Their mother - Mother!

Absolutely.

We trust mom because she cares beyond herself.

She'll sacrifice, and we could learn something from mom.

Third pillar, - So, so, - Sure - So what is the difference between compassion and empathy?

- Empathy is a part of how we show compassion.

So empathy in the model of compassion.

So we under each of these models, how do you build compassion?

Turns out around the world.

Listening is a way we show compassion, encouragement, or appreciation is a way that we show compassion in the workplace.

Being present, we call it the laws of compassion.

L-A-W-S, listen, appreciate wake up and be present and serve selflessly.

And empathy is a part of that.

But these there's ways like empathy that we show this pillar or of this pillar - Excellent.

So it's, it's clear.

Is compassion the third pillar?

- Third pillar is character.

And of course, many of us thought, oh, character, that's everything, you know, to, as far as trust is concerned, I used to be an ethics professor.

Character is important.

You'll see from the next pillar, it's not everything it's still critical.

So we have a seven step process for how you build character in an organization.

But when I start with a leader, if we can start doing things as leaders, we start to, you know, organizations don't change individuals do.

So I might just ask a few questions.

Three, usually for a leader, I would ask one, would you follow you under this character builder?

Would you, would you buy from you?

Number two?

I would ask, do you have decision-making values?

Not just values and my family faith, but do you have values?

You'll make every decision by it's amazing what happens when a leader, even if people don't agree with those, if I know what they, that leader makes values decisions by the third is, is there any way we are incentivizing against the character we say we want to have or have?

People often buy into a false psychology that you, you got all the character you have at 12 years old.

It's not true.

You're moving toward or away from it by, you know, if I talk about the work in east Africa, until we stop incentivizing bribery from police officers, why would they stop until we stop laughing at those jokes that that increase or sarcasm that increases some ism?

Why would it stop?

That's incentivizing it or in my part of the world of massive bank, that I've got a lot of friends that work at, but they were incentivizing their sales team against the character.

They said they were going to have it cost them billions later, but you're, you can, you're incentivizing.

And every, every organization and team toward her away from character every day.

- So the word character of course, is a, is a word we throw around to mean a lot of things.

How do you define character?

- I defined character putting together two, two things, integrity.

That's being the same and thoughts, words, and actions and moral character.

And that might take a little longer to define, but you have to put those together because I've had people argue with me.

Well, if it's just integrity, Hitler had more of that than Churchill.

Well, if you say just same thoughts for as negative, you remember Hitler, he got up at the same time.

He wouldn't even drink coffee.

He, you know, you got Churchill kind of carousing and kind of inconsistent in certain ways, but he had the moral character to save really our world at the darkest hour of the 20th century.

So you have to put this - to be in this thing we call the trust edge, or be a trusted leader, you have to put integrity with a type of moral character that is beyond yourself.

- Fourth pillar?

- Fourth pillar is competency.

This is why I would trust Dr. Qubein to take my kids to the ball game character.

I would trust them to, you know, take my kids to the game because of compassion, but I wouldn't trust them to give me a root canal because of competency.

You have to stay fresh, relevant, and capable in the area.

You want to be trusted if you're leading anybody leading the same way that were 20 years ago, I don't trust them.

They're selling the way they were 10 years ago.

I don't trust them.

You have to stay fresh and relevant and capable inputs, the leads to output.

So.

- The word trust is not there for synonym for honesty.

- No.

It's a part of honesty.

Of course, honesty is a part of character, but would you rather, let's say you're Jewish and you're being hidden in the basement and the Nazis come knocking on the door and the person that's hiding you, will you rather than be hide character or honest, I would rather hide character.

I want to stay hidden.

Right?

So some honesty isn't massively important to character, of course, and generally a sign of high character.

- You're showing us that the trust is not just a simple word.

It is an activated behavior that is based on what?

Is it based on beliefs.

Is it based on frame of reference?

Is it based on upbringing?

- Well, character, I mean, the great thing about, excuse me about trust is it can be learned.

It can be built in a brand.

We get to the last pillar, it can be built in an individual, but it can be good or bad if we jump right to the last pillar, just as an explanation here, consistency, you're trusted for whatever you do consistently, right?

So the only way to build a reputation, if you're late all the time, I will in fact, trust you to be late.

If you treat my people this, if you say, you know, some of these organizations, we speak of let's well, we could give lots of examples, but on an organization, the only way to build a brand is consistency.

If it's, if I go to that bank and the teller was gray, but the loan officer was like, this, the paper was the stuff was like that, but the website was terrible.

It was like, I don't even, I don't trust it because it's all over, but I have to have a consistency of experience for the brand.

It's not a logo, it's a consistency of experience in dealing with that.

Let's say bank, or if I go into a certain restaurant and everybody says, my pleasure, wow.

That consistency builds trust, right?

- Yes.

All right.

So you gave us the first four and then the last one, fill in the blanks.

- Sure.

Competency commitment.

We trust those that stay committed, even in the face of adversity.

If I feel like you're going to fall off here.

I mean, if you think of anybody from history, from your life, your mom or dad, or first grade teacher, or in history, that's left a legacy Mandela, Martin Luther King, Gandhi, Jesus, or Joan of Arc.

You're going to find somebody that was trusted because they were committed to something beyond themselves, maybe to death.

They're trusted for that commit.

If I feel like you're just gonna, you're just here for a little while.

I don't get to trust you, but maybe one takeaway under this pillar in a very short time would be, how do you rebuild trust?

How do you rebuild it?

We have a 10 step process of your company with an oil spill.

But whether you're a big company or you're an individual, there is only one way and it is absolutely not the apology.

You do not rebuild trust.

Oh, I apologized.

I said, I'm sorry.

I'm not saying don't apologize.

That can open up the communication, but we don't rebuild trust on the apology.

The only way to rebuild trust, make and keep a new commitment.

We have people walking in.

I'm sorry.

I'm late.

No, you're not.

You're late every time I don't trust your, if you apologize, but you make and keep a commitment.

You have a chance, a new commitment.

You have a chance.

- If a company does something wrong and you're saying they shouldn't apologize you should - No, no, no, they should apologize, but they didn't rebuild.

Many people think they apologized and then that rebuilds.

- Oh, I see.

- Of course.

- So the only way you can rebuild trust is to have another opportunity where you will deliver in a way that the other person appreciate it.

- And make and keep a new commitment.

Absolutely.

- Yeah.

- This doesn't mean don't apologize.

- So David, I've often made a distinction between making decisions and making commitments.

See if I'm doing it right.

See if you, see if you trust my definition - And by the way, one reason you don't trust people that say just trust me.

[laughs] - But, but see, see, see if you agree with me that you make decisions with your brain, you make commitments with your heart.

That's why commitments are harder to break.

That's why commitments are longer lasting.

Where am I wrong?

- I don't disagree, but I would make commitments with both head and heart.

You, you, you know, you could, you could even think of it this way.

People that you've heard the idea of love your neighbor as yourself.

You know, someone who doesn't love themselves at all, how fun are they to be around?

It's a problem.

It's the same with commitments.

If I'm a type of person that doesn't whether, whether, as a promise mentally, or with my heart, you know, emotionally, if I don't make and keep commitments who do I lose trust with first?

Myself and you know what happens?

Then I think, well, you're not gonna, you're kind of like me.

Oh, you're kind of like, you probably don't make and keep your committed.

All of a sudden, the team is poisoned by people that make, and don't keep commitments because they don't trust themselves.

Whether or not they make it more on head or heart.

I don't know if it matters.

- I see.

- Yeah.

- All right, so, What's number six?

- Commitment.

Then we have connection.

And really some of the words that came out of this one where collaboration, you know, the willingness to connect with others.

There's some great research by the myth of.

- What's the difference between connecting and communicating?

- Well, you might not like this, but I will argue at the core.

It's never a communication issue.

We never have a communication issue.

So, as an example, if I go through the pillars, I was a communication undergrad communication, of course, it's a good thing.

Of course, I know what people think.

And but many people say, oh, in our company and our board of directors, we have a communication issue, communications happening all the time.

Clear, if we go down the pillars, we can solve the real issue.

Well, clear communication is trusted, unclear isn't compassionate communication where I care about you.

That's trusted, hateful isn't.

High character is low character isn't.

Consistent is, consistent isn't, so if we can define it, then most people mean clarity.

We can actually deal with the real issue and use a process to get to clear communication.

- So it's connecting?

- Yeah.

- So, so, so how much this person feel first?

So this person will do what I want them to do.

- Well, it can be.

Yeah, but some people, even you, you know, if you use authoritative power and clearly communicate, that can, that can work too.

But the connection pillars is important because each of these pillars has counterforces in an organization.

So if I look at an organization undeclared, if I see ambiguity or complexity, we know we've got a counterforce.

Under connection, if I see siloing, if I see the unwillingness to share resources for the betterment of all, we've got a problem with that connection pillar.

And in fact, you don't have to put any more resources in.

You can get just by changing the willingness to connect and collaborate and incredibly amplified output connection.

- Number seven?

- Number seven is contribution.

And what you really want to think about on this one is contributing results.

So the first word out of this research funnel was results.

You can't just have compassion.

You can't just have character.

You've got to contribute results.

I keep going.

I'm going for amputation.

Surgeon cuts off the wrong leg.

I don't care how compassionate we've got it.

We've got a wrong result here.

Right?

- Yes - So we have to contribute results and there's, we look at this in two big ways in a company, individual contributors, how do I personally contribute?

And then how do I motivate my team to contribute great results, but the way to think about outcomes, performance, that all falls under this pillar.

And we've seen it before.

This is why you have to have all eight.

We've seen people just focus on results and they get them for a time without compassion or character.

They lose everything.

We see people just focus on, you know, compassion and character and not ever deliver results.

And that's not the work of work.

You have to have all eight to gain this thing.

We call it.

- So it's a formula, it's a recipe, it's a system.

What's eight and nine?

- So eight, just eight.

There's just eight of them.

Eight is consistency.

- I see - So, yep.

We're done.

If I was going to put a ninth, I might say courage, but that's not research-based.

- So repeat all eight again, please.

- So, we trust clarity.

They have to be clear, compassionate, those that care beyond themselves character, we trust those to do what's right or what's easy.

Competency, you're able to do it.

The willingness to connect and collaborate.

I think I skipped commitment committed those you're you're committed for at least this time.

And then we have connection.

We have contribution contributor of results and finally consistency, I trust.

- So how does this, so I understand how this works in a company, for example.

So a leader of a company wants to create trust in the organization internally and externally with clients and customers.

Let's talk about this in a, from an individual's perspective, an individual who values trust, who wishes to have a life filled with trust and wishes to position themselves as a trust worthy person, wherever they are.

How does that person understand that?

Create that and actualize it?

- I would learn about what they mean each of these eight, how that can affect me personally, trust the leader.

I talk about that I can do that tomorrow morning, starting tomorrow morning, but, and we, we give away free assessments even for individuals.

So they can assess against the eight pillars and there's behaviors under each.

So we can assess your behavior and see gaps.

But if I didn't, we didn't have time to talk about that.

And I said, I would just look at those eight.

And I would talk to someone and say, let's start with clarity because here's what we know.

If you have a character issue, that's going to take a little longer, we can change something about clarity and see results in two weeks.

And I'll give one little quick process here for clarity.

Many people don't use.

When they're thinking about how to take an idea to an action, the most powerful question that actually drives strategic clarity.

There are actually three of them and it's not the why people think, oh, the why the why drives purpose.

That's great.

Got to have a why.

Well, it's not the who we love Jim Collins and having the right who's on the bus.

The problem is these days, I see a lot of fun.

Who's saying kumbaya about their why right off the cliff, because they're not asking this question.

The question that takes an idea to an action, three of them ready, number one.

Okay.

How?

More important.

And this seems easy.

It's not, How?

and the most important question of all is how, how, how, how until I can do it today or tomorrow, that clarity gives hope.

When I lost the 52 pounds in five months, it wasn't, it, you know, a decade ago or whatever.

It was like, I had to find a house.

If someone says, I can never have ice cream, again, it's not going to happen, but I have to found hows that I will do.

And they have to be something I can act on today or tomorrow.

How are you going to do that?

How are you gonna do that?

How are you gonna do that?

Until I, as an example, stopped drinking a cold a, I wouldn't drink a calorie on a plane.

Okay.

That's a final how.

I can see it.

Right, a final how always has a who, when and where so many people think co-leadership is great.

Of course we know the research shows it's terrible.

Collaborative leadership is excellent.

But if I have two people on a final task, I at 50% less chance of ever getting done collaborate, collaborate, collaborate, have a person.

So final task.

If I think of a company we worked with said, what do you really want here?

We want a better culture.

Okay.

How are you gonna do that well we're going to be more clear, how you gonna do that?

We're going to communicate more.

How are you gonna do that?

We're going to hold each other accountable.

They're still nowhere until they have a how they can apply it in their model.

When we get there, we have a chance.

- So it's a, it's a in a company, it'll be a clear vision, a solid strategy.

That's, that's the how, right?

- Many people stop there.

They stop at this strategy of even if it's which I agree with.

We in our clarity work, we're stirred with MBB, mission, values, vision priorities, and all this.

But until they, we get people to think, okay, how am I going to do that today?

How am I going to act that out today?

If I don't have that, I don't have a clear how.

- All right, so quickly tell me in your work with any organization, profit, nonprofit, governmental, non-governmental - Sure - What have been, what has been, or have been the one or two observations that you made that keep them from having a solid foundation of trust?

- Well, a big challenge for organizations is something we all have, and that is atrophy is guaranteed without intentional action, consistent action.

I remember I got a picture of a very good friend of mine who was a bodybuilder, just muscular.

Then he got hit head on by a Land Rover squashed him in his vehicle.

He woke up from a coma for five and a half weeks later.

He actually lived without brain damage, it's a miracle story.

But 66 days later, he was able to stand up for a few months.

Got a picture, in the same gym clothes he went into the accident, same guy, but in 66 days, he lost 66 pounds.

The problem with many people, they do something a little bit.

They start it.

They say something.

We in our culture work, we might start, we, we talk about ice.

Like, if we want to do what we do, I inspires people.

You need that.

You need to shift of thinking, you know, the see is clarify.

We need to measure so we can close gaps.

E we need to equip them to ongoing do this.

And the problem with if any work is, if we don't have a system to stop atrophy to, because we have two problems, time and change, we have to continue to build trust.

And we have to have a process in the, in the farm.

I grew up on the farm.

We say healthy things grow in sick things die, right?

Healthy churches grow sick ones become divided, healthy marriages, grow sick ones become divorced, but they only are healthy if I put the right, right fertilize with right, but I can't just do it now.

I have to keep watering, so.

Consistency - Consistency, big subject, important subject applies to all of us in every way.

You have invested a lifetime in researching it and publishing material and speaking about it and counseling and coaching.

We thank you for all that David Horsager, and I'm delighted to have had you right here, side-by-side with me today.

- [Man 1 Narrator] Funding for Funding for Side by Side with Nido Qubein is made possible by: - [Woman Narrator] Here's the, those that rise and shine to friendly faces, doing more than their part, and to those who still enjoy the little things.

You make it feel like home.

Ashley HomeStore.

This is home.

- [Man 2 Narrator] The Budd Group is a company of everyday leaders making a difference by providing facility solutions through customized janitorial landscape and maintenance services.

[outro tune] - [Man 3 Narrator] Coca-Cola Consolidated is honored to make and serve 300 brands and flavors locally.

Thanks to our teammates.

We are Coca-Cola Consolidated your local bottler.