So really getting down to how do we build a powerful culture of trust?
And, you know, the idea around this is that, you know, it's really interesting.
A study from PricewaterhouseCoopers in 2016 did a global CEO survey,
and it showed that 50 percent of CEOs worldwide consider the lack of trust
to be the major threat to their growth.
That's really interesting.
And, you know, so the alternative would be, you know,
if you look at how few people actually love their jobs,
the Gallup poll in 2017 showed that globally only 15 percent of people
love their job.
What a waste of human life that is.
That's 1.2 billion people.
But in the U.S., the numbers are substantially better.
It's 30 percent, but, you know, 30 percent.
That's not great.
So what if you could create a workplace that people really love to work in?
Or if you're, you know, part of a team listening to this,
what if you loved where you worked, really loved where you worked?
What difference would that make to your life?
What difference would that make to your family life if you came home
from a place where you felt that what you did mattered,
that your contribution was seen and received,
that you feel like you're really building something
and you love the people that you worked with?
You know, what's really interesting about that Gallup survey was that
what the survey actually showed is what makes people love their job
is not the job itself.
It's the people they're doing it with.
So that means culture.
And culture, as we know, takes time.
And that's why we do these weekly trainings,
because we're building a culture of learning to work together,
innovate together, where everybody's a leader,
leading their own contribution, leading customers, leading vendors,
leading other team members, but everybody's leadership is developing
and everybody understands the economics of what they're doing.
Everybody understands that what I'm doing here is affecting the team
in some very specific way.
So it turns out, when you look at all the data,
what you do is not as important as who you do it with.
And so here's my personal dream.
My personal dream is to change culture in business
so that people can feel fully alive and love what they do.
So, simply put, my goal is to change the 30% to 80%,
which is pretty dramatic.
In other words, what if we can change the entire way businesses are led,
organizations are led, so that people can love what they're doing,
so that they can feel that what they do matters.
Now, many of us have listened to Simon Sinek's Circle of Safety.
I love that.
I think it's a very good foundational discussion,
and in the worksheet, we'll put that link in there.
If you haven't watched it, definitely watch it.
It's a really great concept around what does a circle of safety look like.
And so here are a couple of the effects of trust,
and I want to talk about the effects of trust,
and then I want to talk a little bit about how can we build a culture of trust.
And I want to give you the 10 habits for trust culture.
So let's go through that quickly.
So here are the effects of trust.
You know, when people feel safe, we literally change their brain chemistry.
Dopamine, we could call it the habit-former.
That's that little kick you get.
It's an incredible tool, and when people get that little kick,
it's why every time your phone goes bing or ding,
you look at it, you get a little dopamine kick.
That's the habit-former.
You know, oxytocin is the culture-former.
It's that part that's social, that feeling of belonging and relationships
and trust and that feeling loved.
You know, some people call it the hug hormone,
you know, that feeling of being hugged.
That feeling of, so, you know, we know that these are the elements
of our brain chemistry.
But building that culture-former takes a very intentional process,
and it takes in everybody, not just the leader stepping in,
but everybody acting as a team of leaders.
And serotonin is really the leadership-former.
It's that it's very heavily related to pride and loyalty and status
and influence, that what I do matters.
So those different chemicals in our brain,
when we create an environment, a culture of trust,
what we're doing is we're setting it up to be a team of leaders
where everybody loves to work.
Because when people feel unsafe, what we're actually doing,
if we're the ones leading a team, or you're part of a team
that's poorly led, what's actually happening is we're sabotaging
the creativity and the productivity of people who feel unsafe.
Because cortisol, as we know, is a hormone that's released
when you're stressed.
Because if you're spending all your time protecting yourself,
other people taking credit for your work,
never being able to bring your own ideas,
just doing what you're told,
that is a very demeaning and terrible way to live life.
And in that particular,
that just releases stress hormones.
And so what we're doing
is we're shutting people's minds down.
We're literally locking them up
and then saying, bring your A game.
It's not possible to bring your A game
in an unsafe environment.
If you're not sure if you're gonna lose your job,
if you made a mistake, would you lose your job?
What level of mistake will cause me to get fired?
Your team members,
every team member should never have that issue
on their minds.
People must not be threatened.
When I see leaders threatening people,
if you do that again, I'll fire you,
all that sort of thing.
It's shutting down their whole brain chemistry
and it's literally crippling their ability to produce
at a high level and then telling them
if they don't produce at a high level,
they're gonna get fired.
What a horrible thing.
In fact, it turns out some research shows
that you're not just changing their brain chemistry.
Cortisol can literally go in
and poison every cell in our bodies.
We're literally making them sick.
You can see why it's my passion
to want to dramatically change the way businesses are led.
But you know, so we have a rule
and I think this is a great rule to install
in a business that wants to make people feel safe
and that we call it the 30 day plan.
If your performance is subpar,
if there is an issue with you,
we will sit down with you and saying,
okay, you're now on the 30 day plan.
In the next 30 days,
we're gonna be measuring these things.
If we don't hit these kinds of results,
then you should have your resume in order
because we're gonna release you back to the marketplace
where you can go and work and live
at a level you wanna live at.
But in this organization,
we're growing at a very steep pace
and we don't want you to feel
like you're the person who's not keeping up.
Who wants to work in an environment like that?
So rule in our organization is silence is golden.
If you're not on the 30 day plan, you are safe.
Super simple.
And if you do have to do a series of layoffs,
just do them in one shot
and call the rest of the team together
and say, okay, that's it.
If you're here, you're safe.
But if we put you on the 30 day plan,
you know we're working through something
and then your job may actually be at risk.
So creating the silence is golden rule
sets people free from that nervousness
of I have a family to support.
What am I gonna do if I lose my job?
You know, I don't have enough savings.
People live under tremendous stress at work,
but what if we could shift that,
rewire their brain chemistry?
Because you know, when you create that circle of safety,
it literally does release creativity, innovation,
encourages leadership and creates a sense of belonging.
These people care and that sense of this is my company,
almost emotional ownership,
even if they don't own shares.
That feeling of, you know, this is the place I work.
I love this.
So there's now a desire to move forward
and help the company move forward.
And that's where the heart of innovation comes from.
You know, when people are safe
and have that sense of ownership,
what you're really getting is everybody's mind space
is thinking about how to make stuff better.
They're thinking about how to make a bigger contribution.
They're thinking about how can we move this forward?
Because they've bought into the idea
that I love the people I work with
and I love what we're doing together.
That is actually easier to create than we think
because people naturally want it
and all we have to do is give them the opportunity to do it.
Or perhaps you're listening to this
and you're not the main leader.
You're, you know, somebody who works for a leader.
Then the question is,
what can you do to switch your mindset?
Can you reframe, you know, what your current situation
and start to act like an owner?
In other words, hey, if I were the owner,
what would an owner do in this situation?
Can I become part of the trust culture?
And I wanna talk about how we can do that
because we want to enhance people's ability
to think, to focus, to pay attention, to solve problems,
all the things we know that happens in their minds
when they feel safe.
So what builds trust?
You know, trust a little bit is like, you know,
protecting trust in an organization
is like protecting a child.
You have to be proactive.
And so there are a couple of things that build trust.
One is, are you the same with someone
if they're in the room or they're not in the room?
Would you have said what you just said?
about that person in the same way with the same tone
if that person were physically in the room.
You know, when people get to believe
that that's sort of the culture and that's how it is,
there's not that feeling of what are they saying about me
when I leave the room.
A second thing that really, really builds trust
is specific appreciation,
or what I would say precise appreciation.
You know, please avoid all the low-grade stuff.
You know, oh, great, awesome, good job.
That stuff is pretty worthless.
And what it is, it's a very, very low-grade,
it's not, you know, I suppose it's some appreciation.
But we can do a whole lot better.
When we are specific in our appreciation,
I appreciate that contribution you made in the meeting.
That really helped.
Because what we're telling people is what you do matters.
Even if you go, you know, when you do that,
that's so helpful, because what you do matters.
People need to hear that constantly.
Number three, kind negative feedback.
You know, giving an example.
There's nothing more cruel
than giving people generalized negative feedback.
Because you leave it to the imagination.
Well, you're a pretty weird guy.
You know, you get in the meeting, you just act weird.
Can you please stop?
People are like, what does weird mean?
I don't know, can you give me an example?
And so it's shocking to people to know that,
well, you're just weird, you know, can you stop being weird?
And so that's the thing that,
if we really wanna grow our team,
what we have to do is we have to make
that negative feedback specific.
And don't avoid giving the negative feedback.
And the second aspect is do it with a kind tone.
Don't get yourself worked up in giving that feedback.
And by the way, that same is giving feedback to your leader.
Number four, extend trust to others.
Make deposits in their trust account.
You know, leaders are trust initiators.
They not trust recipients.
What I mean by that is, I was speaking to a leader
of a very large company, multi-billion dollar company,
and he said, well, I just don't trust people easily.
And my answer to that was, well,
then you're never gonna be a great leader.
And he said, what do you mean?
People have to earn my trust.
I said, no, they don't.
That's just an excuse for you
to be lazy about trusting people.
And he said, no, you don't understand,
that's not how I'm wired.
I said, then you're not a leader.
Because what leaders do is leaders take the trust risk.
Is there a risk to trusting people?
Of course there is.
But that's what makes you a leader.
You give people the opportunity to be trustworthy.
Do you know that over 95% of people,
when given the opportunity to be trustworthy,
will be trustworthy?
Will show that your trust was well-placed?
You see, that's what leaders do.
This is the bottom line of this whole talk.
And that is leaders are trust initiators.
They give trust before it's earned.
And they don't demand trust.
Well, so here's how you deal with that,
whether you're a leader of leading the whole organization,
or you're a leader who's further down the organization,
doesn't matter, we're all a team of leaders.
So here's how you help.
When you give someone your trust,
you tell them, you have my trust, I trust you.
I remember speaking to a young man who had come out of a,
he was in his late 20s,
and he'd come out of a very untrusting culture.
And he joined our organization.
And I could see that he was so nervous if he made a mistake,
and, you know, would he lose my trust?
And I said to him one day, I said to him,
so Dave, here's the deal.
I trust you.
If somebody calls me and says, listen,
Dave burnt down the office.
He took gasoline, he poured it over the office,
and he set it alight.
And I've got video evidence.
My answer's gonna be, well, then the building had to go.
Now, of course, when you and I talk,
you better have a really good reason,
but I want you to know that you have my trust.
Number two, I'm gonna tell you how to keep my trust.
Because if we're gonna be innovative environments,
that means there's gonna be a lot of failure,
and a lot of trial and error, and a lot of mistakes made.
Here's how you keep my trust.
We have a rule in our organization that says,
good news travels fast, bad news travels faster.
What does that mean?
That means it's great to hear the good news
about the new deal we closed,
but when I just screwed up royally,
I wanna hear that faster than when I heard the good news.
Because the first question I'm gonna ask you,
and I tell people this,
the first question I'm gonna ask you is,
when did you know this?
Oh, three days ago.
You took away three days of our ability
to respond and address this issue,
why would you do that?
You don't break my trust because you made a mistake,
you break my trust is when you won't own it.
When you sat on it, and my question to you is, what did you learn, and what are you going to do to fix the process?
You know what the rule is? Don't get mad at the people, fix the process.
So what destroys trust is speaking negatively about others, you know, who are not there to defend themselves.
Another thing that I see destroys trust is when you're unwilling to quote your source.
Well, you know the team feels. Anybody says that to me, I say, give me their names, or it's just gossip.
There's no the team feels. The customers feel. Give me names.
If you can't quote your source, this is not a trust-building exercise.
And the other one is trading in inferences. Some people are so skilled at this, you know, they trade in inferences.
Well, you know, I would have done better if you had given me more budget, but they never come out and say it.
So what they're doing is they're downplaying their role. Now, as a leader, never do this.
Never downplay your own role or leave out the parts that you know you're responsible for.
Don't generalize the issue. Well, you know, we all make mistakes.
Well, yeah, but we all didn't make this mistake yesterday.
So these generalized inference mechanisms is a way to deflect.
And we know when we're dealing with the three types of people that deflection is somebody that, you know, that somebody is not on a growth path.
And then, you know, or when you're overstating impact of somebody else's mistake.
Well, now the whole thing is, you know, look what you've done. You've blown up the whole thing.
There's no need for these trust-destroying behavior.
So let me share with you quickly 10 habits for building a trust culture.
And I hope you find these helpful. So yeah, they go. And these are in the worksheets.
So, yeah, they are. Number one, present or not, respect a lot.
We always talk about others as though they're in the room.
Number two, shield those who can't shield themselves.
Actively protect those who are not in the meeting, who are not in the conversation, who are not there to protect themselves.
Number three, no inferences, just facts in action.
We don't trade in negative inferences that we were talking about earlier.
Number four, praise with precision. Show appreciation with precision.
When you made that contribution in the brainstorming session, that shifted the whole meeting.
And I really appreciate, you know, you have an amazing ability to influence creativity.
Thank you. What you do matters.
Number five, feedback with care shows how much you care.
When you give negative feedback, do it with a kind tone and with very specific examples.
Don't leave, don't make generalized, you know, statements of negativity.
Number six, say thank you first and defense last.
When you receive negative feedback, just go with a straightforward thank you.
I appreciate that. And then leave some time for a defense.
I like to leave two weeks. I found two weeks gets me far enough away from the thing,
so that when I respond, I'm actually responding calmly.
Number seven, up, not sideways.
When you have an issue with someone, go to that person.
If that fails, complain up, don't complain sideways.
Don't stand at the, you know, at the water fountain and complain sideways.
And if in fact the whole culture, because you didn't complain up, complain up, not sideways.
Number eight, gentle correction builds connection.
When somebody makes a mistake, correct them gently with their growth in mind.
How does this, how does this make them a better leader?
How does this encourage them to take even more risk?
How, get back on the horse, right?
That's, that builds connection with people.
I want to say one thing for a leader.
When somebody makes a mistake in our organization, I change the tone from you to we.
So if something went wrong, I go, look, we made this mistake.
At the end of the day, I'm the leader, so the buck stops with me anyway.
So I change it to we.
But when there's a success, it's you.
You know, look at Jenny. Jenny, you're a genius.
When Jenny makes a mistake, then we made the mistake.
That subtle shift makes people feel safe that they can make mistakes and grow.
Number nine, good news travels fast, bad news travels faster.
We proactively admit our own mistakes and report it first and fast.
Number 10, drop the you and I when things go awry.
We never add a personal pronoun to a negative, you know, your negative attitude has to stop,
you know, you're such a downer in brainstorming meetings, etc, etc.
And so we don't add negative pronouns to people personally, because it doesn't, it creates
a generalized sense of, I'm not making it, I'm not good enough.
And what I do doesn't matter.
So we're going to, I hope that was helpful.
And so as you go through the worksheet, think about what would it be like for you to work
with people you love in a culture where you can really make your contribution.
And then what you do is moving the organization forward.
Think about those 10 habits, and maybe you want to build on one or two of them over the
next few weeks together.
I appreciate your attention.