Building Trust In Your Organization as a Leader

Building Trust in Your Organization - Interview with Dennis & Michelle Reina.
I am excited to welcome Dennis S. Reina and Michelle L. Reina, principals of The Reina Trust Building Institute, who specialize in the development of trust in the workplace. Based on this work, they have developed a model that defines the three types of trust and illustrates factors that contribute to the development of trust in workplace relationships. They are coauthors of Trust and Betrayal in the Workplace and our featured guests this week.


Dennis & Michelle, what is the question you were trying to answer in writing this book?

Business is based on relationships and trust is the foundation of effective relationships. Trust is essential for effective business relationships. Many people talk about the importance of trust, they often speak to the value of it; corporations have trust or some related simile in their mission, value or principles statements. Yet, there is only one way that trust is built or broken--that is by behavior--at the individual, team and organizational levels.

Through pioneering research and practice with clients across North America and other parts of globe for the last 20 years, this book defines the behaviors that build trust, break trust and the steps to rebuild and transform the capacity for trust in workplace relationships at all levels of the organization.

Your title talks about betrayal. Where does that play out in your work with organizations?

There are many challenges to building and maintaining trust in the workplace: Trust is highly complex, emotionally provocative--both in the positive and negative sense and it means different things to different people.

From years of studying the dynamics of trust, we have found that trust and betrayal are natural elements (behaviors) of the human condition (in interpersonal relationships). Trust is built and trust is broken everyday on the job. Betrayal plays out at all levels of the organization--from the blatant to the subtle--the most prevalent in the workplace are the subtle, minor ways that trust is broken.

What are the different ways to betray your coworkers and stakeholders?

First, let us start with what we mean by betrayal. We define betrayal on a continuum from major to minor, intentional and unintentional. While major betrayal decisively breaks trust, most often it is the minor unintentional ways that trust is eroded over time that breaks trust in the workplace--each and every day. Behaviors such as gossip, not showing up to meetings on time, not delivering as promised, shunning, work-arounds, leaving people out of communication that should have been a part of, etc. are examples of minor betrayals. Minor betrayals accumulate over time and become major. Our research shows that 90% of employees experience these types of betrayal frequently.

The net result of these minor betrayals is major--people mentally and emotionally check-out. They may wait it out until the economy improves and walk out the door and the organization loses years of corporate intelligence and experience and its good employees. Or worse yet, they may stay--becoming the “working wounded”--doing as little as they can to get away with--no more, no less.



Trust is often brought up as one of the core competencies that leaders must demonstrate. What is unique about your approach that helps leaders become trustworthy? (Read more tomorrow!)

Upcoming Posts From This Interview:

1. Three Ways to Trust & More
2. 90% of Employees Feel Betrayal Frequently
3. Trust Begins With You! What is Your Trust Score?
4. 5 Questions to Ask to Build Trust
   

Check out CO2 Partners - Leadership Assessment!

Trust Begins with Me! What is your Trust Score?

What has been your favorite assignment in helping an organization to enhance their ability to trust?

We enjoy working with committed leaders over time that recognize the value of trust in workplace relationships and the importance of building trust within their organizations to produce business results. (We don’t just build trust for the sake of building trust. Having more trust can support every key organizational initiative in being successful.) Supporting these aware leaders to build, rebuild and transform trust makes a difference with their employees; between employees and with the customers and stakeholders they serve.

What are the key symptoms that you look for in an organization to know that there is a low level of trust?

We utilize our statistically valid and reliable trust measuring instruments to diagnose the level of trust at the organizational, team and leader levels and pinpoint the key symptoms. Often we get called in to work with a leader and their organization because ‘trust scores’ on their organizational culture or employee satisfaction surveys are low and have been declining over a number of years.

The Reina Trust Building instruments are developed after years of research and are based Reina Trust & Betrayal Model®. The questions on each of the surveys that load to the each of the 16 behaviors that builds Transactional Trust.

I mention again “statistically valid and reliable” trust measuring instruments because it takes years of research to develop a psychometrically sound instrument. As we the recent proliferation of trust books, so are the number of ‘trust surveys’- but they are not rigorous tested or psychometrically sound. Each of our instruments has gone through rigorous psychometric testing and retesting over the last 17 years. Most of our instruments are on their fourth generation of revision.

What personal experience did you have that informed your work in the area of trust?

We teach what we want to learn. Initially, Michelle and I each came to this work from our experiences in our personal lives. For example, I (Dennis) am a survivor of two bouts with cancer, a near death accident, a traumatic injury and shingles and a painful divorce many years ago. I was faced with trust breaking circumstances; I had to learn the hard lessons behind the experiences. In doing so, I was able to reframe the experiences and take responsibility. Much of those experiences have informed our work in building, rebuilding trust and healing and renewal.

Professionally, Michelle and I came to this work because we saw the need early on in our work with leaders and their client organizations. We saw that the success or failure of any key business initiative or change process predicated on the level of trust within the organization- leader with leaders, leader with employees, employees with employees.

How do issues around trust block people asking questions?

Fear: lack of safety, fear of retribution or retaliation. When there is low trust in a relationship or within a team or an organization, people are reluctant to share information, ask questions or take risks because they feel vulnerable. When there is low trust, people contract, withhold thoughts because they do not feel safe. They act in self-serving versus mutually serving ways. Distrust is created on all sides. Distrust creates distrust, which can lead to betrayal. Betrayal creates more betrayal- it is a downward spiral.

What questions do you ask your clients to explore the issue of trust?

What evidence is showing up within your team or organization that give you indications that trust is low or vulnerable?
Where in your team or organization is trust strong? Where is it low or vulnerable?
What is the business case for trust? (Given that trust supports achieving business objectives)
How would having more trust support your team or organization achieving its business goals or initiatives?
What support do you need to build, rebuild or renew trust within you, your team or your organization, board or stakeholders or customers?

Also see the attached Reina Trust Quiz®.

What idea around trust would really surprise people to know?

Some people are surprised when we mention that betrayal is a natural element of the human condition. Because we are human, we all have a shadow side. Given our busy, trying-to-do-more-with-less (usually too much) schedules, workloads and life styles, we trip up, inadvertently causing disappointment, hurt, and pain to others. We betray others and we betray ourselves.
The ‘work’ we each have to do is become more aware of ourselves and others. In doing so, we still may trip up and hurt others; that probably won’t stop. But knowing how to effectively handle our misgivings, and transgressions are essential. Knowing how to rebuild trust again and again and again is essential to building sustainable trust. It is essential to renewing confidence, commitment and energy with those with whom we work and serve and those with whom we live with and love.

Add up all your scores for the above questions to come up with your score of the team ________

SCORING
The highest possible score is fifty, and the lowest would be zero. The higher the score, the greater you perceive your team practices trust building behaviors, and the likelihood the team has effective working relationships.
Your team practices trust-building behaviors…
0 to 10 … Almost never. There is serious room for improvement!
11 to 19 … Occasionally, which damages trust within the team.
20 to 29 … Some of the time, which does not build sustainable trust.
30 to 39 … Frequently, and are most likely have effective working relationships.
40 to 50 … Almost always, and are probably viewed as a highly effective team.
Keep up the good work!

Related blog posts:

1. Building Trust in Your Organization
   
2. Three Ways to Trust & More
3. 90% of Employees Feel Betrayal Frequently
4. 5 Questions to Ask to Build Trust

Leadership Style Assessment - What style are you?

90% of Employees Experience Betrayal Frequently

Interview Part III with our guests Michelle and Dennis Reina from The Reina Trust Building Institute and authors of Trust & Betrayal in the Workplace

Often time’s people believe trust is earned over time. Is this really true? Is there a way to accelerate trust among co-workers?

There are no quick fixes to build trust- but there are quick ways to destroy it. Major intentional betrayals break trust instantaneously. Trust is earned incrementally- step by step and it is reciprocal in nature- you have to give it to get it.

Covey and many others have written on the topic of trust recently. How does your book differ from theirs?
We have been researching and practicing in this field for over 20 years developing a body of work regarding understanding the dynamics of trust, betrayal, healing and transformation in the workplace. When Michelle and I started our doctoral research back in the late 80’s, the topic was not popular.

In 1992, we founded the Reina Trust Building Institute whose mission is to study, develop and live models of trust, healing and renewal in service to the world. Michelle and I have written three books (1999, Jan. 2006, 2010) on trust, betrayal and healing, (our third on rebuilding trust is coming out this year), developed numerous statistically valid and reliable trust measuring instruments (at the individual, leader, team, organizational and customer levels), a Trust Building On-Line platform, numerous Trust Building® resources, workbooks, etc.
Not until 9/11, Enron and of course, the latest economic downfall, has the topic of Trust become popular and in demand- because there is so little of it- at all levels, in all areas of society and the globe. With this popularity, a lot of people have recently jumped on the ‘trust bandwagon’ becoming ‘instant experts’ because they saw the need and an opportunity to make money. (Much like they did in the 80s with the quality movement).

Learning and living Trust Building work is Michelle and my life’s work, purpose and passion. Michelle and I have devoted our lives and are committed to making a contribution to the field and being of service to leaders, their people and their organizations around the world.

There have been numerous books on how to build trust written in the last 4-5 years after both our books had been published. Our book goes where the others do not or are afraid to go- we name the ‘elephant in the room’- betrayal, which these authors are not overtly talking about. Yet people in the workplace are constantly at the effect of betrayal and have to deal with the consequences of.

In our book we also identify the seven steps for healing and help leaders and their employees rebuild trust. We identify the 16 core behaviors that are essential for leaders to practice to build trust and be trustworthy leaders. We name the four core characteristics that transform the level of trust in an organization, so their organizations become a place where employees WANT to work and produce.
What are the different elements of trust that can be built upon?

The three types of Transactional Trust are Contractual

1. - The Trust of Character, Communication
2. - The Trust of Disclosure and Competence Trust
3. - The Trust of Capability.

Each of these types has corresponding behaviors (the sixteen essential behaviors that build trust are as follows).

Contractual - The Trust of Character:

1. Manage expectations
2. Establish boundaries
3. Delegate appropriately
4. Operate with mutually serving intentions
   
5. Keep agreement
6. Be consistent in behavior
   

Communication - The Trust of Disclosure:

1. Share information
2. Tell the truth
3. Admit mistakes
4. Give and receive constructive feedback
5. Maintain confidentiality
6. Speak with good purpose
   

Competence Trust - The Trust of Capability:

1. Acknowledge people’s skills
2. Allow people to make decisions
3. Involve others and seek their input
   
4. Help people learn new skills

What do you find that leaders struggle most with when they are not willing to trust co-workers who are in fact trust worthy?

What you are talking about here is one’s own capacity for trust. If a leader has a low capacity for trust, they may have difficulty trusting another even if this individual is a trustworthy individual, because they have difficulty trusting themselves. You have to give trust to get trust. If a leader has difficulty trusting oneself (giving trust to oneself), he/she may have difficulty giving trust or trusting another.

What steps should a leader take to build a Trusting culture?

Practice the three types of Transactional Trust and the corresponding sixteen Trust Building behaviors. (see above)

What are the derailleurs to trust within an organization?


For fear of repeating myself again: The key deraileurs to trust within an organization are minor betrayals that happen everyday and erode trust over time. They are most insidious because they often do not get addressed; however they are definitely noticed. Behaviors such as gossip, not showing up to meetings on time, not delivering as promised, shunning, work arounds, leaving people out of communication that should have been a part of, etc. are examples of minor betrayals. Minor betrayals accumulate over time and become major. Our research shows that 90% of employees experience these types of betrayal frequently.

What has been your favorite assignment in helping an organization to enhance their ability to trust? (Read response in next blog post)

Related Posts:

1. Building Trust in Your Organization
   
2. Three Ways to Trust & More
3. Trust Begins With You! What is Your Trust Score?
4. 5 Questions to Ask to Build Trust

Leadership Assessment - What type of leader are you?

Three Ways To Trust & Stop Betrayal

(Continued)

This is Part II of an interview with both Michelle and Dennis Rienna based on the research done for their book Trust & Betrayal in the Workplace.

Trust is often brought up as one of the core competencies that leaders must demonstrate. What is unique about your approach that helps leaders become trustworthy?

We define the three types of Transactional Trust® and the 16 behaviors that are essential for a leader's trustworthiness.
The three types of Transactional Trust are:

1. The Trust of Character - Contractual Trust
2. The Trust of Disclosure - Communication Trust
3. The Trust of Capability - Competence Trust

Each of these types has corresponding behaviors.

Thousands of people completed on online values assessment that I created, and Honesty, Love and Trust are consistently the highest ranking values. With people putting Honesty and Trust at the top of their values, why are we having such issues around trust in the workplace?

As mentioned earlier in our interview, there are many challenges to building and maintaining trust in the workplace: Trust is highly complex, emotionally provocative--both in the positive and negative sense and it means different things to different people. Trust is fragile--yet it is taken for granted until it is broken; then people often do not know how to deal with the consequences; they do not know how to effectively rebuild trust.

At the interpersonal level, because trust means different things to different people- there are many disconnects and misunderstandings that take place. People do not fully know or understand the complexity of trust dynamics in interpersonal relations. They are often unaware of the minor, unintentional ways in which they inadvertently break trust. And instead of people dealing directly with these transgressions--they go unaddressed (not unnoticed) and accumulate and become major over time.

At the organizational level, trust is often broken through change. Yet, it is not the change itself that necessarily breaks trust, but how it is managed. Especially during times of transition, people have certain needs: needs for information--What is the direction the organization is heading? They have needs for belonging--What are my new roles and responsibilities? Where will I be working? Will I be working? Will I have a job? They have needs for competence--Will I be able to keep up with that which is expected of me?

There has been much debate recently about whether MBA programs ought help teach values such as trust. Some argue that it may be too late for students to learn values such as trust as an MBA student--that they need to figure this out much earlier, in their homes. Others argue that students ought to sign an ethics oath when they start their MBA program. How do you come out in this discussion? Where do you think developing trust can have the greatest impact in an organization or society?

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
MBA Ethics Oath
http://www.thedailyshow.com/
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Health Care Crisis

What we know from human development research is that learning to trust (our capacity for trust) starts at day 1 with our caregivers at birth. The first two years of a child’s life are critical to development of strong foundations of trust behavior. Our values are formulating up to around age 11 or so.

That said, in our executive coaching work with leaders, particularly those individuals who have come from rough beginnings-for example: an individual orphaned at an early age, bounced around different abusive foster homes growing up, etc. It is possible for this individual with a low capacity to trust to become a highly trustworthy leader. Yet, it takes a lot of inner work; starting with being aware of one’s own fears, challenges and continually working to overcome them.

Signing an ethics oath may bring to the students attention that trustworthiness is important but it does not insure the individual will be trustworthy in the moment of truth.
Building trust is everyone’s responsibility. In an organization, it starts at the top leadership; but again, trust building behaviors need to be practiced by everyone at all levels to transform the culture or society.


Most books talk about the need for leaders to surround themselves with trustworthy team members. It has always seemed to me that the leader must be the one who trusts their teams first rather than the other way around. Where do you think trust begins?

Again, trust is everyone’s responsibility--while leadership needs to initiate trustworthy behavior--everyone needs to practice it. (see above and below)

Oftentimes people believe trust is earned over time. Is this really true? Is there a way to accelerate trust among coworkers? (Read tomorrows post!)

Other Blog posts that may interest you:

1. Building Trust in Your Organization
   
2. 90% of Employees Feel Betrayal Frequently
3. Trust Begins With You! What is Your Trust Score?
4. 5 Questions to Ask to Build Trust

Leadership Style Assessment - What leadership style are you?

Top 6 Ways To Build Courage & 5 Ways to Handle a Down Economy

A continuation of the interview with Bill Treasurer. Bill Treasurer is founder and Chief Encouragement Officer at Giant Leap Consulting (GLC), a courage-building company that exists to help people and organizations live more courageously. Bill is also the author of Courage Goes to Work (Berrett-Koehler Publishers, 2008), a book about how to inspire more courageous behavior in workplace settings. He has been cited by 100s of newspapers and magazines and has published many other books. Interestingly he was also on the US High Diving Team making over a 1,500 dives at 150 feet. Now that is courage! I asked Bill to be interviewed because of the connection his work has with Just Ask Leadership. It takes a great deal of courage at times to ask certain questions. How you ask, as Bill points out, is just as important.

Gary Cohen: You talk about building courage. How does one do strength building of this mental muscle?

Bill Treasurer: Below are some tips for helping you be more courageous at work:

· Be Mindful of the Risks of Not Risking. The risk of inaction is usually more perilous than the risk of action. As you consider a risk, be sure to be clear about the dangers of not taking the risk too!

· Ask the Holy Question. Here are the four most important words you’ll ever learn in the English language: what do you want? Most people don’t take the time to answer that question with specificity. Those who do, however, are in a much better position to figure out the actions they need to take in order to get what they want!

· Have Something to Prove. Take on challenges that cause you to have to prove yourself to yourself. When the going gets rough, having something to prove can be a source of energy and motivation.

· Make Forward-falling Mistakes. Making no mistakes is just as dangerous as making too many. Have a “mistake ratio” – a good balance between not making enough mistakes and making too many. As long as you’re the mistakes you make are forward-falling, you’re making progress.

· Harness Fear. Fear is a normal, natural, and necessary part of the work experience. While uncomfortable, fear has energy. And that energy can be useful when facing tough challenges. Harness your fear by spending time with it. The more you experience the thing that you’re afraid of, the more desensitized you become to it.

· Jump First. The best way to encourage those around you to be more courageous, is to be more courageous yourself…first! Ask yourself when was the last time you did something courageous that probably left a favorable impression on the people you work with. When did you last Jump First!

Gary Cohen: Leaders often get to a place of comfort where they are simply playing defense and protecting what they already have. How does your book and ideas help these leaders see the issues of playing defense versus staying on offense – with the skills that brought them to their current position?

Bill Treasurer: I emphasize the importance of considering the dangers of playing it too safe. Safety, when it causes an obsession with protectionism, or worse, immobilization, can be a very dangerous thing. Every risk can be divided into two; the risk of action and the risk of inaction. Too often, “safe” leaders make decisions after accounting for one (the risk of action) and not the other. Smart leaders also ask, “What is the risk of not taking the risk?”

Gary Cohen: In today’s economy, defense or survival seems to be the operating mode of many businesses. Do you have some ideas that would help leaders of organizations be more successful in these down cycle times?

Bill Treasurer: Workplace productivity and morale are taking a nosedive in the current economy. According to one recent poll, at least three out of four workers say that productivity is down, mistakes are up, and customer service is taking a major hit. Leaders have a big job to do during a down cycle. Here are some tips:

Be steady. As pressures mount in your own work, take a deep breath and try to be a little more cool, calm, and collected yourself. It may be easier said than done, but it’s a fact that people choose to follow level-headed, even-handed leaders.

Be straight. In good times and bad, workers want—and deserve—the truth. Avoid tiptoeing around tough issues and give it to them straight—no spinning or sugarcoating. And to reign in the predictable and pernicious gossip, hold regular “rumor hunts”—ongoing meetings where employees can air the latest rumors and hear the facts directly from you.

Be focused. Right now it’s easy to give in to distractions—taking your eyes off the ball and letting people and projects fall by the wayside. Don’t. Keep people laser-focused on what needs to be done—key priorities for the foreseeable future—and, at least for now, have daily status calls or check-ins.

Be gutsy. Fear can play to your base nature. Commit to rising above it and elevating yourself and your team. Stop talking to employees about what keeps you awake at night, and start talking to them about what gets you up in the morning.

Be hopeful. If there was ever a need for a can-do spirit, it is now. No downplaying the economy or giving false reassurances, but choosing optimism over pessimism, encouragement over discouragement. Start by walking the talk—making it clear, with words and actions, that as difficult as things are right now, the team is better off dealing with what “is” and facing the challenges head-on with hope and determination.

Gary Cohen: I am wondering in your work with leaders if you see asking questions as a courageous act and if so how?

Bill Treasurer: I am sure that it takes courage to ask leaders some types of questions. That said, I think asking the right questions can provoke courageous behavior. And the questions need to be asked in a way that the leader’s ears can hear. So “how” the question is asked is just as important as what question is asked. If you ask a question because you want to make the leader feel small, or because you want to punish the leader in some way, that spirit will come through and the leader will shut down. Like Oscar Wilde once said, “Whenever there is someone in authority, someone resists authority.” So before asking a hard-hitting question to a leader, check your own motive and intention.

Gary Cohen: Can you share with me an example when the question that was asked was courageous and what took place because of that question?

Bill Treasurer: I once coached a senior executive who had just gotten demoted because his boss felt that he wasn’t acting bold enough. The senior executive explained, “I don’t get it. I do everything the company and my boss wants me to do. I am a good and loyal soldier!”
I asked, “How might it serve you to stop acting like a good soldier and start behaving like a good leader?”

Then he and I talked about the difference between management and leadership, and between loyal compliance and loyal disobedience. We discussed how being a good soldier had, up until this point, defined his career, but how it had now started to become a drag on his leadership potential. He was playing it too safe, under the excuse of being a good solider. He and I set out a plan for him to behave more boldly and more leader-like. Within a year’s time, he not only got promoted, he got a raise as well. More importantly, he had made an important shift from being a safe manager to a bold leader.

Courage in Leadership - Discussion with Bill Treasurer

Bill Treasurer is founder and Chief Encouragement Officer at Giant Leap Consulting (GLC), a courage-building company that exists to help people and organizations live more courageously. Bill is also the author of Courage Goes to Work (Berrett-Koehler Publishers, 2008), a book about how to inspire more courageous behavior in workplace settings. He has been cited by 100s of newspapers and magazines and has published many other books. Interestingly he was also on theUS High Diving Team making over 1,500 dives at over 100 feet. Now that is courage!

I asked Bill to be interviewed because of the connection between his work and Just Ask Leadership. It takes a great deal of courage at times to ask certain questions. How you ask, as Bill points out, is just as important.

Gary Cohen: Bill Treasurer, you have a unique background that would seem to inform your work today as the leading courage consultant around the world. Can you tell us how you came to where you are today?

Bill Treasurer: I started my company, Giant Leap Consulting, in 2002, after spending 6 years as an executive in Accenture’s change management practice. I named the company Giant Leap Consulting because I used to take “giant leaps” for a living. I am a former member of the
U.S. High Diving Team who overcame a debilitating fear of heights to, eventually, perform over 1500 high dives from heights that scaled to over 100 feet – three times higher than the highest platform in the Olympic games. Thus, it was my own personal encounters moving through fear, and therefore gaining courage, that set me on my path.

Gary Cohen: What question were you answering in writing this book?

Bill Treasurer: How can courage, which we know is so essential to living a full life, be built, strengthened, and consistently applied in workplace settings?

Gary Cohen: Who is the audience you had in mind in writing your book?

Bill Treasurer: The old adage rings true; change starts at the top. Thus the main audience of the book is leaders and managers – people who have the power to put courage inside people (encouragement).

Gary Cohen: You must be very proud to be one of the bestselling books in China.
What is it about your message and the culture of China that is making your book
sell off the shelves?

Bill Treasurer: Having the book become a bestseller in China was a wonderful surprise. It made me really think about the motivations and ambitions of Chinese workers. Business readers in China seem captivated by the idea of being more courageous at work. What is as intriguing as the book becoming a bestseller, is the number of readers who are writing positive reviews about the book…as of yesterday the book had 43 reviews. An unusually high number by most standards.

Gary Cohen: What have you learned about the Chinese culture that would help leaders in different countries be more successful in doing business in China?

Bill Treasurer: That business in China is to be taken very, very seriously! This is not the China of old, making cheap and low quality products. China today is fast-becoming a first-world superpower in every sense of the word. Western leaders who aspire to do business in China would be wise to drop any notion that somehow the Chinese are less business-minded. Western leaders would fare far better by adopting a learning and listening posture, instead of swaggering into China full of Western ego and arrogance.

Gary Cohen: Courage is one of the words that you hear in leadership courses. It is often talked about in terms of heroic leaders like Mother Teresa, Gandhi, or Martin Luther King. Often those sitting in one of these leadership sit-and-soak-it-up-type training events don’t really know how to connect with that type of courage – you know, the life-is-on-the-line type because most leaders today are not facing life or death situations. How does your view of courage help the leader who is not heroic and still wants to be a great leader?

Bill Treasurer: We need to steal courage back from the gods and bring it back to us mortals here on earth. When we create such a high standard for courage that it’s only attainable by spiritual, political, or military heroes, we push courage beyond our grasp. What’s needed is a more tempered, everyday courage. Courage doesn’t need to be grandiose to be effective. Each person has the capacity to demonstrate their courage in small, but important ways every day. The most essential element involved in being courageous is to not let fear dictate your actions.

Gary Cohen: Bill, you talk about three types of courage in your work. Can you help me understand those three types and give an example of how we would see them in the workspace?

Bill Treasurer:Nearly all courageous acts can be divided among three forms of courage. They are:

TRY Courage: The courage of first attempts, pioneering efforts, and stepping up to the plate (initiative). We see TRY Courage in action when people pursue “stretch
goals”, for example.



TRUST Courage: The courage of relying on others, assuming that other people have positive intentions, and embracing vulnerability. We see TRUST Courage being applied when workers give coworkers or bosses the benefit of the doubt, without scrutiny or suspicion.

TELL Courage: The courage of assertiveness, voicing honest opinions, and communicating without hidden agendas. We witness TELL Courage when workers speak the unvarnished and hard-to-hear truth in order to help the organization remain true to its values.

Gary Cohen: You have worked with some of the nation's largest corporations in helping them build greater courage in their culture to move forward. Can share your most rewarding engagement and what made it that way?

Bill Treasurer: I was fortunate to work on a Native American reservation in rural Oregon. I was brought in to help the Native Americans, along with a leading management consulting company, launch a new high-tech call center. My company helped the Native Americans and the management consulting company define a set of core values that would help them become a world-class commercial enterprise. It was very meaningful work, because the call center would produce sustainable jobs that were far more professional and lucrative than the jobs being produced by the reservation’s gambling casino.

The work was unlike any other we’ve ever done, and produced a unique set of core values - literally and symbolically. Not only were the core values written down, they were also symbolically rendered as paintings. I talk about this unique engagement in Courage Goes to Work. There was a bunch of TRY and TRUST Courage being displayed throughout the engagement!

Gary Cohen: You talk about building courage. How does one do strength building of this mental muscle? [See post for later this week]... (Interview Continued)

• Top 6 Ways To Build Courage & 5 Ways To Handle A Down Economy


• Top 10 Questions To Build Courage


• Top 5 Questions Courageous Leaders Should Ask Their Team

Flexability, Adaptability and Resilence in Leadership

Leadership in crisis may become a constant for leaders today. The way you may have lead before may not be working for you any longer. You may have to go from a position of knowing to that of not knowing to lead in an environment of uncertainty.

Paradoxically this takes a great deal of learning to learn that you really don't know as much as you think you know. One needs to learn about how the brain works and stores information in invariant patterns. That means that the way the brain is storing information occurs by stacking things that are associated rather than perfect replicas. It creates more efficient storage capacity and not as effective for memory recall. If the item is related you will likely see those things that you expect to see, those images that are frequent, those that carry emotional attachment among other processes. That all means what you hear, see and feel may not be as factual as you may think. You will not easily believe this as a leader so you will have to dig deep learn more about it before you can even let this information in.

Many of you will want to dismiss this blog entry just because you don't want to agree with what is being said. You will try, the credibility route, to disprove who is the author? Who is this Gary Cohen anyways? Perhaps you will find poor writing style or grammatical errors so you can use that to dismiss the writing so you will not have to let it in. This is how the brain works, this is how you get lead down a path that is not helpful to your leadership of others. Leaders can no longer count on command and control to lead others. They now need to move to understanding, engagement, alignment, and accountability by asking the right questions at the right time. That only comes when you move to a place of not knowing.

It is by moving to a place where you can be comfortable with living with uncertainty that you can lead through it with resilience. Resilience happens when your need to be right, to be the smartest person in the room and your linear way of thinking obscures your reality and prevents you from adapting.

International Values Research Being Conducted

Chris Porter from the UK is conducting surveys around the world via Skype and Survey Monkey to help support the coaching industry. She is delightful and so appreciative of peoples time. If you feel you could be helpful to her please reach out by clicking on one of the two surveys below depending on if you are a coach or a client of a coach.

Coaching Strategies for aligning clients' lives with values
http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=UbTwP6yhfVML_2fVJhkbEI1g_3d_3d
Client Benefits of Aligning life and Values
http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=ELXyjbqntkfruxEy2JaDrA_3d_3d