The Speed of Trust: The One Thing that Changes Everything

The book is certainly easy and entertaining to read, with many quotes and anecdotes from a variety of topics — from author’s personal experience, business cases, world history, and many more.

Developing one’s trustworthiness using Covey’s described approach is seemingly straightforward, and is applicable to many parts of one’s life — to personal relationships, status in society, and, indeed, to the business world. Reflecting on author’s advice, in addition to being entertaining, can be important and quite useful for common people, CEOs, managers, HR personnel, and many others.

Indeed, his advice is most useful for people who are just starting to work on themselves, their relationships with others, their status in society and their businesses. In that regard, “The Speed of Trust” can serve as a great introduction to the wider world of personal development and leadership. Stephen M. R. Covey’s other books can serve as a continuation of that path — his “Smart Trust” further elaborates on this namesake concept, while “Trust & Inspire: How Truly Great Leaders Unleash the Greatness in Others” deals with the combination of trust and leadership capabilities and practices.

The author uses an extraordinary number of personal anecdotes and stories from his professional career to support his claims and his theory, but does not provide any concrete and useful case studies. Moreover, there is almost no connection between Covey’s approach to trust and the real business world, with its multitude of business models, management theories, HR approaches, risk management strategies, and many more nuances. Most of the advice offered in this book, especially regarding “Market Trust” and “Organization Trust” can be considered mundane, lacking in complexity, or somewhat obvious.

Some claims made in the book are also questionable, and the author does little to address potential questions and worries. Many complex issues are described as the results of trust problems, without really delving deeper or looking at a broader picture. For example, Covey claims that trade unions and unionization in general are the problems that stem from the lack of trust and can be solved by promoting trust — without really supporting his claims or providing a bigger picture of such phenomena.

Finally, some of the author’s positions that are implied in the book are bound to raise a few eyebrows — such as his dislike of due diligence processes and government regulations (which are described as also issues of trust) — or seemingly implied support for nepotism as a tool to build better trust relations.

Stephen M. R. Covey shows how trust — and the speed at which it is established with clients, employees, and all stakeholders — is the single most critical component of a successful leader and organization.

Stephen M. R. Covey, widely known as one of the world’s leading authorities on trust, asserts that it is “the most overlooked, misunderstood, underutilized asset to enable performance. Its impact, for good or bad, is dramatic and pervasive. It’s something you can’t escape.” Thankfully, it’s is also the thing that can dramatically improve your personal and professional success.

Why trust? The simple, often overlooked fact is this: work gets done with and through people. The Speed of Trust offers an unprecedented and eminently practical look at exactly how trust functions in every transaction and every relationship—from the most personal to the broadest, most indirect interaction. It specifically demonstrates how to establish trust intentionally so that you and your organization can forego the time-killing, bureaucratic check-and-balance processes that is so often deployed in lieu of actual trust.

This book can be useful for a wide range of audiences, from people looking for the ways to improve their personal relations, to CEOs, managers and HR personnel of various and diverse businesses reflecting on protentional rooms for process improvement. It can also be recommended to anyone interested in human psychology, society and interpersonal relationships.