Lumos Notes
B. The Speed of Trust
One line summary
Trust is the most valuable currency which shapes the culture, efficiency, and integrity of an organization through intentionality in every interaction.
One paragraph summary
Trust is the foundation for accountability, credibility, productivity and efficiency. It is the one thing everyone senses even if they can’t identify the source, they feel it. It is made up of many little - seemingly insignificant - blocks because every moment is an opportunity for trust to flow. Trust is effervescent, it is the glue that holds people together who in turn hold organizations together. Trust can be steered - either positively (dividends) or negatively (taxes), restored, and leveraged for cultural growth. It is the responsibility of every leader to inspire trust. It is forged through a combination of character - the core of you are - and competence - built from integrity, intent, capabilities, and results.
Intro notes
- Trust Tax
- Trust Dividend
- You can’t have trust without ethics but you can have ethics without trust.
- Character + Competence
- (Built to last book)
- “Preserve the core: character
- Stimulate progress: competence”
The Five Waves of Trust
1.Self trust: confidence in ourselves = credibility 2.Relationship trust: increase trust accounts = consistent behavior 3.Organizational trust: trust across the business and teams = alignment 4.Market trust: how everyone perceives you and your brand = reputation 5.Societal trust: creating value for others = contribution
While there is risk in trusting people, there is far greater risk in not trusting them.
Restoring trust
It’s possible to build and restore trust. “The best time to plant a tree is 20 years ago. The second best time is today”
First Wave: Self-Trust
4 cores of credibility
- Integrity
- Intent
- Capabilities
- Results
Do I trust myself?
- Am I someone others can trust?
A lack of self trust undermines our ability to trust others
Sometimes it’s the little, daily things that corrode trust. That’s what employees notice.
A humble person is more concerned with ⁃ what is right than being right ⁃ Acting on good ideas than having the ideas ⁃ Embracing new truth than defending outdated position ⁃ Building the team than exalting self ⁃ Recognizing contribution than being recognized for making it
3 accelerators for integrity
- Make and keep commitments (but don’t make too many)
- Respect yours and others time
- Don’t make commitments impulsively
To the degree to which you remain open to new ideas, possibility and growth you create a trust dividend. To the degree you do not,, you create a trust tax that impacts your current and future performance.
Intent is a major determine factor. We tend to judge ourselves by our intent but others by their behavior
Made up of ⁃ Motive ⁃ Agenda ⁃ Behavior
“Never ascribe to an opponent (or anyone) motives meaner than your own”
Regular examine motives. Am I seeking to bless or impress?
5 Why Method
2nd accelerator: Declare Intent
Reinvent yourself every three years - American Express Next Chapter
Learn with the intent of teaching. Knowledge and service workers learn most when they teach (Peter Drucker)
Increasing capability to enhance credibility
- Run with your strengths and your purpose
- Keep yourself relevant
- Know where you’re going
Results
Without results there is no credibility, without credibility there is no trust.
The more important desired result is growth. Growth cannot happen without risk - to make decisions and grant opportunity based solely on past performance is very limiting to future results
The ability to communicate results is key
3 accelerators
- Take responsibility for results (not actions) - changes your perspective to try other methods
- Expect to win - posture of positivity increases the odds
- Finish strong
Second wave: Relationship Trust
You can’t talk yourself out of a problem you’ve behaved yourself into (Stephen C) - but you can behave yourself out of a problem you’ve talked yourself into (Stephen R C)
The difference between those who change behavior and those who don’t is a compelling sense of purpose
Trust like bank accounts ⁃ withdrawals and deposits represent the effort you put into your relationships ⁃ Not all accounts are equal and each individual defines a deposit and withdrawal uniquely ⁃ The fastest way to rebuild trust is stop making withdrawals ⁃ There are two separate accounts
13 behaviors
Every interaction is a moment of trust and has a ripple effect.
- Talk straight: be honest, don’t leave false impressions, get to your point quickly, if you’re explaining, you’re losing
- Demonstrate respect: genuinely care for others, show you care, respect people’s dignity, show kindness in the little things, don’t fake caring, don’t try to be efficient with people
- Create transparency: tell the truth in a way people can verify, be open and authentic, air on the side of disclosure, no hidden agendas, don’t hide information
“The spirit of transparency is the first key in restoring public trust” - PwC
- Right wrongs: make things right when you’re wrong, apologize quickly, make restitution where possible, practice service recoveries, demonstrate personal humility, don’t cover things up, don’t let pride get in the way
- Show loyalty: give credit freely, acknowledge others contributions, speak about others as if they’re present, represent others who aren’t there to speak for themselves, don’t disclose someone else’s private info
- Deliver results: establish a track record of results, get the right things done, make things happen, accomplish what you’re hired to do, be on time and within budget, don’t over promise and under deliver, don’t make excuses for not delivering
- Get better: continuously improve, increase your capabilities, be a constant learner, develop feedback systems (informal and informal), act on the feedback you received, thank people for feedback, don’t think your above feedback, don’t think todays knowledge and skills will be sufficient for tomorrows challenges
- Confront reality: take the real issues head on, address the tough stuff directly, acknowledge the unsaid, lead out courageously in conversation, remove the sword from their hand, don’t skirt the real issues, don’t bury your head in the sand
- Clarify expectations: disclose and reveal expectations, discuss, reevaluate, and renegotiate them, don’t violate them, don’t assume they are clear or shared
- Practice accountability: hold yourself accountable, hold others accountable, take responsibility for results, be clear how you’ll communicate you and others are doing, don’t shirk responsibility or blame others
- Listen first: listen before you speak, understand, diagnose, listen with your ears and eyes and heart, find out what the most important behaviors are to the people you work with, don’t assume you know what matters to your people, don’t presume you have all the answers
- Keep commitments: say what you’re going to do then do it, make commitments carefully and keep them, make it a symbol of honor, don’t break confidence, don’t PR out of a broken commitment
The trust you build at home is likely the most important trust of all.
- Extend trust: demonstrate a propensity to trust, extend it abundantly to those that earned it, extend it conditionally to those earning, learn how to extend based on the situation and people involved, don’t withhold it solely because there’s risk involved
Book Promises - Speed of Trust

Third Wave: Organizational Trust
“Are ethics a matter of compliance or doing the right thing?”
The principle of alignment
are the symbols in your organization aligned with their principles? What are those values and how do they align with the core principles?
Trust is a pyramid, it starts with your core principles and trust in self, then trust in others, that is what the organization rests on.
Reevaluate your organization through the core principles to assess what is needed - both at what level of hierarchy and what specific value needs acceleration.
See: witness how trust affects every outcome and relationship
Speak: to promote the culture and understanding of trust and problem solving together
Behave: contribute toward building trust
7 low-trust organization taxes
- Redundancy: complex systems that operate on a basis of distrust
- Bureaucracy: creates low-trust and vice-versa
“bureaucracy defends the status quo, long past the time when quo has lost the status” - Lawrence Peter
- Politics: use of tactics to gain power, antonym to Trust
- Disengagement: “quit and stay”, there is no heart left in people’s work
- Turnover: removal of high performers beyond industry standard
- Churn: employees treat customers the way they’re treated by management
- Fraud: sabotage that erupts when the first 6 taxes build up
7 High Trust Organization Dividends
- Increased value: the organization becomes more valuable and delivers more value to its customers
- Accelerated growth: do more with less and do it faster
- Enhanced innovation: culture of innovation and safety flourish
- Improved collaboration: without trust, collaboration is simply cooperation
- Stronger partnering: bonds are fortified and more resilient when trust is present
- Better execution: it is better to have grade B strategy and grade A execution than the other way around
- Heightened loyalty: people and customers stay longer with high trust companies
Fourth Wave: Market Trust
The principle of reputation
The feeling you get when you think of a brand and how likely you are to recommend them
“Trust monetized”
The ability for one team to deliver results determines their reputation and in turn can affect the reputation and interaction of other teams as a standard.
On every level, your brand makes a difference and is directly correlated to trust, speed, and cost
Trust assets
Companies can develop trust assets to ensure their reputation remains intact lby consistently demonstrating integrity, delivering results, and cultivating transparency in their actions and communication.
These assets grow when trust becomes a measurable and intentional component of their culture, relationships, and brand reputation.
Fifth Wave: Societal Trust
The principle of contribution
The intent to create value not destroy it. It is a selfless act that puts responsibility first.
Global citizenship
“Greater good” shouldn’t be viewed as optic-compliance. Companies need meaning and purpose to the thrive, the profits simply fund that purpose.
“Global citizenship will become a price of entry for businesses”
The universal mission statement
Acknowledges all stakeholders + recognizing important of quality of life
All levels of trust build on top of each other. At the heart of trustworthy organizations are trustworthy people making good decisions.
Each wave is a result of the other.
The success of big business and the wellbeing of the world have never been more closely linked… businesses cannot succeed in societies that fail.
Extending smart trust
Matrix
Zone 1: low analysis + high propensity to trust
Zone 2: high analysis + high propensity to trust
Zone 3: low analysis + low propensity to trust
Zone 4: high analysis + low propensity to trust
Ask yourself
- What’s the opportunity?
- What’s the risk?
- What is the credibility of the people involved?
Extend trust conditionally to those who are earning it and abundantly to those who have already done so. However accountability should always be present.
Restoring trust when it has been broken
When you have lost the trust of others ⁃ Understand how trust was lost ⁃ Increase credibility ⁃ Understand you can’t control how that person perceived you and your behavior ⁃ Violations of integrity are the most difficult to overcome
When others have violated your trust ⁃ Don’t be too quick to judge, give them the benefit of the doubt ⁃ Be quick to forgive (within reason, exercise smart trust) ⁃ It is in our societal best interest to forgive
Broken trust can actually become a significant beginning.
Propensity to trust