There is no recipe for a successful business from starting to running it. Of course, no company is perfect, neither an ideal CEO. It is also challenging leading people out of trouble. In other words, do not become an entrepreneur or founder if one desires an easy job. Upcoming founders and established CEOs will always have to face difficult situations and make risky decisions. However, the euphoria of success has nothing compared to the company's hardships. Just because there is no formula does not mean it is hopeless. Advice and experience can provide guidance. However, most management books focus on how not to screw up. Like a diet book, eat fewer calories, exercise more, and every single diet book has the same outcome. While many people talk about how great it is to start a business, very few are honest about how difficult it is to run one.
Stephen M. R. Covey’s Speed of Trust: The Only Thing That Changes Everything offers critical advice for entrepreneurs to actively manage the trust to stimulate growth and reduce costs while avoiding missteps. The more confidence within a company, the quicker it can move with lower prices.
The speed one must estimate and extend trust determines how fast their business can grow because it affects every relationship
Ben Horowitz, The Hard Thing About Hard Things
Covey observed that faith has tangible effects on production rate and cost: when confidence is low, speed decreases, and prices rise. Consequently, he aimed to allow businesses and managers to maximize their results and win their partners’ and clients’ trust with practical and straightforward advice applied to various situations. He makes a leadership case for high-trust increases the energy and joy in organizations and relationships.
Covey also explains that trust is learnable. Individuals and organizations can develop their credibility through their behavior—character development through integrity and intent, and develop competence through capabilities and results. As Stephen M. R. Covey points out, our world can be a better place with more trust exhibited individually and through our organizations and governments. Speed of Trust provides various lessons to apply personally and in management’s perspective.
Stephen M. R. Covey is an American businessman, author, and keynote speaker. After earning his MBA from Harvard University in 1989, he co-founded CoveyLink Worldwide, which later merged with FranklinCovey. Covey draws on his own leadership experiences in his writing, which has influenced millions of people worldwide. The son of Stephen R. Covey, author of 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. Currently the co-founder and CEO of CoveyLink Worldwide and follows his father’s footsteps in speaking, writing, and consulting about trust, leadership, ethics, and high performance. Stephen M. R. Covey is a #1 Wall Street Journal New York Times bestselling author of The Speed of Trust—The One Thing That Changes Everything.
The former CEO of Covey Leadership Center became the largest leadership development company in the world as part of his stewardship. According to CEO Magazine, Stephen personally led the strategy that propelled his father’s book to become one of the two most influential business books of the 20th Century.
As President and CEO of Covey Leadership Center, Stephen nearly doubled revenues while increasing profits 12 times. The company expanded throughout the world into over 40 countries, significantly increasing the value of the brand and enterprise. The company was valued at $2.4 million when Stephen was named CEO. Within three years, he had grown shareholder value to $160 million in a merger he orchestrated with Franklin Quest to form FranklinCovey.
Surender Nadarajan is the founder and CEO of Adapt.io (2017). He has 15 years of experience in the data industry and over seven years in leadership. He started his career by working at TCS as a software engineer for almost six years. After that, he joined Owler as the Director of Engineering, where he worked for five years remotely. Finally, he quit Owler to start his own company, Adapt.io.
Surendar saw that most of the data (business leads/company contacts) provided by companies like Zoominfo and others were outdated and saw scope for disruption. Adapt.io is a B2B SaaS company that helps B2B companies with the database for sales and marketing teams with 99% accuracy.
Adapt.io’s focus has always been on quality, and it has been one of the most extensive product differentiators among the competition. In 2019, Adapt.io became a leader at the G2Crowd’s sales quadrant. Surendar bootstrapped the company for three years and counting and became cash-flow positive in less than a year.
― Stephen M.R. Covey, The Speed of Trust: The One Thing that Changes Everything
In a podcast interview with Sunil Neurgaonkar, Surendar recommended the book Speed of Trust, applied the trust values personally, and established an open workplace.
Stephen’s The Speed of Trust works best with startup founders looking forward to establishing highly trusted organizations. It also applies to any CEO willing to change its ways and transition into open management. The book is closely relevant to investors and wise in trusting entrepreneurs.
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