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Smart Trust: Creating Prosperity, Energy, and Joy in a Low-Trust World [Hardcover]

Stephen M.R. Covey , Greg Link , Rebecca R. Merrill
4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (20 customer reviews)

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Book Description

January 10, 2012
Smart Trust is without doubt one of the most powerful and seminal books of our age” (Warren Bennis).

After illustrating the global relevance of trust with his book The Speed of Trust by selling more than one million copies in twenty-two languages, Stephen M. R. Covey again illuminates the hidden power of trust to change lives and impact organizations in Smart Trust. In a compelling and readable style, he and long-time business partner Greg Link share enlightening principles and anecdotes of people and organizations that are not only achieving unprecedented prosperity from high-trust relationships and cultures but—even more inspiring—also attaining elevated levels of energy and joy.

     The sustainable success these leaders and enterprises are exhibiting is paradoxically being produced in what has proved to be the lowest trust climate in years, if not decades. Smart Trust shows what they are doing and the five actions they are commonly taking to prosper, against the odds, in the same circumstances causing so many others to fail.

     With penetrating insights illuminated by their unique access to many of the world’s most successful leaders and organizations, the authors lay out a breakthrough process and skill set in a practical and actionable formula that makes trust a performance multiplier for leaders, teams, organizations, and even countries. They show why trust is fast becoming the most consequential life and leadership skill of our time—a career-critical competency required to navigate and compete in this perilous twenty-first-century interdependent, global economy. Covey and Link teach how to cut through traditional either/or thinking to extend “Smart Trust,” enabling you to exercise sound judgment in a low-trust world by minimizing risk and maximizing possibilities.

     Smart Trust has met the strict scrutiny of business leaders around the globe and is validated by research from multiple sources that confirms that high-trust organizations outperform low-trust organizations by nearly three times. Smart Trust shares findings that verify how enduring success, vitality, and happiness are directly related to the level of trust in our relationships—whether in our professional or personal lives.

     Find out why trusted people are more likely to get hired or promoted, get the best projects and bigger budgets, and are last to be laid off. This sea-changing book will forever shift your perspective as it reveals and validates, once and for all, the transformational power of trust. Reading Smart Trust will increase your probability of thriving in this increasingly unpredictable marketplace. The more unpredictable it becomes, the more your (and your organization’s) sound judgment and ability to trust in this low-trust world will give you a tremendous competitive advantage—and the capacity to navigate the uncertainty low trust creates.


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Smart Trust: Creating Prosperity, Energy, and Joy in a Low-Trust World + The SPEED of Trust: The One Thing That Changes Everything + The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change
Price for all three: $41.46

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Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Stephen M. R. Covey is cofounder and CEO of CoveyLink Worldwide. A sought-after and compelling keynote speaker, author, and advisor on trust, leadership, ethics, and high performance, Covey speaks to audiences around the world. A Harvard MBA, he is the former CEO of Covey Leadership Center, which under his stewardship became the largest leadership development company in the world. Covey resides with his wife and children in the shadows of the Rocky Mountains.

Greg Link is co-founder of CoveyLink, FranklinCovey’s Global Speed of Trust Practice, and the former Covey Leadership Center. A trusted executive confidant, advisor, and compelling speaker, Link is a recognized authority on trust, leadership, sales, marketing, and high performance. He led the strategy that propelled Covey's father's book, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, to one of the two most influential business books of the twentieth century.

Rebecca A. Merrill has served in numerous leadership positions in community, education, and women’s organizations. Coauthor of Connections: Quadrant II Time Management, she also assisted Stephen R. Covey on The 7 Habits Highly Effective People.

Product Details

  • Hardcover: 320 pages
  • Publisher: Free Press; 1 edition (January 10, 2012)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 1451651457
  • ISBN-13: 978-1451651454
  • Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.4 x 1.2 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
  • Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (20 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #55,804 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Trust is the glue that holds together nations, organizations, families, and every good relationship on earth. Rodger Dean Duncan, Author of "Change-Friendly Leadership: How to Transform Good Intentions Into Great Performance"  |  6 reviewers made a similar statement
It's like an expansion of the last section of that book. K.L.  |  1 reviewer made a similar statement
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
38 of 41 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars This Book Is Both Amazing and Important January 10, 2012
Format:Hardcover
This book is both amazing and important. It's amazing because it thoughtfully analyzes the most critical issue of our time - trust - and does so in a way that's easily digested and understood. It's important because exercising the practices it espouses can produce profoundly positive outcomes.

Trust is the glue that holds together nations, organizations, families, and every good relationship on earth. Most of us already know that. What many people haven't yet discovered is the principle-centered framework that enables "smart trust" - balancing risk with opportunity, competence with character.

This powerful book by Stephen M.R. Covey and Greg Link gets to the heart of what can make trust work to everyone's advantage. They show how to cut through the traditional trust or distrust dichotomy. Covey and Link give us a handy set of trust lenses through which we can realistically envision a whole new world of possibility in our current and potential relationships.

As I coach leaders in a wide range of organizations, I'm frequently asked "Should I lead with my head or with my heart?" My answer is always the same: "Yes. Both." The most effective leaders - corporate executives, politicians, educators, clergy, parents, etc. - resist the head or heart quandary. They balance caution with optimism, analysis with empathy. They are neither gullible nor overly rigid. They exercise Smart Trust.

Covey and Link elaborate on five specific actions that produce Smart Trust:
1. Choose to Believe in Trust
2. Start With Self
3. Declare Your Intent ... and Assume Positive Intent in Others
4. Do What You Say You're Going to Do
5. Lead Out in Extending Trust to Others

The authors don't merely throw out platitudes. They provide plenty of compelling evidence in the form of case studies from the real world. They demonstrate that Smart Trust is not only achievable, it's - well, it's Smart.
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53 of 59 people found the following review helpful
By Tiger
Format:Hardcover
This book is a spin off from a chapter from the authors' previous book, Speed of Trust, which is far better written. More practical and insightful with the 13 Behaviors of trust-building laid out in the book. This book is kind of conceptual and filled up with many rhetorics, like trust enhances prosperity, energy, and joy, etc. Sound very idealistic in a low trust world these days. This new book only repeats the key messages from the previous book, and keeps on stating the obvious--trust with care and wisdom. Sometimes self-help authors have a tendency to state simple facts or truths in complicated ways, using a lot of jargons.

Principle-centred, emotional bank account, speed of trust, etc....

Jargons after jargons, they are stating the same thing over and over again with so called new examples. Underneath, the same old messages! Got a lot fed up by self-help books these days. Quantity versus quality!

Try "The Trusted Advisor" and "Practice What You Preach" by ex-Harvard Business School professor and seasoned consultant , David H. Maister too. Those books have far more practical ideas and skills to offer in the trust-building areas in human and client relations.

Or try "The Science of Trust" and "Relationship Cure" in family relationship and marriage by Dr. John Gottman, both have solid research to back up and not just common sensical stuff made complicated like "Smart Trust".

I trust that the authors of "Smart Trust" have good intention, but this new book and the audio book edition that I have just listened to only just don't deliver a lot of new insights and inspirations that I long for from their new book.

I think just like 7 Habits book, which has been overly line-extended as a "brand franchise" and milked for profits, each new book just keeps on repeating themselves with new book jackets and titles under the same "old 7 Habits School". "Smart Trust" has the same tendency to ride on the "Speed of Trust franchise", which will simply water down the "brand trust" of the Covey Family Brand in the long term. Just like the recent "3rd Alternative" book by Stephen Covey which is simply a lengthy elaboration of Habit 6 Synergy, which makes it not as inspirational as the first 7 Habits book!
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30 of 33 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars Don't distrust, trust smart January 10, 2012
Format:Kindle Edition
If you end up at the end of your life trusting no one, you may end up safe (from hurt or disappointment), but you will end up very sorry. The answer after you have trusted people and been let down, hurt or disappointed is not to stop trusting, but to trust smartly. In this wonderful follow up to their book The SPEED of Trust: The One Thing That Changes Everything , Covey and Link have provided a no nonsense, straight forward road map about how to trust smartly.

The key to trusting more smartly is by doing what Covey and Link call a Smart Trust analysis which involves three variables:

1. Opportunity (the situation - what you're trusting someone with)
2. Risk (the level of risk involved)
3. Credibility (the character and competence of the people involved)

1. Opportunity - This is simply answering for yourself, "I am trusting this person to/with/for ________________." Are you trusting them to give you money, do a job, follow through on something they promised, or to keep something in confidence?
2. Risk - Trusting anyone or anything always involves some risk. To evaluate the degree of risk answer the question: a) What are the possible outcomes? So if someone said they'd give you money the outcomes may be: they will, they won't, they'll delay in giving you it beyond what they promised, they'll pay you less than they promised; b) What is the likelihood of the outcomes? Reasonable is not the same as realistic. Reasonable means, everything makes sense or what someone told you seems reasonable. Realistic means what is likely to happen. How realistic is it that that person will give you that money if they don't have it and have to get if from someone else or if they have it, but have other priorities suddenly thrust upon them? Trusted advisors or friends with no agenda and who want the best for you can often be your greatest "reality check" about the realistic likelihood of something working out even if you don't like their sometimes telling you, "No." For this critical role pick people who can give you a reason for their saying, "No," as opposed to the dispiriting people who are just naysayers (which you are hinting your wife might be, not that I want to start an argument there); c) What are the importance and visibility of the outcomes? The more important, critical and urgent something is, the more you won't be able to deal with it not coming through. For instance, for someone not to come through with money they promised you might make you have to scurry around to find it somewhere else, but if what they promised you was critical to your staying in or going out of business that's a much different level of risk.
3. Credibility - This is about the character and competence of the person or people involved. This directly affects the "likelihood of the outcomes" mentioned above. The lesser the character and competence, the lesser the likelihood of a good outcome. Character is about integrity. It's about doing what you say you'll do, when you say you'll do it and at the first signal that you might not be able to do what you promised, letting all parties know and taking an alternative action. Competence is about the person's capabilities and their track record. Furthermore, the competence needs to be relevant to the present circumstance or whatever job is to be done. Does this person you're expecting money from have access to it? Are there any complicating other priorities that might delay it? Do they have a track record of giving people money?

Try using the above "filters" the next time you trust someone.

I have never read a "soft skills" book that was backed with such extensive research and jam packed with so many stories that all the skeptics among you and even some of you hardened cynics will reconsider giving trust another try.

If my testimonial isn't enough, the foreward by Indra Nooyi, CEO and Chairman of PepsiCo, and one of the most trusted and respected CEO's in the world should compel you to give this book your consideration.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars Great service!
The book came must sooner than I expected and was in great shape. Thanks so much for the great servie!
Published 2 months ago by Debra L. Chotkevys
3.0 out of 5 stars Read The Speed of Trust First
I read this book as the monthly selection of the Credit Union Leaders Book Club group on LinkedIn.

This is an expansion of the last chapter in the author's prior book... Read more
Published 4 months ago by Casey Wheeler
5.0 out of 5 stars Good timing for a trust-less society
I purchased this book just before embarking on a new career path in China, a country with probably one of the highest marks of corrupion in the world. Read more
Published 6 months ago by Ben Gutscher
5.0 out of 5 stars Smart Trust: Solution for Legal Services Industry
Great book and a must read for leaders everywhere. Especially leaders in declining industries such as the legal services industry. It's inspiration for change. Read more
Published 8 months ago by legalcyn
5.0 out of 5 stars Smart trust
A great book with great ideas. I recommend anyone who is a supervisor and above read this. This book has opened my eyes and given me a different look on how I manage my Team at... Read more
Published 8 months ago by Mimi
4.0 out of 5 stars The Natural Follow Up To A Critical Topic
I finished my reading of "Smart Trust." When I first read "Speed of Trust" in 2006 I was profoundly impacted by the structure that was added to a relatively elusive topic. Read more
Published 9 months ago by Jacob Paulsen
2.0 out of 5 stars A lot of repeat from "The Speed of Trust"
There was a lot of overlap and repeat in this book from "The Speed of Trust". It's like an expansion of the last section of that book. Read more
Published 9 months ago by K.L.
5.0 out of 5 stars Trust as a societal value
Great book for discussing how to deal with the lack of trust in today's society. Once a basic value such as trust is destroyed, future relationships with the one who has proven... Read more
Published 10 months ago by Zeb E. Barnhardt Jr.
5.0 out of 5 stars Do the Right Thing. Trust.
This is a follow-on to their "The Speed of Trust" and is complementary to Dov Seidman's "HOW."

Tied to Seidman's call for transparency and openness, Covey and Link add... Read more
Published 12 months ago by Mark Darrall
5.0 out of 5 stars Smart Trust
I appreciate the book that tells how to trust others and have others trust you in your business. I need this as a motivator to keep me going.
Published 14 months ago by Georgia R. Dodd-henshall
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