Executive Team Session

Executive team sessions are typically two day executive retreats led personally by Stephen M R Covey, Greg D. Link, Barry Rellaford or a select few other master Speed of Trust experts with senior level executive backgrounds.

The Speed of Trust provides a fresh new approach to leadership performance developed from the pragmatic perspective of a CEO. We are successful senior executives, not training theorists. We have identified 13 behaviors common to high trust leaders and organizations around the world, and believe that mastering them will change everything in your organization beginning, ideally, with the executive team.

Feedback and Trust Measurement

The executive team session commences with, and is informed by, the feedback from the executive team index and the personal tQ 360 trust quotient completed by the entire executive team and their boss the CEO. This candid perspective accelerates the discussion to the real issues currently impacting relationships on the team. Effectively unearthing previously undiscussable issues buried either by fear or efficiency.

These proprietary instruments not only measure trust levels but identify the root source or underlying components of trust—the four cores and 13 behaviors. This enables the team to quickly identify their strengths and weaknesses based on specific observable behaviors. This allows for vulnerable and authentic discussion rarely possible with peers who may be competing openly or privately to replace the CEO.

Entrusting People–key to Growth

One of the richest learning’s of executive team sessions is the discussion of the sometimes counter-intuitive realization that rather than giving up control by building a high trust organization and team they actually gain control and influence. As Emile Durkheim taught

“When mores are sufficient laws are unnecessary when mores are insufficient laws are un-enforceable.”

Mastering the risk of trusting people using the analysis of Smart Trust with each other as well as their reports is a powerful skill that transforms organizational cultures. Understanding that trust is a competency that can be both learned and more importantly modeled and taught is a consistently reported by executive teams as a key insight.

Most executives at this level of leadership are already, either consciously or unconsciously, competent in trust skills. However few recognize the component cores and behaviors that led to their success—their strengths, and more importantly, their blind spot weaknesses. This is a breakthrough learning for most executives. The best way to model and teach trust to subordinates and replace yourself—which is critical to growing an organization—is to understand the specific behaviors that underly your influence. Understanding each other’s strengths and weaknesses as a team, and making trust an explicit objective, by combining those strengths to make each others weaknesses irrelevant, is the hallmark of an high trust high performance team.

Ideally the Speed of Trust work will start at the executive level to avoid the cynicism created when subordinates learn the cores and behaviors and observe the executive team not walking their talk. Conversely by starting at the top the behaviors can be modeled and cascaded through an entire organization transforming it to a high trust enterprise much more quickly.

Our definition of leadership is getting results today in a way that inspires trust the next time and there always is going to be a next time.

Al Carey, CEO of FritoLay described it this way:

“The single biggest contributor to our great year last year, and this years fast start has been the Speed of Trust. The profit growth last year was equal to the best performance in the last 10 years in profit growth. I credit the Speed of Trust because we moved through decisions that are normally enormously complex at breakneck speed. When you trust each other there’s no need for all the extra bureaucracy, it can allow you to reduce layers of management, it can allow you to move directly to decisions quicker because you trust each other, you don’t have multiple groups overlooking each other to make sure that people are doing things the right way. This has been going on for two years and my team is a different team, and when you ask the people in PepsiCo when they come down here to visit FritoLay they’ll say something has changed down there—it’s the Speed of Trust. It’s the most exciting change in the culture that I have seen in the 28 years I’ve been at PepsiCo and most of those years at FritoLay. They’ll say there is a buzz in this building. I think they would say that the team works as a team better than we have ever seen before.”

Watch for your self as Frito Lay CEO and his executive team describe their experience with Speed of Trust

“The toughest part was melding the two cultures–the East and the West. People were concerned the two were too different.

The key turning point for us, though, was an ‘executive trust session’…with Stephen M R Covey.  It was a two-day session for the senior leadership about the speed of trust. We spent the time trying to truly understand each other’s motivations and intentions. What we walked away with from that event was an understanding of just how much we were alike and how much we had the same goals. That was really a coming together and a real turning point in our team”.

–Rory Read, President and Chief Operating Officer of Lenovo describing merging IBM PC with Lenovo in Forbes

“The Speed of Trust is red-hot relevant. In an age of heightened business regulation and oversight, it is important to focus on fundamentals. And trust is the intangible asset that can help assure the long-term sustainability of any organization or enterprise. Thanks to Stephen M. R. Covey, you can be well on the way to enhancing your organization’s trust assets for years to come.”

—William G. Parrett, Former CEO, Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu

“Trust reduces transaction costs; it reduces the need for litigation and speeds commerce; it actually lubricates organizations and societies. At last someone is articulating its true value and presenting it as a core business competency.”

—Marilyn Carlson Nelson, Chair and CEO, Carlson Companies

“Stephen M. R. Covey has done it! He has articulately zeroed in on the leadership challenge of the new millennium—the ability to cultivate and leverage trust. This is a ‘must-read’ for all aspiring leaders.”

—Douglas R. Conant, President and CEO, Campbell Soup Co.

“Lack of trust within an organization saps its energy, fosters a climate of suspicion and second guessing, and completely devastates teamwork, replacing it with internal politics. The end result is low morale and the consequent low standards of performance. Stephen M. R. Covey’s book is a timely reminder for leaders about what really matters in an organization.”

—Koh Boon Hwee, Chairman, DBS Bank Ltd. (Former Chairman, Singapore Airlines)

“I believe Covey’s insights around trust are very revealing to all who think about the practice of leadership. Clearly,without Self Trust you can’t have Organizational Trust—and without the latter, no real achievement.”

—Michael H. Jordan, Former Chairman and CEO, EDS