Book Review: Smart Trust by Stephen M.R. Covey and Greg Link

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. I keep a small paper with the thirteen behaviors of a High Trust Leader on my desk and refer to it often. “Smart Trust” seems like the natural follow up to all the HOW questions that were generated by “Speed of Trust.”

The five Smart Trust actions that this book teaches make a clear outline of how to generate trust in a team, family, or other organization. Simple, but not to a fault, these five actions make it easy to understand. They are, Choose to Believe in Trust, Start with Self, Declare Your Intent, Do What You Say, and Lead Out in Extending Trust.  While they sound straight forward on the surface, the book explores valuable examples and insights that help create a framework of putting it all together in a clear action plan.

The order of the five actions is not an accident. I suspect that I will need to go back to the book often to continue my journey in implementing trust in the various arenas of life as I move through the action steps.

The biggest take away from this book is a continuation of the first. Simply put, trust changes everything. It plays the biggest part in the bottom line and success of any relationship or organization. Creating a vocabulary around the principle allows us to discuss it among ourselves in terms that we all understand. These authors have done that and I believe that this is part of the revolution of restoring trust in our families, relationships, work places, communities, and countries.