David Horsager's Intro

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Today on the servant leadership podcast, we're joined by David Horse Auger, a global authority on trust and leadership

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and the CEO of the Trust Edge Leadership Institute. David has spent decades researching what makes leaders, teams,

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and organizations truly effective. And it all comes down to trust. David works with everyone from professional sports

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teams to Fortune 100 companies to leaders of nations, helping them build cultures of trust. In this episode,

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David unpacks what breaks trust, how to rebuild it, and why servant leadership can't exist without it. If you're

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looking to lead more effectively, build stronger teams, or simply show up better, this episode is packed with

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clarity and insight you can put into action. Before we jump into today's episode, I want to thank Thrivant for

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[Music] David, thank you so much for joining us on the Servant Leadership Podcast.

Welcome David Horsager

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Chris, this is a treat to be here. Thank you so much. I have been following your stuff for so

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long, it's not even funny. Uh, and I have been so blessed by it. Talk about how somebody becomes one of the world

David's Story - Becoming An Expert On Trust

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leaders on trust. What what a cool thing to be known for. Well, it's a pretty big miracle story

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along the way, but you know, I' I'd uh built some leadership curriculum at a young age in the in the 20s. I'd, you

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know, been part of this the ship leadership of this the biggest Christian sports camp in the country and all this

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kind of stuff. And then I built this and um I I one of the US uh n uh

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militarymies asked me to come teach it there and all these things and I I started doing more of that and this is

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so we went full-time in 1999. Lisa and I kind of started from a basement with no windows, bathroom or kitchen, you know.

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So, so, but we felt called to it, but it was actually shortly after that. Um, I remember where I was cuz it was like the

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most expensive place I'd stayed until then. Um, you know, that this company put me up in the Lowe's resort and in

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Arizona. I'm like, "Wow." You know, and and Lisa said, "We didn't have four kids yet or anything." So, we're there and I

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was thinking about the client and I was thinking about the audience from that day and I thought they don't they think they have a leadership issue, but they

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don't. They don't trust the guy. It's a trust issue. And then I started thinking about this other sales issue we were

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looking at. I was like, it's not a sales issue. The reason people buy has something to do with trust the product or the person or something. And I

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started, you know, then it kind of just was intuitive. No research yet, right? And I'm just like intuitive like, hey,

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um, that innovating there because someone's hiding ideas. There's they don't trust the group. And I started

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thinking about learning. Well, what's the core issue to learning? It's like the only way to increase learning in a classroom is increase trust in the

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content or the you know professor or the psychological safety or trust of the

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room. And then I started looking at the Harvard research when I was before I did my research like the biggest Harvard study shows diversity of almost any kind

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puts or pits people together in some way. Not just color of skin. I mean it just puts or pits people against each other unless you increase trust and then

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you can get enormous benefits. Right. And so and then I was saying in your world marketing experts that you are I

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started thinking well marketing the only way to amplify a marketing message is increase trust in the message. And so

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that was intuitive but what happened was I I that led to my grad work. And the

Research On Trust

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first thing you do in research is you research the research that's out there. And at the time a couple decades ago

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there was nobody looking there there's there's people talking about therapy trust but in organization and all that

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kind of stuff. There was nobody at the time basically looking at this like I'm talking about. And so I was one of the

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first to kind of tie trust to the bottom line actually show how a lack of trust is the biggest expense in an

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organization. I can talk about that more in a second but but basically that trust

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be you know we proved out how trust is the leading indicator. So you don't have an engagement issue, you increase trust

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to get engagement. You don't get engagement with engagement. Net promoter score. I was I was working with Proctor and Gamble and United Health Group at

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the time and they were uh they were trying to come together on pricing on some issues and and it was the chief culture officer who who said, you know

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what, David, I think what you've shown is it's not an NPS issue. It's actually at the core a trust issue. And when we

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dealt with trust, we started getting higher NPS and other things. And you know, we had the admiral of the Navy

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last year say we helped them lower suicide rates when we trained 15,000 sailors and carriers. And we had a

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person, you know, say, "Oh, we we we tripled sales when we, you know, in 90 days when we use this." And we had

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Fortune50 companies say, "Well, we gained 11% market share. We changed this framework." But the first company I used

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it after the research came out and how we actually built actually build trust. The first company where we knew we had

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something uh way back was a little healthcare organization 14 mental health clinics and they said within nine months

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they drops uh attrition they were bleeding attrition they saved 2 to 4

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million in attrition costs like if we can do this you know the you know how do you amplify influence you increase trust

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how do you speed up a sale you increase trust so trust you know without ego and I don't like it when consultants come

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like it's always this way but I do believe Chris it is always trust you know it's trust is the leading indicator. So that what happened there

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is this kind of epiphany around trust and it keeps it keeps growing in me

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because at first it was this research then it was applied research and like this is getting results. We've had the

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biggest companies in the world say this actually got they've used this train company or that consultancy or that huge whatever like this is what actually

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worked you know this trust worked and so that just fed it. We put a big study out

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every year. I think the biggest of its kind, at least out of North America, that feeds, you know, we've had it, you know, our framework's been revalidated

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by outside universities. But I I'll tell you, Chris, probably the reason I'm so passionate about it is because not just

How Trust Personally Changed David

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that I've seen it firsthand, but it's actually changed me. It's changed me as a parent, as a leader, you know, and uh

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on the faith side, um I kept seeing this come out of scripture, you know, it's

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like um God was talking about this way ahead of me. Now, when it came out of secular research, all of a sudden pro sports teams and governments and

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presidents and you know, all that came but but it's like God's talking a lot about trust. Like not just Proverbs 35

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and 6, trust the Lord with all your heart and not uh but but this this call even back to Jethro and Moses saying

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saying, "Hey, you got to stop doing it all yourself. Find for yourself those that are trustworthy." And there's this big call throughout scripture, you know,

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Proverbs 12:20, the Lord delights in the trustworthy. And I'm like, that's what really we want as leaders is not just

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trusted, but trustworthy. What does that look like? And of course, in the framework, we see all these threads of

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of scripture of like, oh, you know, clothe yourselves with compassion. We trust those that have compassion. Oh, be

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clear, you know, without, you know, vision people perish. And, oh, with, you know, so that that was kind of fun after

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the grat research how how I started to see that in my faith, too.

Background - 8 Pillars Of Trust

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I love that. I mean, what hit me the first time I ever heard you talk about trust was you said something along the

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lines of, "You don't have a leadership issue, you have a trust issue." Always 100%.

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You don't have a sales issue, you've got a trust issue. And you went through these things and I was like, "Wow, I I conceptually was like, okay,

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how would I reframe my thinking?" And you went through these eight pillars

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and you talked through how to actually build trust. those eight pillars have

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been very impactful for me and it seems like they're just like steady and true and you mentioned a couple of them right

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there without calling them pillars but uh talk about how that even came about and and what they are for our audience.

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Yeah. Oh, I love it. I'm I So, first of all, you know, if the first half of

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research is like, you know, the why, right? Is this really if trust really is this important? if it's always a trust

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issue instead of a leadership, innovation, diversity, marketing issue, if that's the core issue and we really

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prove that out and how a lack of trust is the biggest cost and I can show that maybe that's another podcast but if

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that's so important then how do you build it? So then we started looking at the commonalities of how trust is built.

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We have a definition of trust what we mean by it and it's how is it built and these eight traits came out of that

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eight specific traits. Now, I define them by Cwords for clarity, but please don't think of them as some cutesy

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pastoral list. They each represent a very important research model. That's why some people see these eight C's and think, "Oh, somebody just kind of wanted

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a cute book, right?" Um, they're really important. The enterprise trust index is built on them. The team assessment, the

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self assessment, it's all these eight. And that the Cwords do a good job of representing the intent of the research.

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So, this is, I will argue, how trust is built globally. Everything comes under these eight. It doesn't matter if it's

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corruption issues, policing issues, uh leadership issues, sales issues. But that doesn't mean we don't contextualize

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and and we might start in Latin America with this pillar. We might start in Norway uh with this pillar. They're more

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resultsoriented. They're more these are more community oriented or in this issue or that issue. But it all comes back to

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these eight. So I can give you the try to do it really quickly and then we can we can um move into a few if you want

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some takeaways that people can use tomorrow. So under these eight we have all these tools that people can use to build that pillar. But the eight pillars

Clarity - Focus On Being Clear

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of a trust are number one clarity. We trust the clear and we mistrust or distrust the ambiguous or the overly

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complex. So where I was a professor oh got to look smart got to be complex. We always lose clarity which always loses

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trust. Today clarity beats cleverness. And with due respect to your brilliance

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most marketing people and most strategic people do not understand clarity at the level I'm talking about. They just

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don't. And I'll spend a little more more time on this one and I'll list the others because we if you can see this in

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clarity, you can start to see how all of them affect each other. So clarity like if a leader is not clear about vision, I

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might have a people might not follow. A manager that's not clear about expectations

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are really frustrated. Number one frustration on the index of of of people being managers they can't win because

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they don't have a clear expectation. A teacher that's unclear about the assignments, the students go home

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frustrated. a a salesperson. Why aren't people buying? I mean, I'm so clear about how cool I am and how long I've

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been in business, nobody cares. Oh, once they got clear about the benefits of that product to me, I started to buy.

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Right? So, they got clear about the right thing and clarity won. And clarity beats cleverness. And I'll give one

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simple fun example from very recently. I'm speaking at a big event, 100,000 people or something out in California.

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Um, the convention center is a few miles away from the from the hotel. the CEO come picks me up at the hotel and and

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drives me to the event site. It's a few miles. So on that highway on the right

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hand side out my window are stores and malls and you know they all have a few

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cars in the parking lot but one of them was packed. Every spot was full. just

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like whoa what it's so full and I'm like people I mean they had to know why to get off this highway in the middle of

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nowhere California to go to that even outsiders had to know right and so I I

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and and I got it because I looked above that building and there was a oneword bold sign that was crystal clear you

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know what it was Chris what liquor

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and the point is nothing except for clever, not not cleverness, not like,

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oh, there's a lady that wanted to have this really cute bar, you know, hair cutting salon, so she called it whispers

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on Maine. Nobody knew why the heck to go there. She changed it to best cuts by Barb. People came. Clarity wins. So,

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that's number one. And we have, you know, like I said, a lot of tools. And there's some really great ones under that. Um, may we'll come back to them,

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but I'll give one right here quick that anybody could use if they're looking at their message. under clarity. If you want to make your message matter today,

Keys to Clarity - Memorable, Repeatable, Actionable

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it's got to be MR. It's got to be memorable. It's got to be repeatable. It's got to be actionable. And many

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people miss one of those. And so, they have values that are memorable and repeatable, but not actionable. So, people don't live by them, don't decide

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by them. They've got memorable and actionable, but it's not repeatable. People don't say it around the place. It doesn't it's not shared like the the my

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my mentor and friend um Tom, excuse me, uh Mr. Solderist the the the first

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billionaire part of uh Walmart. I got to, you know, stay in his house and be mentored by him when I was living in

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another country, Arkansas. Um actually I love Arkansas. I love the board I had there. So just with due respect, but um

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I remember, you know, he talked about how people would how we he grew the culture there through telling of stories

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and and it was because they were repeatable. So we can look at any of those, but just check your message. you got to pivot because of a pandemic or

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you got to share a new value or you got to cut a whole uh business unit. Is the message you're giving memorable,

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repeatable, and actionable? It's simple little idea. There's lots more of those. You got, you know, trust matters or whatever, but there's simple little

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ideas that people can use tomorrow. And I think that's one thing in people using our institute is we love researchbased,

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but we take it to tools they can use tomorrow. I'm a farm kid from the poorest county in Minnesota and I need

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to be able to use that shovel, right? So that's what I think is a differentiator of our work too is that it's usable to

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build trust tomorrow. So M is one idea. Okay, let's get through the others. So you can take a breath or you can comment

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now. I know I talk. So good. Yeah, this is good. Keep telling them. So the next pillar is compassion. Number

Compassion - Caring Beyond Yourself

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two, we trust those that care beyond themselves. So a big word that came out of this funnel was uh intent. We trust

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people that have intent. Even if they don't care about me, if they don't have intent beyond themselves towards some mission or some people, I have a hard

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time trusting them, following them, or being accountable to them. And so, com compassion, care. Number three is

Character - Would You Follow You?

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character. We trust those that do what's right over what's easy. Uh really cool story in the book about that. But

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there's some questions I would ask under this one. It would be one, we have a seven-step process for how you build a

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high character company. If I start with individuals and the question we want to ask for individuals is would you follow

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you? Would you follow you? There's three questions but that's going to be the one I'll land on today. Would you follow

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you? And and it's so often you know that big wig is followed by

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people way out there. But I know a lot more about their character by their closest friends, their family, right? I

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remember getting to speak at this huge leadership event. Everybody else was more known than me. I was the opening

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keynote. They were all I know I was the least known and um and I one of them I

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was excited to meet in the green room because I'd read all of his books and thought, "Wow, that's you know this would be neat to meet him in person." I

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did meet him in person and I found out one thing and that is he's a whole lot different offstage than he is on stage

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and that I never need to meet him again. And it's like this is the thing. Would you actually, you know, follow you?

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There's a lot more to each of these, but let's go to number four. So, we've got clarity, we've got compassion, we've got

Competency - Fresh, Relevant, and Capable

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character. Number four is competency. We trust those that stay fresh and relevant, competent, and capable. So, I

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might trust Chris Leser to take my kids to the ball game because of his character and compassion. That does not

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mean I'll trust Chris to give me a root canal. Right? So, um, you got to be you

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you have to stay fresh and relevant and capable. This is a lot of you had horsed on and how how, uh, you know, he he was

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in the room when they Chick-fil-A decided to, you know, teach everybody my pleasure, right? And that's like you got

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the same kids at that fast food place and and um and Chick-fil-A and how is it

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that this year, you know, average per store revenue at number two position is

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3.6 million. McDonald's and number one without working a whole day out of the week is 9.2 million. It's like the kids

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didn't just come out of the womb at Chick-fil-A and saying my pleasure, right? They got trained and developed. And there's a whole lot of more things

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to how they do their training and development because I'm telling you, it's not the chicken. It is not. It's a sauce, Chris. No, it's actually it's not

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anything with the food what they do. They're how they're winning. And there's other companies like that that are winning on training and development. We

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know for a fact that you can keep people longer and have more engagement just by training people a little bit more, five

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minutes more, 10 minutes more a week. And it's they people want 3 to one. They want people in leadership skills uh that

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will help them be better in life, even in their marriages. Then they want tactical training. Not that you don't

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need to do that. Competency. So the next pillar after competency is commitment. We trust those that stay committed in

Commitment - Staying Committed In The Face Of Adversity

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the face of adversity. So, uh, I'm not saying people don't need mental health help or other things when things get

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bad, but if you're going to jump when we're in a pandemic or you're going to jump when we got a tough time, I'm not

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going to trust you. I mean, I need to know you're going to stick with me through the adversity, right? So, we

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trust those that stay committed in the face of adversity. And one one part that people ask often under this pillar, one

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of the tools is the process for rebuilding trust. So, we've all lost trust. We've all made a mistake. It's

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how do you rebuild it? So, there's a 10-step process in the book, but I'll give you the key, and that is it's not

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you never rebuild trust on the apology. I'm not saying don't apologize. That can

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open the door of communication, but you never rebuild trust on that. I'm sorry I'm late. No, you're not. You're late

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every time, right? The only way to ever rebuild trust after all of the 10 tool,

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10 10 steps, the only way to ever rebuild trust if you get the chance is to make and keep a new commitment. It's

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the only way. That's the commitment pillar. Next pillar is connection. We

Connection - Connect And Collaborate With Others

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trust those that are willing to connect and collaborate with others. If they they they push against siloing. And you

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see companies that incentivize siloing, right? They're like, "You better use this budget up. I don't care if you need

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it this year. Don't think about everybody else. Don't think about the overall mission. Just use it up or you're not going to get it next year."

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And you just incentivized a lack of connection and collaboration. And by the way, the bigger problems we have, the

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more we need to connect and collaborate. This is a challenge on Capitol Hill. I think you know that, you know, one of the boards I'm on, uh, I'm out in DC

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four or five times a year where I I'm the only non-member of Congress, um, or non-governor that brings together

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Republicans and Democrats on, you know, on Capitol Hill four or five times a year. Obviously, I'm not very good. But,

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uh, the bottom line there is there are some Republicans and Democrats that want to come together, that want to work

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together. It's just a few handfuls or a handful of each. Um we only allow at the meetings the equal number of

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Republicans, equal number of Democrats. But it's um it's amazing what happens when they get together and see that they

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agree on more than they think. Uh the problem of course is so much division. I mean on Capitol Hill, this is going off

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the rails a little bit, but you think about this. A 100 years ago, a Republican and Democrat senator would

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duke it out on the floor and then they would get on a train and eat every night together on the way back to California

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and they saw each other as human. Now you got a Republican and Democrat deli different ones in the capital. I mean

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they never get together. They don't see each other. They don't touch it. They don't see each other as human. It's a big problem. Uh we have to build

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connection in order to get collaboration which we need to solve the biggest problems in the world. We need more

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trust. The next pillar, that's number seven, and that's contribution.

Contribution - Contribute Results

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We have to contribute results. This one, I'll say the number one word out of the funnel was results. You've got to

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contribute results. You can't just have compassion and character. You got to, you know, that's got that fertilizer's

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got to get me higher yield in my corn or that, you know, that food has got to be something that'll nourish me or that

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student has to be someone that actually learns math like can actually do it. you know, whatever it is, you have to get results. Actually, in your space in

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marketing, let's say, I want, you know, you might be the kindest, sweetest, whatever, but I actually need to have

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people see my message or whatever, what whatever it is, right? So, results, it's it's this is, you know, you can have

20:51
some of the greatest coaches in the world, and they get fired all the time if they don't get results. You got to

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contribute results to be trusted. I could, you know, go in for amputation on my leg and they cut off the wrong one.

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We got a problem even if they were kind, right? So the final pillar is consistency and that's just same. We

Consistency - Performing Over Time

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trust whatever you do all the time. I can trust you for good or bad on consistency. If you're late consistently, I will still trust you to

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be late, right? So sameness is trusted. Um and and the only way to build a

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reputation is consistency. The only way to build a brand is consistency. But that's that's a quick over the eight.

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And I I could go deeper in all these. There's tools to amplify and build these. But I will just say this quick as a as a kind of overall everything in

21:36
building with trust comes into these eight we found and we've used this across six continents. We've used it from pro sports teams to global

21:41
governments uh across industries. Now you doesn't mean we don't contextualize how we show up like um uh you know

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empathy for instance comes under compassion. How I show that in North America is generally some eye contact.

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I'm the the best way to show it in a part of the Middle East might be to not look someone in the eye, you know, to

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show compassion or show uh, you know, care. So, how we show up with it might

22:06
tweak a little bit, but it these are the eight that actually build trust in a brand, in a marketing message, in a

22:12
leader, in an organization, at least in the way we define trust. Um, and of course, you know, there's weightedness

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to them. If I I might I I might want my pilot to be really high competency even if they're not very compassionate. I

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might want my nanny to be high compassion even if they don't know much. Um but in general to gain this the

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greatest advantage of trust it's it's all eight. And and um one more thing

It Really Is These Eight

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take a breath is it it really is these eight. And not only has this been

22:40
validated by outside universities, it's it's like what we found is when people define it by these instead of big

22:46
ambiguous words, they actually start to solve the real problem. So we say engagement. No, what's that? You know, a

22:52
leadership or people love this. David, we know you were an undergrad in communication. Isn't it ever a

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communication issue? And with due respect, it is never ever ever ever ever

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at the core a communication issue. It's the type. So clear number one pillar is

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trusted. Unclear communication is not. Number two pillar compassion, compassionate communication is trusted.

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Hateful communication is not. High character communication is trusted. Dishonest is not. Competent is tr

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incomp. See if they just would go down if if people would take these aid and put them on their refrigerator or put them on the computer like, "Oh, I I want

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I something's going wrong with me and my 16-year-old daughter. What is it? Oh, they're not feeling cared about." or oh,

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I wasn't clear about what I expected before they do their chores or whatever and and they start to get what they

23:41
wanted. We have all these deep assessments, but in the marketing world, if it's just like one out of 10, let me look at that message. Oh, does it show

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um is it crystal clear? Oh, yep, it is. Okay, then one out of 10. Does it show compassion? Number two, does it show

23:54
compassion one out of 10 for the people we care? Oh, does it show our competency? Oh, does it connect with our people? Oh, does it is it consistent and

24:01
on brand? Oh, I can I mean with a gut level looking through the eight, I can know if I have a strong or weak

24:06
marketing message, for example. Yeah. Uh this is so good. And one of the things that I love is in your books, in

24:13
the emails that you send out, in the speaking you do, podcast stuff that you're doing, you give really practical

24:19
step by steps for each of those, right? So that's where if people are listening and and some of them sound like such simple concepts and

24:27
in theory they they actually are kind of simple concepts the way it lays out but the actual practical steps have a lot of

24:33
things if people dive deeper into them that wouldn't come to mind naturally at least that's what I found. Yep. And it takes work. You can find all

24:40
kinds of kind of motivational speakers say oh just you know change a happen in 21 days or this or that stuff not built on even research. Trust takes work but

24:48
it's work that's worth it. But I think the difference with this and however God made me was maybe I just needed it. I

24:54
needed to break it down to a simple way to apply it. And that's that's why you have MRA and ODC and the six steps to

25:01
accountability and the you know 10 steps to rebuild trust. It was like stuff that okay this is how we actually live this

25:07
out. And that's that's uh definitely true. just our listeners when they're walking into a room. Do you think people

Does Trust Have To Be Earned?

25:13
naturally have a tendency to trust them or do people start out with a distrust of them and trust has to be earned? How

25:20
do you see that play out? Yeah, I can tell you what the research says in North America on that. And in the last study that we studied that

25:26
exact question. So, and if people want we we give our research away free. We pay for it. Global study plus or minus

25:33
1.8% margin of error, all that. But we we aren't a marketer with our research. We give it away. So trustoutlook.com is

25:39
where our research is or our white papers every year are for the each annual study. But that that question is

25:45
an interesting one Chris and we did that the year we did it uh a lot of times we do global but I can in my head I can

25:51
tell you what the US part of that is and that is about 50% of Americans right now

25:57
lead with what you could say trust. In other words they trust you until you blow it and about 50% lead with

26:05
skepticism. In other words, they're skeptical until you've built it. Now,

26:10
before we judge what type some you know why that is, generally or in many cases,

26:18
the ones that lead with skepticism had something not good happened to them that was not their fault within the first 18

26:25
years of life. Somebody really blew trust with them. So, the the the that's that's just the

26:32
facts. The good news is for you as a leader or not, you don't have to act any

26:38
differently. Whether it's these or these, you actively build trust every day and you will win the most.

26:44
Yeah, that's great feedback. I mean, in today's day and age, I feel like I'm hearing more about trust than ever

Navigating Changing Conversations About Trust

26:50
before. you've got such tech advancements with AI and just in general

26:56
where tech is moving that uh people talk about how you're not going to be able to trust anything, you know, ever other

27:02
than face to face stuff. You just can't trust anything. And even still, how how are you navigating those

27:08
conversations because it's rapidly changing? Well, that's really interesting here. Um

27:14
on on one side, zero trust actually increases trust. So there's funny words going on right now, right? or um

27:20
blockchain can be a massive trust builder. Uh but but let me I think this is an interesting way at that. I'll give

History Of Trust

27:26
you a one minute or 90 second um history of trust and we'll get at that exact topic. So a long long time ago we did

27:33
not trust for two reasons, right? One, I don't know you. You look differently than me. You talk differently. You know,

27:40
you're from down by Chicago, right? Or you're you you you have a different accent or different custom, right? So I

27:45
don't trust you because I didn't know you. The second reason I didn't trust is I do know you and I've seen how you act. Right? So, so you got those are reasons.

27:53
It was very personal way back. But then we move forward hundreds of years to when it when trust was

27:59
institutionalized. And institutional trust in many ways was good because it it gave um concreteness

28:06
to trust. So you could have when it was institutionalized, you could have a bad teacher and not lose trust in all of

28:13
education. You could have a bad senator and not lose trust in the whole government. And until about 30 some

28:19
years ago in America, believe it or not, we trusted our our our government, 80%

28:25
almost 79% trusted our government to do basically what was right. Now it's less than I think 10%. Like about 30 years

28:33
ago, institutional trust tanked. So you had um education. I mean when I was

28:39
growing up, everybody trusted the institution of education. homeschooling was weird.

28:45
Not anymore because the institution of education has taken a big trust hit and it tanked. Um, religion, I mean, almost

28:53
the same number of people say they believe in God as did 80 years ago in America. But any metric that would show

29:00
trusting the institution, giving or going to a place of worship is down steeply. You, you know, farming like I

29:06
grew up, I mean, does someone does the restaurant want a semi-load of my dad's dark red kidney beans? No, they want to

29:14
grow them on their rooftop and pick them with a glove and kiss them on the way to the plate, right? It's not not the institution they want. So, so and media

29:21
is the same way. I mean, you remember Chris, I don't know if you do, you're young, but h but when we had the news, I

29:28
mean, used to be the news, Walter Conrite, not anymore. You get where do you get your news? Where do you get your

29:33
news? Who's your news? What's your news? And we used to say we know someone by their date book or checkbook. Now, I can

29:38
ask where they get their news and I know a whole lot about them. Right? So we media has tanked even more and I can

29:44
give you all the reasons or some of the reasons that I believe that is but but institutional trust then moved toward

29:50
distributed trust and when we grew up when I grew up at least you weren't supposed to get in a car with someone you didn't know but now let's call it

29:55
Uber and call it good right and and and you say oh don't sleep in someone else bring your own mattress call it Airbnb

30:01
we're good and and so all of a sudden trust had this distributed distributed trust Uber Airbnb blockchain right and

30:08
there are ways that can be trusted but What's interesting is just a couple years ago now in a massive global study

30:15
on the topic, trust came back to more personal than it's been in a thousand

30:20
years. Why is that? I mean, we we more than ever before want to touch, smell, see,

30:27
know you. And this doesn't mean we're not going to use technology in life. My newest book that comes out next year is

30:33
called Trust at a distance. How to build trust in a remote work team. So, I mean, that's still going to be a thing. But

30:38
but I do love personal and it is more personal than ever. Why is that? A couple reason it's come back to personal

30:44
is because number one, we found out how many reviews online are manipulated manipulated or bought. We're not sure if

30:50
that's a real review or not. Number two, deep fakes. Um, and this started way

30:57
back in uh 2007 with, you know, first time on a on a on a a magazine that was

31:03
trusted. I think it was USA Today or I mean um uh Time or something where you had Martha Stewart um coming out of jail

31:10
and and she she looks wealthier and ready for prime time or something and they found out that it was her head on a

31:17
figure of a model and it wasn't they found out it wasn't true. Like we thought what we saw was true and then we

31:22
move into deep fakes that are video deep fakes and not long ago was the Tom Cruz one that they had to manipulate in the

31:28
back room. Now, I was just out at an event. We're live on stage, 3,000

31:33
people, and they did a deep fake in while it was rolling, and the CEO was saying, "Yeah, don't buy my company.

31:40
It's terrible." I'm saying all these things he wouldn't say that actually they had just recorded him for a moment.

31:46
Turn the camera on to the MC. The MC was saying these things, but on the Megatrons, it looked like and sounded

31:52
like the CEO. And uh for all these reasons, we're losing trust in many ways

31:59
in technology and other things. And that's going to change everything for us. But I guess what this matters to the

32:04
audience is we have to think of even though we're going to still use technology, how can you make it more

32:10
personal? How can you be more trusted? How can you be more authentic? And how

32:15
can you if you get the chance on the farm? We'd say sit on the tailgate with the guy next to you. Not just um if if

32:22
possible meet in person. And as as I know like I was this week I was speaking in you know Illinois, Boston um Dallas

32:32
and I think those groups they were just back to as much in person as possible and they know trust is built the most

32:38
the fastest and the deepest in person. So it's just something to keep in mind. That's what the data says. Yeah. Even how people measure trust. One

Measuring Trust - Enterprise Trust Index

32:45
of the things that I love that you've done is you've actually tried to and successfully started measuring trust.

32:52
You know in the marketing world we're thinking about net promoter score and other things around marketing metrics

32:57
but talk about the enterprise trust index a little bit and how you measure trust. So we have six significant measurement

33:04
tools that people can get from trust edge leadership institute. One is the enterprise trust index and so that that

33:10
is for a big organization that competes with the Gallup 11 that competes with the engagement studies. We felt like you need to trust uh you need to u measure

33:17
trust and engagement to get and and and what you needed because like I said before you don't get engagement with

33:23
engagement you have to increase trust right so we've used this in some of the biggest universities the biggest companies in the world and it really

33:28
helps them close gap we had gaps we had a a company say it saved them a million dollars in a day when they saw a trust

33:33
gap and they were able to you know quickly do something about it so um but basically what this does is it takes my

33:39
grad work and the eight pillar framework and questions from that and it meshes

33:45
them with valid questions that uh AC that about 40 years of Accenture data

33:52
and meshes them with that to come up with a valid assessment for measuring trust and engagement in an organization

34:00
and then it's a beautiful tool that shows gaps and you can um close gaps

34:05
really kind of fun since we've been using it you know I think it was since 2012 where we really came out with it

34:11
only one time in history has someone not increase their trust score and output

34:16
every time they've taken it. Wow. Like they get that. And one of the reasons for that might be how he helped

34:22
people use it too. Many people take have their company take surveys and they lose trust because they don't do anything about it or communicate about it. And we

34:28
we help them like communicate and take action not on everything but on one, two, three things. And we just help with

34:34
that. So that's the enterprise trust index. The trusted team assessment is um you know measuring trust in teams and

34:41
and showing gaps and building trust over time and people can do that if they want to get trust edge certified they can use

34:46
those assessments even on their own. There's a self assessment. There's a conversational diagnostic for in board a

34:52
trust conversational diagnostic for boardrooms and leadership teams. And then there's a the customer assessment

34:58
which kind of competes with the NPS where it's only five simple questions, not 80 questions like the enterprise trust index. Five questions you can send

35:04
to all your customers and instead of just finding out if you're referred or not. By the way, the NPS is a good uh

35:11
white paper and referral, you know, but but it tells you not just why you're referred, but what's the key driver? So,

35:16
you can do something about that. If I just get more clear, I'll be referred more. If I just show I care more about

35:23
the person, I'll get referred more. So you you get a little with only five questions that you can, you know, put on

35:30
the bottom of your receipt or send out to your millions of people, you can get credible data that shows you one thing

35:36
to do that can really solve for millions of dollars. Do you find ever that people are so

Focusing On Results Over Relationships/Trust

35:42
focused on the results over the relationships that they kind of think

35:47
building they say that they know building trust is important, but they choose to continue to not build trust and just focus on results. Do does that

35:54
happen or not so much? Of course. Next question.

36:00
What do they do with it then? Yeah. Yeah. I mean I mean the truth is we we it is a balance because there's

36:06
people that just focus on relationship and don't get anything done and there's people that focus on results too much

36:11
and they lose all their people. That's why in the research this eightpillar framework came out relatively co-equal

36:18
for gaining what we call a trust edge in the way that we defined high-erforming

36:23
positive impact. Okay? Because you know people that are trusted there's outliers like celebrities. They might be trusted

36:30
to be funny and engaging but you wouldn't want you know your spouse alone with them or whatever right? So they can

36:37
be trusted on certain things um on competency let's say only but not on

36:42
character or whatever but um but yes the highest performing are are look at all

36:49
of these and absolutely do focus on compassion and connection which is the

36:54
relationship pillars and also focus on contribution getting results. By the

37:00
way, it's really cool how these work together because um people that get too

37:07
relational focused only and don't have a vision forward of accomplishing

37:12
something great, we're actually made to do something to move something forward. It's like, you know, uh build trust and

37:20
do good. Do good and build the scripture. So, it's people want to do something together, but they want to be

37:25
connected. They want to link arms. They want to, you know. So anyway, all that to say that was maybe ambiguous for

37:31
someone who preaches on clarity, but anyway, there you go. That that's great. What do you think one question is that our listeners should be

One Question To Ask Yourself About Trust

37:38
asking today to help them just think through how they could build trust

37:43
better? Well, I gave you the p a personal one. Would you follow you? I give I'll give,

37:48
you know, another personal one maybe, but let me give you the one that we're asking every time we lead people in strategic planning in my offices. Every

37:56
quarter, we ask this question. What is a lack of trust costing you? Or what's a lack of trust costing your

38:02
team? Because my I do this yesterday. I did this with the biggest company of its kind with 800 top leaders of this tens

38:09
of thousands of people that you know in their company. But I said we we talk about that because if they can answer that question and we can solve for that

38:16
question, we are solving for the biggest cost in their organization and we're doing it with trust which is the only

38:21
way to really solve it. So someone says to me um what's a lack of trust costing? I think it might be um you know uh

38:29
efficiency here. We can look at that. Oh, I think it's the because you think about someone you don't trust, you got to check up on them. Check them. That's

38:35
a massive cost, right? Um oh, it's it's attrition, let's say. Well, how many of you, you know, lost someone you wanted

38:41
to keep? Okay, this many people. Okay. Well, let me tell you something. You lose someone you want to keep today, in

38:47
most industries, that's about three and a half times their salary. You're at millions of dollars so quickly, you

38:52
don't even know it. So if we can solve bleeding attrition of people we want to keep we want to solve that 100% people

38:59
move all these things but if we could solve that sum you'll save millions quickly. So that would you know it I

39:05
just want people to think about what's a lack of trust costing here and that if they can define that then

39:10
they can solve for that. Wow that is so good. I I love this. I reading through your material I've

39:17
learned so many good questions to start asking that have just made our team and me personally a lot better. So, thank

39:22
you for these and many more. Thank you so much, Chris. It's It's just great to be on with you and your

39:27
audience and uh you know, love it. I want to hit you with 10 rapid fire questions to close.

Ten Rapid-Fire Questions

39:33
Oh, I'm not ready. This was not preloaded. What if I don't have the answer? There is no wrong answer.

39:39
Here we go. Who's the first person you think of when I say servant leadership? My dad.

39:44
All right. Five words that most describe you. Five words. It's so hard when you talk

39:50
about yourself, right? But but what people say is high energy but really

39:58
authentic. Is that five or is that only two? We'll go with it. That's good.

40:04
People would say also hardworking. I still I like to work. I I I still have a hobby farm. Lisa says, you know, my

40:10
wife's like, "We lose a lot of money here. We got these rescue horses. We got all this stuff." I like, "Yes, but we raise kids, you So um anyway I think

40:18
hardworking I think generally positive um I I think I have a big care

40:25
my number one um strengthfinder is responsibility and I just can't like not keeping a

40:32
commitment that I say is incredibly like I I have to do it. I'll I've you know on the events I've done it's pretty

40:39
uncommon to have someone speak a hundred times a year about not miss an event in 26 years. Um I've been driven through

40:44
snowstorms. I've gotten flown in private jets when it cost me more than I was getting paid. I like I I said I would be

40:50
there, you know, and so um there's there's probably something someone would say about responsibility. There's

40:56
probably some other ones, you know, like that that's kind of on the positive side. So that's being a little unfair. Like there are plenty of things I I do

41:03
wrong. One of the top ones that comes to mind is impatient. Um I want to move forward. I I I regret and talk to my

41:11
kids about they're growing uh getting, you know, they're growing up and it's it's so fun to have more eyeball to

41:16
eyeball. I've got 16, 18, 20, 22. But I wasn't always the best listener and that

41:21
aches me because I I know better, but it's it's really work. Um so to be a

41:27
better listener for sure is a is a a progress point for me. Those are good. Favorite book or movie?

41:34
Well, it's a great question. I I think, you know, the Bible's one I'm in the

41:40
most, but I read a lot. I've read a lot of different ones lately. Uh let me see. I the um

41:46
a relentless uh some uh Attack of Hurry or something like that by Mark Homer. I

41:52
read recently. I read a different one on the other side that's about uh really it's about doing hard things, but it's way

41:58
different than that. It's the Yeah. Anyway, I'll give you but I'm going to just amplify a friend of mine who you've had on this show and that's excellence

42:04
wins. Hor Schultzy's work, the way he talks, the way he thinks. Um, I just align uh heavily with with who he is and

42:12
how he thinks and I really liked his book. And I mean, of course, for me, when you write your own books, outside

42:18
of any pitch of my books, um, Trust Edge changed my life when that became a Wall Street Journal bestseller from someone

42:23
who didn't know anything about how to market and trusted leader changed me again in a way. Trust matters, uh, daily. your own books. Um, of course I

42:32
think they're impactful to others, but they impact you when you spend a couple years with something. So, if you're going to say impact, um, outside of any

42:39
pitch to others, it because you're right, it it it changes you. Those are all good. And yeah, Ruthless

42:45
Elimination of Hurry by John Mark. I like that one a lot, too. Favorite food?

42:51
Ice cream. Is that a food? That's perfect. Favorite thing to do in your free time?

42:56
Flyfish. All right. What's a surprising fact about you? Left-handed.

43:02
Oh, love that. Favorite place you've been? Oh, that's too this work on I've done

43:10
this work on six continents. Um, love the, you know, people around the world. I I'll say some of our work in in East

43:17
Africa has been really special with the folks there. the ambassador, the president, the CEO, sorry, the the vice

43:23
president, parliament, some of the countries, the the senate majority leader of Kenya is certified in our work as far as being trusted, certified.

43:29
That's been special. But I'll give you a place here in the US like I'm always I'm surprised once in a while by event places or places I've gone and done

43:36
consulting or leadership teams. I was just at a place called the Cloister in uh Georgia on the beach there and it was

43:42
a really Lisa happened to be with and so there was there that was a special fun place right here in the US.

43:48
I love it. Where's somewhere you want to go that you have not been? Lisa and I want to go to Italy.

43:56
Lovely. I I many of my much of my work has been like you're a lot you're already going there. Okay, you're in this place do it

44:02
whatever. And uh we haven't done Italy. We al these are the common it's funny the common places that you know we've

44:08
been Bangkok and a you know all these India whatever but a lot of the places where most people just go for vacation

44:14
like if they try they you a lot of Americans might say Italy or Ireland. We haven't been either place. So, here we

44:19
go. All right. Best advice you've ever gotten. Well, I I think this is my own framed up

44:27
quote, but I I'm sure this came out of a lot of inspiration. So, it's it's it's

44:32
something that's in me and I seek to do and that is it's the little things done consistently that make the biggest

44:37
difference. I'm not overweight because I had too much this morning for breakfast. It's because I've had too many mocha lattes

44:44
over years or something. am not, you know, a good husband because I gave my wife a diamond ring or a dozen roses.

44:50
It's because of years of love hopefully, right? And it's the same with leadership. You share the vision at the annual meeting. That's one thing, but if

44:56
you're, you have to share it consistently if people are going to going to follow it. So, there's something there about consistency um

45:02
doing little things and few people do that today. It's just um I I'll tell you one more since you're on it if if we got

45:08
time and that is I think in scripture where it says um

45:14
I think it's it's Luke 8 where we are uh basically shriveling because of life's

45:21
worries and riches and pleasures. The seed that fell on the soil certain soil

45:26
it didn't grow because it was because of life's worries and riches and pleasures. And I think we worry more in America

45:31
than ever. I think we're richer than we've ever been. And I think um we seek

45:37
pleasure so much. I see people just pleasure, pleasure, pleasure. They're in their phone. They're playing some game

45:42
with fruit jumping around or whatever it is. And they seek pleasure and are addicted to pleasure and it's really

45:48
hurting them and hurting us. So maybe the the advice that I've been given and would give under that one would be input

45:53
equals output. What you put in comes out. And that's a scriptural truth, but it's also just a law of every science.

45:59
And so really be careful what you put in and what you get addicted to. Um because

46:05
if you want to have something that grows a hundred times, you have to put different input in the soil. Wow. All right, last one. Why is a

Importance Of A Podcast On Servant Leadership

46:11
podcast on servant leadership important?

46:16
Good. Because we need this kind of leadership today because servant leaders are leaders that are trusted.

Closing

46:21
Well, David, thank you so much. This has been amazing and we're going to make sure to put all of the things you talked about in the description for people to

46:28
go check out as well. Thank you, Chris. Appreciate it. Thank you for listening to this episode of the

46:34
Servant Leadership Podcast. If you enjoyed what you heard, please give it a thumbs up and leave a comment below.

46:40
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46:47
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