Follow Up on Trust

I went to a conference whose keynote speaker was Stephen M.R. Covey, son of Franklin. He was out there selling his book, Speed of Trust, so I wasn't expecting much from the address. Here's a guy trying to hawk his books, using his relationship with a famous father to get him some sales. Meh. I decided to go primarily for the free breakfast.

Now I did meet some very interesting other conference attendees, but what I got out of it was that Covey ain't that bad in front of a crowd. And his book wasn't too bad either. There must be some dominant Covey gene.



Regardless, Speed of Trust is a good read and I would promote to anyone that they read it. One thing it discusses is how hard it is to build trust, and how easy it is to lose it. I don't remember succinctly, but I betcha there are words in there that sound very similar to the old sales guy adage:



It's easier to keep a client than to go find a new one.



I'm betting someone in the Speed of Trust is a chapter on how hard it is to re-establish trust after it's been lost. A few weeks back I wrote about this happening in my life. I wrote about Hakim and my friend AJ and a failed meeting. I also wrote about a friend who had undermined our long-standing trust so much that it was impossible to keep the friendship (see it all here).



I think of these things today because AJ wrote to me again today to ask how things went with Hakim. I told him, he failed to show up, failed to set up a second meeting, haven't heard from him since.



AJ wrote back that that was too bad cause Mohammad was a good guy and AJ was supposed to have helped set up the meeting. I don't have too much to say to that. I didn't even reply. The only reply that I might have would be, "Well, then AJ you didn't do a very good job. You two failed to make your own meeting, failed to set up another, and somehow are expecting me to do it all for you."



I've heard from several readers about this post since I posted it. Many of them have said I'm too harsh and too critical. That's a WHOLE other subject, but I found it interesting that AJ was expecting to just immediately be granted trust again, after that first failure. Speed of Trust, AJ, go read it. And recommend to Hakim that he read it too.