Book Review: The Speed of Trust

Book Review: The Speed of Trust by Stephen M. R. Covey

Sometimes you read a book that you didn't know you needed to. This was that book for me.

For the past little while I've felt a growing discontent with the ethical part of myself. Yet I couldn't pinpoint what was wrong. This book helped me to see it. And the issue was trust. This excellent book shows how important trust is - trusting yourself and others. Though mostly a business/organizational book, I was most impressed with the personal application. To Covey, trust is a mix of two essential elements - character (or integrity) and competence (results). To truly trust yourself or someone else you need to have both. He gets much more technical then this, but I realized as I was reading that the reason I was losing "trust" in myself was that I was setting goals for myself and not achieving them (competence) as well as telling people I'd do things but not completing them (character). As such, my self-trust was quietly and slowly eroding. And of course I didn't feel good about it.

Covey's understanding of trust and why it is so important (saveing time/money by the way) was just what I needed to hear. He has very practical ideas on what he calls "smart trust" which helps to extend trust generously but carefully to others. I'm definitely going to read this book again . . . it's application is in every area of our lives. As spouses, parent's, employees, employers, board members, etc trust is necessary and makes life easier. As a Christ-follower I want to be someone who trusts wisely and joyfully. Highly recommended at 4.6 ninja stars out of 5.