Covey’s Speed of Trust 15: Behavior 9 & 10 for Wave 2

We continue our review of Stephen M. R. Covey’s book The Speed of Trust. Buy it! Study it!

Behaviors 9 and 10 complement each other. You build trust when you clarify expectations so that others cannot misunderstand them. Covey shares a story of a teenage daughter thinking she had cleaned her room. Her mother did not think so. The mother had not clarified her expectations about clean to her daughter. The author continues“You can practice accountability far better when you’ve clarified expectations first. It’s hard to hold someone accountable if they’re not clear on what the expectations are.”

Behavior 9: Clarify Expectations

Covey writes “Behavior #9—Clarify Expectations—is to create shared vision and agreement about what is to be done up front. This is one of those behaviors that people rarely pay enough attention to”

• “Clarify Expectations is based on the principles of clarity, responsibility, and accountability”
• “The opposite  is to leave expectations undefined—to assume they’re already  known or to fail to disclose them so there is no shared vision of the desired outcomes”
• “The counterfeit is to create ’smoke and mirrors’ –to give lip service to clarifying expectations, but fail to pin down the specifics that facilitate  meaningful accountability”
• Make clarify expectations work
  • “Quantify everything: What results? By whom? By when? At what cost? How will you measure it?”
  • “Look at three variables—quality, speed, and cost—and realize that you can usually pick any two, but not all three”
  • “It is much better to do it up front than to disappoint them later”

Behavior 10: Practice Accountability

Covey describes “There are two key dimensions to the Practice Accountability. The fist is to hold yourself accountable; the second is to hold others accountable. Leaders who generate trust do both.”

• “This behavior is  built on the principles of accountability, responsibility, stewardship, and ownership.”
• “The opposite of this behavior is to not take responsibility, to not own up, but to rather say, ‘It’s not my fault’”
• “Its counterfeit is to point fingers and blame others, to say, ‘It’s their fault”

Friday we analyze the 11th Behavior Listen First and the 12th Behavior Keep Commitments