The Decision to Trust How Leaders Create High-Trust Organizations

Globally we face an unprecedented crisis of trust. The numbers are sobering: just one in three Americans believes individuals can trust the government, big business, and large institutions, and in most countries, that figure is even worse. Yet high-performing, world-class companies are almost always high-trust environments. Without this elusive, important ingredient, companies cannot attract or retain top talent, and it is almost impossible to manage an organization well if its people do not trust one another. In this groundbreaking book, Robert Hurley reveals the Decision to Trust Model (DTM), a proven method for building trust based on Hurley's more than twenty years of research and hands-on work with individuals and teams at the world's top organizations. Step by step, Hurley explains how to create, measure, and repair trust, even in environments where change, uncertainty, and risk exist. This dynamic framework outlines the ten key factors, both personal and situational, that determine quite simply whether one person will trust another. By diagnosing these points of breakdown in trust, and offering ready solutions on how to repair them, anyone becomes better equipped to improve relationships with colleagues, managers, and employees. Through firsthand stories, Hurley shares how high-trust organizations-such as Daimler, Ernst & Young, PricewaterhouseCoopers, Microsoft, General Electric, Procter & Gamble, Johnson & Johnson, Whole Foods, Zappos, and others-have fostered trust to achieve top-notch productivity, profits, and influence. Covering trust building in teams, across functions, within organizations, and across national cultures, The Decision to Trust shows how smart leaders at all levels can improve trust and the bottom line-changing an organization's entire culture from one of suspicion to one of trust and inclusion.