On Trust: A Field Guide for Flourishing Teams
Fifteen essays on what actually earns belief — and the near enemies that only look like it.
Inside the book
This book is a collection of published essays on trust, which seems to be diminishing in our modern-day culture and society, and in our business cultures, where people are increasingly seeking trustworthy ground.
The opening essay is a story about two signs, both selling the same fresh corn — only one of them cost anything to make. That story became an essay. And that essay unearthed more of my own hard-won understanding about trust: in teams, in leaders, in the stories an organization tells about itself. Fifteen essays later, this is what I know about the difference between earning belief and merely performing it.
Trust is the social and emotional currency of all people and businesses deal in.
Without trust, your culture won’t experience engagement, inclusion, or belonging and your customers won’t be loyal. If you want an extraordinary company, you must know how to continually earn trust through your culture and brand.
Where On Trust Comes From
Drawn from 30 years of work in more than 375 organizations, including Qualcomm, Google, Coca-Cola, Samsung, and SDSU.
Why a Book On Trust Now?
Due to our current social challenges, how we decide to trust and who we trust, has shifted. The polish, once associated with effort and care, now inspires skepticism. Advice that sounds accurate or relevant infrequently takes root. Groups that appear aligned in a meeting room may be the least trusting behind closed doors.
In On Trust, I share fifteen essays written over years of being on the inside of organizations facing exactly these questions. How is trust built? How is it lost? What can leaders do to foster one and avoid the other before a crisis brings it to the surface?
This book explores the difference between what earns belief and what only pretends to be trustworthy.
In case we haven’t met, I’m Steven Morris — I’ve spent the last thirty years working as a consultant and coach inside more than 375 organizations, on the human work of helping culture, brand, and strategy hold together rather than come apart. Along the way, that work turned into two books, The Beautiful Business and The Evolved Brand, a podcast by the same name, and essays that found their way into Harvard Business Review, MEA’s Wisdom Well, the Rotman School of Business, and Retail Observer Magazine.