
Stephen M R Covey was at the conference to talk about trust.
As if anyone, now, doubted the importance of trust at the workplace! His formula that: where there is trust, speed increases and cost goes down and where there is a lack of trust, cost goes up and speed goes down is very clearly illustrated by the events of the last few months in the financial markets.
The audience poll which was carried out as Covey spoke was doubly interesting therefore. Virtually no organisations collect data on trust internally (76% said nothing is done). A few more do collect that data on external perceptions of trust. So while its critical importance is recognised. Nothing much is done to register the degree of trust or increase it.