Refresh your trust-building and personal brand-building skills.

1. Building Extraordinary Trust
Into Your Everyday Life
John T. Perez, P.E.
President – Cognascents
02 March 2011
Houston Organization
Development Network
Leadership Is Your Competitive Advantage

2. John T. Perez, P.E.
Now:
1. Great wife and four enjoyable children
2. President of Cognascents – leadership, strategy, delivery excellence,
process safety consulting
3. Currently enrolled in Rice’s Executive MBA program
4. Member of Rice CHBE Alumni Advisory Board
5. Board member of neighborhood civic association
6. Active with Houston Livestock Show & Rodeo
Past:
1. B.S. Chemical Engineering – Rice University
2. Rohm & Haas – process engineer
3. Berwanger – process engineer / business development manager
4. Celerity3 Engineering – owner / PHA facilitator
5. Lloyd’s Register – President of Celerity3/Capstone
Leadership Is Your Competitive Advantage

3. Brand Loyalty?
1. Is there a brand you are loyal to?
2. What is the product?
3. Why are you loyal to the brand?
4. What would need to happen to break the
relationship?
Leadership Is Your Competitive Advantage

4. Brand loyalty
• What are these?
• What do they mean to
you?
• What feelings do they
evoke?
• Do you trust them?
• Are you a go-to brand?
1 Interbrand. “Best Global Brands 2010.” 2010 Rankings. http://www.interbrand.com/en/best-global-brands/best-global-brands-2008/best-
global-brands-2010.aspx.
Leadership Is Your Competitive Advantage

5. Guideposts
1. What is trust?
2. What is extraordinary trust?
3. Why is trust important?
4. How do you build it?
5. No really, how do you build it?
6. Key takeaways
Leadership Is Your Competitive Advantage

6. What is trust? Remember these?
Anything sound familiar?
• Person’s belief (not fact?)
• Cultivated over time
• Competence
• Reliability
• Consistency
• Relevance (value similarity)
• Honesty
• Benevolence
• Vulnerable to other’s actions
• Reasonable expectation for
another to behave/decide in
way beneficial to you
Leadership Is Your Competitive Advantage

7. What is extraordinary trust?
• Person’s belief (not fact?)
• Cultivated over time
• Competence
• Extraordinarily
• Reliability
stronger
• Consistency
•
•
•
Relevance (value similarity)
Honesty
Benevolence
+ • Seemingly perpetual
political capital
• Second nature
• Faith
• Vulnerable to other’s actions
• Reasonable expectation for
another to behave/decide in
way beneficial to you
Leadership Is Your Competitive Advantage

8. Why is trust important?
• Experience-based decision
rule that allows humans to
deal with complexities
requiring unrealistic rational
reasoning
• Makes social life predictable
(structure)
• Creates sense of community
(belonging)
• Makes it easier for people to
work together
• No hidden agendas
• No wasted time
Leadership Is Your Competitive Advantage

9. Trust and Leadership
Find the Wind™ Framework
1 Laying the keel
Knowing your center
2 Preserving the hull
Watertight integrity of your organization
3 Taking the helm
Setting and conveying the direction
3
4 Steering the boat
Align and motivate 6
5 Trimming the sails
Innovation and delivery excellence 5 4
6 Knowing who's on board
Relationships matter
1
2
Leadership Is Your Competitive Advantage

10. Trust and Your Organization
6 5
Represent
Innovation & Delivery
relationships Excellence
Marketplace Marketing & Sales
3
Strategy &
Communication
1 2
Self Leaders Organization
Flow of Traits, Values, & Culture-Setting
4 Flow of Alignment & Motivation
Leadership Is Your Competitive Advantage

11. How do you build trust?
1. Know your excellent self
2. Be your excellent self consistently
3. Make decisions using moral compass
4. Hold reasonable expectations of others
(assumes expectations are clearly defined)
5. Do not take advantage of others
6. Be honest, fair, competent
Leadership Is Your Competitive Advantage

12. How do you build it specifically?
1. Define your excellent self
2. Practice acting consistently authentic until it is a
habit
 Rigorous decision-making process
 Playscripting
 Role-playing
3. Instill structure and organization in all you do
4. Be ever-vigilant for trust breakdowns
Leadership Is Your Competitive Advantage

13. Define/Know Your Excellent Self
1. Identify your strengths and weaknesses
 Assessment (MBTI, Hogan, Birkman, Insights, 360°)
 Solicit input from friends and family
2. Identify core values/virtues
 Remember that values have some ethical component
 Do not confuse values with behaviors
 Write them down … verbalize them
3. Safeguard against existing/potential character flaws
 Document practical development action plan
 Establish checks on biases
 Be open to and ask for help in changing behavior
Leadership Is Your Competitive Advantage

14. Acting Consistently Authentic
1. Apply rigorous decision-making process
 Identify true problem
 Gather information
 Evaluate options and consequences of each
 Synthesize solution based on moral
responsibilities first
 Apply solution with integrity
2. Practice, practice, practice!
Leadership Is Your Competitive Advantage

15. Acting Consistently Authentic
1. Playscripting and Role-playing
 Imagine potential situations
 What do you see?
 Write down script of integrity and
process fairness
 Imagine the rest of the stage
 Write down play with cast and
characters
 What do others see?
 Dress rehearsal
2. Practice, practice, practice!
Leadership Is Your Competitive Advantage

16. Instill Structure and Organization
1. If you are out of
control, then your
behavior (i.e. decision-
making) will be out of
control and
inconsistent
2. Manage your time and
commitments
3. Don’t make promises
you can’t keep!
Leadership Is Your Competitive Advantage

17. Watch for Trust Breakdowns
1. Dial up your emotional
IQ and be aware of the
feelings around you
2. Engage your
organization
3. Genuinely listen
4. Is this activity a blind
spot? Then safeguard
it!
Leadership Is Your Competitive Advantage

18. Key takeaways
1. Trust is a must
2. Define your excellent self
3. Safeguard your blind spots
4. Don’t make lazy decisions
5. Playscript and role-play!
6. Instill structure and organization
7. Strive to be a go-to brand!
Leadership Is Your Competitive Advantage

19. Sources
1. Phillips, D.T. Lincoln On Leadership: Executive Strategies for Tough
Times. Business Plus, Hachette Book Group: 237 Park Avenue, New York,
NY 10017. Copyright © 1992.
2. Gentile, M.C. Giving Voice to Values: How to Speak Your Mind When You
Know What’s Right. Sheridan Books: Ann Arbor, Michigan. Copyright ©
2010.
3. Patterson, K. and J. Grenny, R. McMillan, A. Switzler. crucial
conversations: Tools for talking when stakes are high. McGraw-Hill: Two
Penn Plaza, New York, NY 10121-2298. Copyright © 2002.
4. Levine, M. et al. Lifescripts for Managers. Macmillan General Reference
USA: 1633 Broadway, New York, NY 10019-6785. Copyright © 1999.
5. Kolbell, E. Lifescripts for Family and Friends. Pocket Books: 1230 Avenue
of the Americas, New York, NY 10020. Copyright © 2002.
6. Jacobides, M.G. “Strategy Tools for a Shifting Landscape.” Harvard
Business Review: January-February 2010.
Leadership Is Your Competitive Advantage