Russell von Frank - The Trust Factor: The Missing Key to Unlocking Business and Personal Success

The Trust Factor

The Trust Factor

The Missing Key to Unlocking Business and Personal Success

Russell J. von Frank II

The Trust Factor: The Missing Key to Unlocking Business and Personal Success

Copyright Business Expert Press, LLC, 2020.

Cover and interior design by Exeter Premedia Services Private Ltd., Chennai, India

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any meanselectronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or any other except for brief quotations, not to exceed 400 words, without the prior permission of the publisher.

First published in 2020 by

Business Expert Press, LLC

222 East 46th Street, New York, NY 10017

www.businessexpertpress.com

ISBN-13: 978-1-95253-872-8 (paperback)

ISBN-13: 978-1-95253-873-5 (e-book)

Business Expert Press Business Career Development Collection

Collection ISSN: 2642-2123 (print)

Collection ISSN: 2642-2131 (electronic)

First edition: 2020

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Printed in the United States of America.

This book is dedicated to my wife Lisa whose encouragement and support over so many years inspired me to get this book finished. She is a true partner in every sense of the word, no man could want more. Most importantly she has shown me how trust can heal my wounded heart and make it grow far beyond that I could have ever imagined.

Abstract

The business world is changing rapidly externally and internally. Older forms of traditional corporate capitalism are being replaced with social capitalistic businesses. Traditional generations of employees are aging out of the workforce and being replaced by Gen X, Gen Y, Millennials, Gen Z, and now Gen Alpha. Each new generation is becoming less tolerant of the old school office environment. They want something new that provides a sense of connectedness, collaboration, and appreciation. That type of culture requires a solid foundation of trust to work effectively. Unfortunately, employee trust of leadership has sunk to an all-time low. Almost two-thirds of employees have little or no trust in management.

This book is designed to be a practical guide, resource, and workbook for CEOs, executives, managers, and employees to understand how trust is formed, where trust issues begin, why they are held on to, and how to work through them. Ultimately, the goal is to learn to effectively build a culture of trust within your business. Why, because all businesses have one thing in commonemployees. They are people first, and workers second. They can no more separate from their personal issues and baggage when they come to work than you can separate your soul and your body. All their trust issues come with them and they dont check them at the door when they arrive at work. The lost productivity, impact on work environment, and general quality of life are immeasurable.

Trust is the very foundation upon which working and personal relationships are made and conducted. Without trust, nothing of importance happens. Trust is as personal as your fingerprints, so it is no wonder why building and sustaining trust in the workplace has been difficult to accomplish. Instead, it is easier to assume trust exists and everyone should act accordingly. This leads to miscommunications, unrealized expectations, lost efficiencies, hurt feelings, resentments, frustrations, and betrayals of assumed trust. All these negative feelings obstruct the ability of your workforce to work together and the cost to your bottom line is monumental. This book is designed to change all that.

Russ von Frank, MBA, EMT, is CEO, author, executive coach, trainer, speaker, and business consultant. Starting off as a Third Officer in the U.S. Merchant Marine and Ensign in the U.S. Navy Reserve, he went on to be a third-generation CEO of his family business. After 25 years he merged that business with another to spend more time on executive coaching and business consulting. Over 20 years he has logged in over 10,000 hours of coaching and consulting businesses of all sizes and industries. He holds two Bachelor of Science degrees, an MBA in Organizational Development, and several coaching certifications.

Keywords

betrayal; coaching; competence; confidence; conversation; core values; culture; emotional intelligence; empowerment; failure; forgiveness; growth; heartmath; integrity; leadership; positive intelligence; profitability; relationship; social capitalism; stakeholders; success; trust; trustworthy; vulnerability

Contents

I believe trust is what binds us together as people, as husbands, wives, children, parents, friends, and all those who touch our life in one way or another. This book has been 20 years in the making, through a lot of iterations as each person in turn has added value to the work.

This book would not have been possible if not for the encouragement, guidance, suggestions, honest feedback, and those who have listened to me talk about this concept over and over again.

To my daughter Samm who trusted me at a very young age to be her second dad without hesitation. There is nothing like the vulnerability of a child to help teach trust at the deepest levels.

Thank you to the TEC/Vistage coaches I have met along the way. I have learned so much from you and been inspired to be the best coach I can be. To Hal Cherney, Rick Martin, and Ole Carlson for putting my feet squarely on the coaching path. Ole, I just want you to know have learned to sing a different tune.

To the late Judith E. Glaser, her We Institute, Ben Croft, and the entire WBECS team for creating the Conversational Intelligence Certification program and most importantly to Judith for writing her book which brought so many great people together.

To my original Conversational Intelligence (C-IQ) cohort, Gail Basaraba, Wendy Eustace, and Ute Franzen-Waschke for your ideas and encouragement as I worked out my ideas. To my second C-IQ cohort, Trudy Ames, Ken Buch, Patricia Gifford, John Loche, Tammy Rowland, Elizabeth Ruppe, Christine Trani, and Stephane Wachman as I labored to pull my different thoughts together. I look forward to our next adventure together with Positive Intelligence Thanks to all of you for listening over the past couple of years and encouraging me to keep writing. I value our time together and the opportunity to learn from all of you on a regular basis.

To my fellow C-IQ compatriots Ute Franzen-Waschke and Anita Edvinsson. Ute introduced me to Anita, and Anita introduced me to her publisher Rob Zwettler, Executive Acquisitions Editor at Business Expert Press. My thanks to Rob and his team who thought enough of my idea to agree to publish my book.

To Steve Ramerini and Compelceos for a place to work with CEOs on their businesses and Compel member Rakesh Bhargava who over a decade ago got me to agree in writing to write my book, Ive never forgotten.

To John DeLalio and Keith Parker for their thoughts, comments, and suggestions to make this a better book. I am immensely grateful for your insight and experience.

To my clients and fellow coaches who have been willing to share their stories and bring depth to the examples I used to illustrate the points I wanted to get across to the reader. Your generosity and help has been overwhelming.

If so many business leaders, experts, and researches all agree on the importance of trust to the bottom line and quality of life in the workplace, why does distrust continue to grow? In 2006, Steven M.R. Covey wrote a best-selling book called