Trust Matters More Than Ever: With David Horsager [Podcast]

Posted on November 13, 2024 by Kayleigh / 0 comments
Share via

Dr. Nathan Regier, your host, welcomes Dr. David Horsager, CEO of the Trust Edge Leadership Institute and inventor of the Enterprise Trust Index. He is also the director of a global study, The Trust Outlook, a Wall Street Journal best-selling author, and a senior fellow at Indiana Wesleyan University. David not only has a unique perspective on trust but also defines, measures, and teaches it through a practical, relevant, and actionable framework. Listen to this episode to discover why David defines trust as a strategic asset and why trust matters.

What’s In This Episode

  • How did David get into the field of trust research?
  • Why is trust so important? What does the research say?
  • What are the eight pillars of trust?
  • Are there individual or situational differences in how people experience trust?
  • What is the relationship between conflict and trust?
  • How do trust and Compassionate Accountability work together?
  • Why is trust more deeply personal right now than ever before?
  • Is it better to be trusted or trustworthy?
  • What’s going on with trust in politics?
  • What’s the scoop on David’s new book, Trust Matters More Than Ever?

Watch The Video

Listen To The Audio

Read The Transcript

Nate Regier: 

Hello, I am Nate Regier, your host for the Compassionate Accountability® Podcast. I’m the Founder and CEO of Next Element, a global consulting and training firm helping organizations transform their cultures with Compassionate Accountability. I’m the author of four books about compassion at work, including my new book, Compassionate Accountability: How Leaders Build Connection and Get Results. Thank you for joining me and I hope you’ll implement the tips and tools featured in this show. If you benefit from my podcast, please subscribe, rate, and review to help us reach more listeners. Also, be sure to visit our website at next-element.com, where you can learn about all the work we do as well as find all our previous podcast episodes.

I’m certain that this conversation is going to hit a chord with many listeners. The topic is so relevant. I first heard my guest speak last year at the annual business retreat of the Association of Learning Providers. I was really impressed by his perspective on trust – how he defines, measures, and teaches trust. His framework is practical, relevant, and actionable, and it’s so aligned with our Compassionate Accountability philosophy. I wanted to dive deeper in a podcast conversation. So, here we are. Dr. David Horsager is the CEO of Trust Edge Leadership Institute and inventor of the Enterprise Trust Index. He’s the director of a global study, The Trust Outlook, a Wall Street Journal bestselling author, and a senior fellow at Indiana Wesleyan University.

David has advised leaders and shared his framework with organizations ranging from Delta Air Lines, McDonald’s, FedEx, and Toyota to the New York Yankees, Walmart, Zoom, MIT, and global governments. David asserts that trust is not a soft concept, it’s a strategic asset. Leaders who have prioritized trust create thriving environments where innovation and collaboration flourish. This fall, David is launching a new book, Trust Matters More Than Ever. So, what a great time to connect up with this expert on the topic of trust. David, welcome to the Compassionate Accountability Podcast.

Dr. David Horsager:

Hey, thanks so much, Nate. Great to be with you.

Nate Regier:

I remember when we first met, it was at ISA, the Association of Learning Providers, and I heard you speak and was just so impressed and wanted to learn more. Once we got to talk, I think it was in one of the lines for a meal or the bar or something. We got to talk and you were so gracious to agree to come on to talk about trust, which is a big issue I think for a lot of my listeners, definitely for us. So, I would be curious, would you share a little bit about how did you get into the field of trust itself? What’s your journey to get here?

Dr. David Horsager:

Wow. I’d been director of a youth and family organization for a little while, and then in 1999, Lisa and I started our first business. I’d built some leadership curriculum down there, really think of college students and senior hires and stuff. I was doing this content that I’d built and some companies were interested in it and whatever. And the US Coast Guard Academy, the commanding officer said, “We want this there and that kind of thing.” That was early 1999, 2000. We started on a shoestring by the way. We moved back to Minnesota, $1.40 to our name. By that time, we threw everything we had into this company. We lived in the basement of an older lady’s home, black mold, no windows, bathroom or kitchen.

We’d go three flights up to share her bathroom in the middle of the night if we had to. So, it was pretty crazy. But I said, keep expenses low, and that’s where we started this for two years. But basically, about not too long after, I was dealing with this company, I was at this conference. I still remember where I was, the Loews Resort in Arizona, one of the places. I just remember being outside thinking the problem they think they’re having is not the real problem. They’re not following the leader because they don’t trust them. Then I started thinking about a sales issue. They’re not buying because people don’t trust the product or the person. Innovation isn’t happening on this team because they don’t trust each other, so they won’t share ideas.

Learning isn’t happening in this classroom because they don’t trust the content or the professor or the psychological safety or trust. So, that was intuitive first, but that’s what tipped me to start seeing this from trust… I think that’s a trust issue. I think that’s a trust issue. I actually don’t think that’s a leadership, a communication, a sales, whatever issue at the core. I think it’s a trust issue.

That led to my grad work and there was very little research at the time on trust in leadership in these kinds of spaces, but that’s the start, was like I cared about leadership and development and culture and efficiency and productivity. I started to see it actually at the core. I’m more convinced of this than ever, the core issue actually is always a trust issue and trust is always the leading indicator.

Nate Regier:

Well, so you just started seeing a pattern and wondering about it and started focusing on it. Later I want to ask you about your research because that’s something that’s been really important to you.

Dr. David Horsager:

Very.

Nate Regier:

You’re really committed to that. So, you started seeing that maybe trust is what’s going on here. What is it about trust that is so important?

Dr. David Horsager:

Well, I think depending on who you are, basically, it’s a leading indicator of everything. So, if I want to increase sales, I have to increase trust. If I want to increase referrals, I can’t just increase referrals, I have to increase trust. That’s what gets more referrals. Engagement actually isn’t at the core of engagement problem. If I want more engagement, I have to not get more engagement. I have to increase trust. That gets more engagement. Let’s take a marketing message. If I want to amplify a marketing message, there’s only one way I have to get people to trust the message more. How will I do that? That’s the framework we built and all that thing. But basically, I think people have to see how it’s the root cause.

So, in business, and I’ve been fortunate to have people say they use this to triple their sales in 90 days. I’ve had the Admiral of the Navy say it helped them drop suicide rates. I’ve had people say they gained 11% market share in a year, which is a big Fortune 50 company. I had engagements, of course, go up. But the one thing they have to see is how trust is the root issue, how a lack of trust really is their biggest expense. I think I said it on stage that day, but think of a simple idea. It’s like a lock. Why would I put a lock on anything? Because I don’t trust, right? So what’s the cost? Well, I got to buy the lock, but the biggest cost is time. Now, I got to open it every time I go through the gate, I’ve got to deal with that.

That’s the same with people. If you’re a parent like I am of teenagers and your kids are going out Friday night with friends they trust, oh, that feels great. They’re going out friends they don’t trust, that is the biggest stress you have as a parent. Same in a business. I got a team member. They got my back. I trust them. They’re going to deliver on this. I got someone I don’t trust, the biggest stress you have at work.

Nate Regier:

Well, you used this word leading indicator, and that really I think taps into my business economic mind. It’s like we’re always looking for leading indicators because those are things that we can influence that pay off down the road. You’ve also talked about trust as a currency of strong relationships. Will you explain that?

Dr. David Horsager:

Well, financially, you can think about this, first of all, in a simple form, like a score. What am I thinking now if I’m getting a mortgage? Your credit score.

Nate Regier:

Credit score.

Dr. David Horsager:

Yeah, your credit score. That’s really a trust score, right? You’re paying based on the trust. Oh, look at your credit score. Oh, you don’t pay on time. This doesn’t happen. So, you have to pay more, right? But when you have a high credit score, you have, in essence, a high trust score, and you pay less. That’s the same financially and everywhere. Jumping back, my mind’s going all over here, but the leading indicator thing we found trust was the leading indicator, not just to time, not just to cost, but it was the leading indicator of productivity. It was the leading indicator of efficiency. In schools, it was the leading indicator of classroom management and a host of things.

Nate Regier:

Okay. Well, if it’s a leading indicator, you’re likening it to a measurable credit score. So, I’m guessing that you have come to believe that trust is measurable. Can you measure trust?

Dr. David Horsager:

Absolutely. Yes, you can measure trust.

Nate Regier:

How do you do it?

Dr. David Horsager:

So in technical terms, we have six tools that we use, but they measure against them. So, we have Enterprise Trust Index that competes with engagement survey or a team trust assessment, self-assessment, and all these diagnostics to measure trust and close gaps against the framework. But basically, in my grad work and research, the first half was proving out how a lack of trust is the biggest expense of a company and organization, some of the things we talked – about a leading indicator. But that begs the question in research. The second half was then, well, if it’s so important, how do you actually build it? So is it just integrity like I thought or character or whatever I thought a long time ago? There’s a lot.

Back when I was talking about trust, very few people were talking about trust and leadership in this world and there’s a few bigger names that didn’t do as much research around it, but very, very few. Now, all that’s changed and the last five years everybody’s been talking about trust with and mostly without research. So, you have someone saying, “Well, trust is transparency.” Well, that’s not true. There’s an expert that says that today, and it’s not the full answer because some of your kids are so transparent on social media. I don’t trust them for a second, because confidentiality is also trusted. So, we had to define trust. We had to come up with a definition, but then in the how part, we had to ask how really is trust built?

So in my grad work, that’s what started this is first of all, in grad work, you do research of research what’s out there, and then you start looking at a model and what actually builds trust. So, there’s something we call the eight-pillar framework. I know it’s a lot. It’s like, “Oh, why do you have to have so many?” Well, it came out of the research, otherwise it would’ve had three points and a poem, but it’s this way. So, it’s these eight things that we measure trust against. That was just a couple years ago, revalidated by Social Research Lab out in Northern Colorado. That framework of that is how trust is built. I believe without, I hope, ego, but a lot of research that this is how trust is built globally.

It’s how trust is built across everything that we’ve worked with from the New York Yankees to FedEx to Penn State to Delta or whatever. So, it is very solid. That doesn’t mean we don’t contextualize it for a situation or a people group or a part of the world or if we’re trying to increase trust in sales compared to policing issues or corruption issues in East Africa or whatever. But we measure it all against this eight-pillar framework and then we had to find valid questions that would measure those eight pillars.

Nate Regier:

Well, I want to talk about that because these eight pillars come from your book, The Trust Edge. Of course, anyone who works in leadership development, culture change, trust is going to be a big thing. We’ve noticed, as you probably have, everybody has different definitions of trust. They’re personal, they’re individualized. What we have noticed is it all comes down to basically two questions. Here’s what we’ve discovered is people either want to have this question answered, “am I safe with you?” Or they want to have this question answered, “can I count on you?” So of course, it’s not that simple, but we’ve noticed that people really gravitate to one or the other pretty significantly.

So, I went and looked at the Trust Edge, looked at your eight pillars, and what I noticed is that of those eight pillars, two of them clearly speak to the question of, “Am I safe with you?”, compassion and connection. Six of them clearly speak to the issue of, “Can I count on you?”, about follow through, integrity, consistency, those kinds of things. So, I’m curious, have you seen any differences, individual differences in how trust is experienced or maybe which of these eight pillars tend to be more important to some people?

Dr. David Horsager:

Well, you could say some people as far as which are more important, first of all, they do start with Cs as you know. But the one caution I would give people, to use another C word, is that they’re not this list for a pastor and a sermon-like to make it all Cs here. That does make them memorable, but they all represent a very important research funnel. They’re really important and they were different enough even though there’s overlap. So, that’s important. So, are some more important to certain people or situations? Certainly. So, for example, to have what we call the trust edge or be truly a trusted leader in the way we define it, you need all eight, but I might want to make sure my pilot has a very high competency pillar.

I can trust them for their competency and capability. I might care a little bit less about their compassion pillar, how much they care about me. On the other hand, my babysitter of my kids, I might want to make sure they have a high compassion and a high character pillar, but I may not care quite as much about clarity or something, competency even in certain ways. So, certainly situationally, we might start in certain places and this is why we measure it to close certain gaps or certain people, we might look to having a higher pillar in a certain way than others.

Nate Regier:

Well, okay, so let’s talk about the airline thing. I’m going off script here. So, the other day, I don’t remember what airport I was leaving, can’t keep track, and we taxied and taxied and taxied and taxied. There was no information coming from the pilots or nothing. We’re all beginning to wonder what’s going on, what’s going on. Finally, we’re thinking we’re about to arrive at our destination, but by ground because we’ve taxied so long and we start seeing the same things going by like Flintstones opening thing. Finally, the pilot comes on and says, “Well, because of the storms, we are going to have to fly a longer route. So, we got to go back to the gate and refuel so that we have enough.” I’m thinking, “Okay, competency, they’re following their whatever.”

Here’s what was lacking though. Never in the whole time did we feel like they cared about our experience of being in that seat. I can see now how yes, we want the competency pillar, but my goodness, if they would’ve just had a little empathy and said something like, “We appreciate. I know it’s getting hot and here’s why we’re doing this. Thank you so much for hanging out with us,” whatever. Airlines like maybe Southwest, they get these really high ratings. Maybe it’s because they have more of the pillars.

Dr. David Horsager:

Well, and I think that’s going to change for Southwest unfortunately after 32 years with the changes they’re making. So, empathy for us falls under the compassion pillar. You know compassion as well as anyone. This is a core to trust. We have to feel cared about. So, by the way, I wanted to just see how they overlap. So, clarity, if they were clear, that’s showing care, showing what’s happening. Empathy, I might say, if a pilot would just say for instance, in that moment, we know trust would go up if they would say something like this. “Hey, I bet it’s hot back there. I know you have places to go. I know this is not how you wanted to spend a half an hour or an hour. We are really sorry this is happening, but the weather is happening there. We want to keep you safe even over keeping you all happy. So, we have to do that.”

That would also be clarity too. These fit together. I’m being clear about what’s happening. I mean, gosh, compassion, and it’s hard work to build trust. So, each of these pillars, another pillar is consistency, right? So let’s just take clarity first. We could say, “Hey, a leader might not be trusted if they’re not clear about the vision. A manager might not be trusted if they’re not clear about the expectations. A salesperson might not be trusted if they’re not clear about the benefits of the product, right? A teacher might not be trusted if they’re not clear about the assignment, even if they’re really compassionate.” So we get it clear.

But if I’m not consistent, if I share the vision today, but I don’t share it every 21 days maybe in this world, they just lost clarity. As I often say, just to get to the leading indicator thing, the piece, these eight pillars by the way are, I believe, really core to the issue to solve things. If people would drill down one more level from what they’re thinking to these, they’d actually solve the real things. As an example, we can say, we got a leadership issue. No, it’s one of these.

David, you love C words. I bet it’s a communication issue. Actually, at the court, it’s not. Communication is happening all the time. Of course, I know what people mean and I honor that, but it’s clear communication or it’s compassionate communication from that pilot or it’s committed or it’s consistent or it’s competent, right? Incompetent. Yeah.

Nate Regier:

Yeah. Well, I’m going to throw a couple more C words in here. I love them. I love them. So, listeners on my podcast or people that know me know that Compassionate Accountability is our thing, and it’s really the strategic practice of building connections and at the same time getting results, not doing one or the other. So, for example, not doing compassion, but at the expense of consistency or clarity. One of the things we notice is these things don’t have to be in tension. You don’t have to pick one over the other. We’ve noticed, I want to talk about conflict, that’s the other C, is that trust and conflict go so close together. One of the things we’re noticing is that conflict is often the bridge between compassion and accountability, both important in trust.

And we’re starting to wonder which comes first, trust or conflict, or how are they related? That’s something we’ve been playing with a lot. So, I’m curious, what is your view on the relationship between trust and conflict?

Dr. David Horsager:

Well, I think there’s a couple things. One, as we often say, there’s poisonous conflict that deteriorates trust and there’s healthy conflict. Or there’s a truth that in conflict you can increase trust faster than almost any other time in the way you deal with it. So, by the way, I’m curious about how you deal with this because as you know, accountability, so we say this all the time, at least when I go into organizations and I want to ask your advice here. We see a problem of no accountability or poisonous accountability and we say you can’t have a healthy organization without healthy accountability, but that’s Compassionate Accountability.

Nate Regier:

Well, I’m with you because we say compassion without accountability gets you nowhere and accountability without compassion gets you alienated. You are not compassionate if you’re not doing accountability, but you’re also just doing toxic conflict when you don’t have compassion mixed in. So, I think we’re on the same page.

Dr. David Horsager:

So true.

Nate Regier:

I love what you said about conflict, when we are in conflict is this incredible opportunity to build trust or break trust, and it’s all in how we do the conflict and whether we’re going to… Yeah.

Dr. David Horsager:

Well, and I think another thing about conflict, that’s exactly right. So, you can build trust faster in crisis than any other time, which is like in conflict. When George W. Bush was the most trusted, his scores were the highest, his ratings the week after 9/11, how he responded to crisis. That’s in a mini way conflict in an office space. Oh, we got this big tension, how I respond in this tough situation when someone threw a clipboard across the boardroom or yelled or whatever. So, everything gets sped up and gets amplified in those times.

Another thing is it’s the type of conflict, because I wish I had this because I hate to give stats without being able to back up exactly where they came from, but I believe I read this that 70% of conflict according to one study is due to a lack of clarity. So, if we had clarity, we wouldn’t have that conflict. I’m not positive about that. The other type, of course, of unhealthy conflict is generally… Oh, what did I read? It was almost politics, office politic dynamic stuff, right? There was a different phrase for it.

Nate Regier:

We call it drama. We call drama the misuse of conflict energy to feel justified instead of be effective. So, again, the Trust Edge is where people can go. Listeners go to learn about the eight pillars of trust, some really great groundbreaking work. You are a trust researcher too at heart. I went back and looked, you’ve been publishing an annual trust outlook report since like 2017, right?

Dr. David Horsager:

That’s when it went annual. Of course, I did research way before that back to 2005 or earlier, around 2005, 2006, 2007. Then we did put one out that I don’t think we put on the site, but a very significant one in 2014 as well. We called it trust trends back then, but yes, we put an annual study in the new way under trust outlook.

Nate Regier:

So what’s new? What are you finding this past year?

Dr. David Horsager:

Well, I think one thing that’s interesting maybe is that trust is more personal than it’s been in a long time. So, I think with the change of AI and deep fakes and all these things, we want to touch it, feel it, see it, taste it, be in person with it. So, that’s one interesting finding is that institutional trust has tanked. We don’t trust government. We don’t trust big business. We don’t trust media. We don’t trust all these things nearly as much as we used to. I often say the history of trust in a nutshell is a long, long time ago, we didn’t trust for two reasons. I didn’t know you, you’re from that mountain over on that side of the world, or because do know you. You’re my brother, and I saw how you act, right?

Nate Regier:

Yeah, I know.

Dr. David Horsager:

But it was personal and then it became institutionalized. That was a good thing because in institutions, things are slower moving. So, you could trust the government and have one bad apple, trust the education system and have one bad teacher. But now in the ’60s, ’70s in America, institutional trust tanked a load. So, now then we went to distributed trust, of course, blockchain, Uber, and that kind of thing.

There’s a big divide that we still trust those Lyft and that kind of thing, but we also have divided off. We want it personal because we don’t know through any media almost what can we trust. We don’t know to trust Google reviews. Are they true or not? Are they paid for? So I think that’s one takeaway of many for our world, is that trust is going to be more personal. The more personal you can be, even if it’s through some technology, the better and more trusted you’ll be.

Nate Regier:

Oh, thank you for sharing that. That’s probably a good time to mention your new book. For those of you that are listening to this podcast, right when it comes out, you are on launch week of your new book called Trust Matters More Than Ever. There it is. You got some advanced copies already?

Dr. David Horsager:

I got an advanced copy. I’ll tell you, I’m so proud of this. It’s pre-sold more copies than all my other ones did. It still has the eight pillars. It comes to do a quick review and then it gives 40 tools. These are the tools that our certifieds pay thousands of dollars to use and apply. We just put it all in one book. We felt like we had to do it, 40 proven tools to lead better, grow faster, and build trust now. It’s just so actionable and you can see this.

I know some of your people will be listening, but the beauty and just cool factor of this book, it’s unlike any other business book. I’m wondering if I can show it here if people are watching it all, but the counter forces wheel, it’s just really beautifully usable and tactical, so easy for the reader or non-reader to act on. So, those tools all come under the eight-pillar framework.

Nate Regier:

Wow. So, this is a combination of all of your work, all your research. You’re sharing the latest, greatest, and doing something else thatI,  I don’t know if this is a trust thing or not, but I’m really partial to books that are practical, pragmatic. A little bit of theory and research is great, but really the credibility comes in is, “Can I use it? Does it work? Does it make sense for me?” It sounds like that’s really where you’re bringing this.

Dr. David Horsager:

This one is really practical. Our publisher even said that people don’t want to read much anymore, and it’s all of us. It’s so cool. It’s cool to touch. It’s got a ribbon in it and everything. People that know us, our brand, it’s trusted. So, everything they touch around here has to feel beautiful and expensive, even if they pay less. So, it’s hardcover, like all the other books, but it’s differently made. If you touch the embossing, it’s really cool too.

Nate Regier:

Oh, I hear you. I hear you. Yeah, go ahead.

Dr. David Horsager:

No, but it’s also really usable. It’s got the tools that are all listed for each section and it’s got an index in the back, funny enough that says… Oh, something you talked about. Okay, we have, “Conflicts getting in the way of our work.” Page 87, the pause conflict model. “We don’t know how to accomplish our goals.” Page 66, the number nine, 90-day quick plan. “Our culture is deteriorating,” 10-step process for organizations of character or our model for giving feedback or our six-step accountability framework, which probably aligns with a lot of what you’re doing, 10 steps to rebuild trust if you’ve ever broken trust, which many of us have.

Nate Regier:

So practical. So, practical. To be able to find the things you want based on what am I facing right now, well, there’s something else that happens in November.

Dr. David Horsager:

There is.

Nate Regier:

There is, and we are in an election year. My guess is if somebody listens to this podcast a year from now, we’re still going to be talking politics. So, I’m curious, do you have any comments, observations? What’s going on with trust right now during this… What are you seeing?

Dr. David Horsager:

Well, some listeners might not know, but one of the boards I serve on is Citizens for the American Majority. That is I’m the only non-governor or house or senator that is invited to be on that night flight to DC at least five times a year for that, bring together Republicans and Democrats. Number one, I would say there’s some hope. That is, believe it or not, there are Republicans and Democrats that want to work together. The problem is they aren’t the ones you see on Fox or MSNBC that are trying to get their face on it or be extreme. They’re trying and wanting to work together. So, that’s one thing. Number two, there’s some significant challenges of how our government and country has de-incentivized trust.

So, 100 years ago, a Republican and Democrat senator from California would duke it out on the floor and then get on a train and eat every night together back to California. They never touch or see each other today in fact. In the Capitol, there’s a deli for Republicans and deli for Democrats. In January when the new house members come in, I couldn’t believe this, but you’ll go for this orientation. Then the lady that in this case I’m thinking of, they said, “Okay, Republicans, you guys go ahead and get on the red bus and go back to your hotel. Democrats, get on the blue bus, go back to your hotel.” They don’t even sit together and talk. There’s de-incentivization of humanizing, of just seeing each other as human. That’s a big problem.

Nate Regier:

At the same time that you’re saying that trust is becoming more personal than ever.

Dr. David Horsager:

Right, huge problem. There’s a load of problems I could talk about from an inside perspective. I mean this can get to be a political battle, which they shouldn’t all be, but term limits are a problem I think in some ways. I mean, I think that de-incentivizes building trust to get the right thing done. Now, for example, right now, one of the big problems is Social Security, which even though people from the outside say, “Well, we can just go in greater and greater and greater debt. I don’t even get it. We’re $35 trillion in debt.”

The truth is it will run out. It does have an end point and there is a big problem there. People know that in the House and they won’t do it because they will not get voted on next term. So, their selfishness is a problem. There’s clarity. I could go through the pillars. Clarity, I think about 80 years ago, the average bill went through Congress with something like two and a half pages. People understood it. Today, it’s over 1,500 pages per bill. They have not read the whole bill. They don’t even understand what’s in it. So, they’re voting for things they don’t understand. So, I mean, there you go. You want 50 more ideas.

Nate Regier:

That’s good. No.

Dr. David Horsager:

But another thing is the amplification of fundraising, the need for fundraising. That freshman Senator that comes in, believe it or not, some of your US Senators are sleeping on the floor in their office space to save money and to fundraise from day one. It’s crazy what’s happening. They either are at the house or they’re fundraising, instead of ever connecting or building relationship across the aisle. So, there’s a load of other challenges. I’m proud of the work that CAM is doing. No Labels. There’s some other people that are trying to bring people together. People have lots of things to say about those, but I look for places where we’re trying to do what’s right and bring people together.

By the way, I have hope because I’ve seen it happen. I remember in a little bit of a front row seat, I can’t take any credit for this, but I’ve got to speak there several times and work with Kenya. When President Kenyatta and opposition, Raila Odinga came together, I mean nobody thought they would ever shake hands or come together. It happens and it can happen. We need it to happen and we need to do what we can as Americans to bring people together if you’re from here.

Nate Regier:

Wow. Excuse me, there’s something in my throat. I appreciate not only how much you care, but also that you’re in there in the trenches offering these tips and being a resource. Glad you’re there because we need it. So, we could go in a lot of different directions here, but I’m curious as we try to land this thing, is there anything that’s on your heart, on your mind right now that you want people to know and appreciate and understand about trust?

Dr. David Horsager:

Well, I am as passionate about this work as I ever have been. On one way, you could say, “Well, I saw the research.” On another way, you could say, “Well, I saw the Admiral say we are dropping suicide rates here,” or “We’ve tripled sales here,” or “We increased engagement scores there.” Of course, those amplify your belief in something when you see something work, when you see it do these things. But I saw it change me. It’s changed me as a leader, as a dad. I’ve seen it change frontline people to me. So, I’m passionate about this. I’m as passionate as I’ve ever been. People say, “David, when are you going to talk about something else? We need to research something else. I mean, you talk about trust forever.”

Never. I’m so into this now. There’s always new to it. I’m in the learning and development space that you know are speaking about the same thing they were 20 years ago, but they’re saying the same things they were 20 years ago too. They’re not fresh and that kind of thing. So, I’m as passionate about this as ever. Maybe if I was going to push people about something… Well, I’ll let you, it looked like you were going to ask another question. I have two other thoughts.

Nate Regier:

It’s so great. It’s so great. As you’re talking, I’m just thinking often we’ll ask people, so what does it take for you to trust someone? Invariably, people will only describe behaviors or qualities of someone else. They never talk about themselves. They never talk about, “Well, here’s what I would need to do or how I would need to be to trust someone or to be trustworthy.” It’s always trust is something someone else has to do for me. I’m just curious, what’s your view on that? Because you just said trust starts, it changes me. I’m the one that’s changed.

Dr. David Horsager:

Yes. Well, I don’t know. This is pretty interesting. I was speaking not too long ago to an event, and this has happened multiple times, but I’m thinking about this event in Vegas with a couple thousand people. It’s a pretty big event. I was keynote with Serena Williams and some other big name. I was in the back afterwards and people are buying books and sometimes they have me sign books. So, I stand there and I’m happy to meet people on whatever. I started not being able to believe how many people were saying to me, “Oh, can you sign this book to that person? They really need it. Can you sign it to my spouse? Can you sign it to my boss? Can you sign it to my whatever?”, which is what you’re saying. It’s like nobody needed themselves.

They all thought of somebody else that needed this trust stuff. So, point number two is people often ask me, “David, you believe in this. You help people try to be the most trusted in their industry or the most trusted in government or trusted in whatever. Is it better to be trusted or trustworthy?” Of course, the problem with the eight-pillar framework is you can appear trusted. You can manipulate these pillars to look at for a little while and not actually be worthy of it. So, what we’re actually going for at the end of the day is trustworthiness. As a company, as a country, as a family, that’s what we’re actually going for. Better to be actually authentically trusted, which is trustworthy.

You asked me what I’m thinking about right now, right today, and it comes under the competency pillar, but it’s the idea that you know and I know, but in business, we say input equals output. In farming, you say you reap what you sow. In theology, you reap what you sow. I think in first law of thermodynamics, second law of thermodynamics, energy in, energy out, all these things. But there’s such a truth to that. I bring it back to us and you as a president of a learning and development organization, this is why learning and development matters. I wasn’t trying to do this. I’m not trying to pander in our space or anything. I’m just saying input really does equal output. We need to train, we need to equip, we need to give people the right thinking.

My kids, my family, my life, it’s like if I put the right things in my mind, I get different things out of it. I give certain things to my marriage. I get certain things out of it. I put certain things in my body. I’m a guy that lost 52 pounds in five months in 2011 and has kept it mostly off. So, I know what it’s like to put different things in my body. So, whether it’s in my body, my family, my company, or my team, I’m surprised that people continually want different output and they’re not putting different input in. That’s one thing I’m thinking a lot. What are the inputs that help build the right output? That’s one of the pillars. It comes under one of the pillars of trust because we’re trusted for what we put in and what we get out.

Nate Regier:

David Horsager, talking about trust, about focus less on being trusted and more about being worthy of trust, being trustworthy, and that what you put in, the inputs equal the outputs. Wow, amazing. So, if people want to learn more about your books, about the work that you do, how to hire you and how to buy books for themselves maybe. You can buy it for your friends also. How can we learn more? How should we connect with you?

Dr. David Horsager:

Trustedge.com is a good spot, www.trustedge.com. Of course, my name, David Horsager, if you can spell it. Then the new book is Trust Matters More Than Ever. I’m super excited about the impact of this work, but of course, we have all the other ways. Research is free and available at trustedge.com. We don’t take sponsorship for that because we don’t want to be the chocolate company that says, “Eat 10 pounds a day.” But trustedge.com, and of course, I’m all over other places, LinkedIn and stuff, but just come there and you can find everything. Appreciate you and the friendship, Nate.

Nate Regier:

Yeah, you’re welcome. We’ll put those in the show notes, all of the stuff we’ve talked about. David, thank you so much for your enthusiasm, for sharing your time with us, I know you’re super busy, for the difference you’re making in the world, and for the way that you’re bringing your research into a practical way that we can use it every day starting with ourselves. Go out and get the new book, Trust Matters More Than Ever. David, thank you.

Dr. David Horsager:

Thank you.

Nate Regier:

Thanks for joining me. I hope you enjoyed this episode of the Compassionate Accountability Podcast. What struck you? What can you take and use today? I’d love to hear from you. If you haven’t already, pick up a copy of my new book, Compassionate Accountability: How Leaders Build Connection and Get Results. If you’ve already read the book, I’d appreciate your review on Amazon. Contact us today to learn more about how Next Element helps companies transform their cultures with Compassionate Accountability. Remember, embracing both compassion and accountability is the secret to great leadership and the roadmap for thriving cultures and strong brains.

Thanks for joining me, everyone. I hope you enjoyed this episode of the Compassionate Accountability Podcast. What struck you, what can you take and use today? I’d love to hear from you. And if you haven’t already, pick up a copy of my new book, Compassionate Accountability: How Leaders Build Connection and Get Results. If you’ve already read the book, I’d appreciate your review on Amazon. Contact us today to learn more about how Next Element helps companies transform their cultures with Compassionate Accountability. And remember, embracing both compassion and accountability is the secret to great leadership, and the roadmap for thriving cultures and strong brands.

Copyright, Next Element Consulting, LLC 2024

Subscribe To Our Blog and Newsletter


Related to Podcast

Book Your Next Keynote Speaker

Dr. Nate Regier

Author and Co-founder of Next Element, Dr. Nate Regier is available to speak at your upcoming event.

Submit a Speaker Request

Listen to Nate on The Compassionate Accountability Podcast

The Compassionate Accountability Podcast Listen to the Podcast

Join Our Community

Want To Republish Our Posts?

0 Comments

Add comment

Your comment will be revised by the site if needed.