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Episode Summary
You can have a clear strategy, a competent team, and a P&L that looks fine, and still watch the whole thing leak speed because nobody in the room actually trusts each other. I sat down with David Horsager because three years before this conversation I watched him give a keynote and walked out and built the five principles that became the foundation of my own business. He has spent two decades proving something most owners feel but never quantify: a lack of trust is the biggest expense on your income statement, and you can’t see it on any line. We got into the eight pillars (Clarity, Compassion, Character, Competency, Commitment, Connection, Contribution, Consistency) and why they aren’t a soft-skill list but a diagnostic. We dug into how to actually rebuild trust when you’ve lost it, why the apology is worthless and the commitment is everything, why co-leadership kills accountability, and the “how how how” method David used to lose 52 pounds and turn around the second largest healthcare org in North America. There’s also the part about firing the sloth, and why your team trusts you less every day you don’t do it.
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## Top 10 Takeaways- A lack of trust is the biggest expense in your organization, and almost nobody is measuring it.
- People trust the clear and mistrust the ambiguous. Over-complexity is a trust problem, not a smart one.
- Compassion is intent beyond yourself. If your team doesn’t believe you have it, nothing else lands.
- Your team doesn’t hate the sloth. They lose trust in the leader who won’t deal with the sloth.
- The most compassionate thing you can do for the organization is sometimes fire the wrong person.
- You don’t rebuild trust with an apology. You rebuild it by making and keeping a new commitment.
- Ask “how” down, not sideways. Until you can act today or tomorrow, you don’t have a plan.
- The final “how” needs a who, a when, and a where. Otherwise it dies in the meeting.
- Co-leadership has a 50% lower chance of ever getting done. Name the final person.
- Add virtues to your values. Values guide decisions; virtues describe the behavior that makes them.
Sound Bites
“People trust the clear and they mistrust or distrust the ambiguous. They also mistrust or distrust the overly complex.” (@00:11:14) — David Horsager
“Whatever you do consistently is what you’re trusted for. So sameness is trusted. This is why we trust McDonald’s even if we don’t like them. I’ve had the same burger on six continents.” (@00:16:26) — David Horsager
“Co-leadership is terrible. The data will say if you have more than one person on a final task, you have 50% less chance of it ever getting done. You’ve got to have a final person.” (@00:24:22) — David Horsager
“The vice president’s good. Nine directors below him, eight of them are fantastic, one is a sloth. Who does everybody hate? Not the sloth. They hate the vice president because he’s not doing his job of getting rid of that sloth.” (@00:29:09) — David Horsager
“You never rebuild trust on the apology. The only way to rebuild trust is to make and keep a new commitment.” (@00:44:02) — David Horsager
About This Episode
David Horsager is the CEO of Trust Edge Leadership Institute, author of The Trust Edge (Wall Street Journal bestseller, picked up by Simon & Schuster after the largest non-celebrity buyout of its year), and one of the most-cited global researchers on trust as a business outcome. His firm publishes one of the largest annual trust and leadership studies in North America, and he has worked with organizations from the New York Yankees and the US Coast Guard Academy to Fortune 50 companies and global governments on corruption issues. The eight-pillar framework he walks through in this episode is the same one Ryan watched in a keynote three years earlier and used to build the foundation of his own company’s operating principles.
Resources Mentioned
- Trust Edge Leadership Institute — David’s firm, free research library and assessments. — trustedge.com
- The Trust Edge by David Horsager — The book where the eight pillars and supporting research live.
- Trust Edge Executive Event — Full-day session at the Radisson Blu, Mall of America. — trustedge.com
- Principles by Ray Dalio — Referenced for systemizing decision-making.
- Simon Sinek — Start With Why — Referenced for why “why” alone doesn’t move a team to action.
- Jim Collins — Good to Great — Referenced for “right who’s on the bus” and the limits of who without how.
Connections
Phase + Module:
- Module 7 — Leadership Team — Where trust becomes the operating substrate of the team, not a culture poster
Milestones:
- Milestone 19 — Functional Leaders — Why you can’t promote a functional leader the team doesn’t trust
- Milestone 20 — Leadership Roadmap — Mapping the seats and the trust gaps between them
- Milestone 21 — Leadership Development — The seven-step accountability process and how the work of leadership actually gets done
Concepts referenced:
- The Owner-Operator Trap™ — Why an owner who can’t systemize decision-making stays the bottleneck
- Business Operating System — Values and virtues as the decision layer of the OS
- Visionary-Integrator Framework — Why the founder eventually needs a second seat that holds the line
- Noble Aim — Intent beyond yourself as the trust foundation customers and team can feel