Paradigm Shifting Books

Book Preview - Trust & Inspire by Stephen M.R. Covey

• Stephen H Covey & Britain Covey

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Previewing 'Trust and Inspire' by Stephen M.R. Covey - A Paradigm Shift in Leadership

Stephen & Britain preview 'Trust and Inspire' by Stephen M.R. Covey, a groundbreaking book on leadership. The hosts discuss the book's relevance in modern leadership, emphasizing its importance not just in corporate settings but also in family, sports, and educational environments. The book proposes a shift from the traditional 'command and control' style to a 'trust and inspire' model, essential in today's rapidly changing world. The episode also includes an announcement for a book giveaway. 

00:00 NFL pre-season update
02:24 Book preview: Trust and Inspire
07:02 The world has changed but our leadership style hasn’t
13:28 Excerpt introducing trust & inspire 

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Stephen:

Welcome back everyone to another episode of Paradigm Shifting Books. Today is a book preview episode, but before we get into that, Brett, I want to ask you how, pre season's going. So for those who, who don't know, Britt is, a player for the Philadelphia Eagles. You guys had your first pre season game last week. You had a great game, four catches, really nice punt return. So how's pre season going for you?

Brit:

Well, I'm surviving. Uh, for those that maybe see the video portion of this, I'm still in that hotel room and it's dark and it, it is our off day. So my body is recovering, but it's going good. We want our first preseason game. It was a crazy game. Um, and. By the time this episode releases, I think we'll be playing new England that night. So yeah, just enjoying the off day and getting the body, right.

Stephen:

What's the level of intensity of a preseason game versus a regular season game? Because I know the crowd may not be as much into it, but I mean, guys are fighting, fighting for a job. So what, I mean, what's, what's that? How would you compare, compare the two?

Brit:

Yeah. I mean, they're night and day different in terms of the energy from the crowd, because there's nothing on the line really in terms of records or, or seating, but yeah. The each roster starts out during fall camp with like 90 guys. And then. Is whittled down to 53 by the end of camp. So guys are fighting for spots. Most of the starters don't play. And so this is everyone's kind of opportunity to make a roster. And so. There's a lot of pressure and I'll tell you, there's another level of pressure, for people that, that have never played. And it's just amazing to see guys who were literally all Americans in college come out and just, just be shocked by the level of speed of the NFL game. You know? And, uh, anyways, it's. It's fun. This is my third preseason and I'm still nervous, but that's, I think, part of part of it, just trying to make that team, you know?

Stephen:

Well, you're doing amazing. And I love watching you. But anyways, getting back to our main topic. The book we're previewing now is called trust and inspire. So this book here, if you're watching on the screen, here's the book actually. So this book was written by our dad, uh, Stephen M. R. Covey, who we just had on, uh, the last, or I guess two episodes ago. Um, To review the seven habits of highly effective people, which he didn't write, but his, his dad, Stephen R. Covey, our grandpa wrote. And, we promised that not every book we review is from our family. This book, trusted inspire was just released this past year and we feel like it is such a paradigm shifting book when it comes to the topic of leadership that we just, we couldn't pass it up. And because he's our dad and because we want him back on the podcast and because he is, um, one of the world's foremost authorities on trust and leadership, leadership. That's why we're deciding to read Trust and Inspire. There's other reasons as well. Make sure if you, if you have any questions around the topic of leadership that you'd like to us to ask our dad or about his book, trust and inspire again in the show notes, there's a little text button that you can press and you can, you can shoot us a text. We'll be happy to share those questions with our dad.

Brit:

We had some great submissions last time and, and we didn't get around to all the questions, but we're going to try to go a little faster through the questions this time.

Stephen:

The other thing I want to mention too, is. We are, doing a book giveaway for this episode. And basically this is how, how it'll work. If you feel like this podcast is worthy of a five star review, if you go over to Apple podcasts and leave a five star rating and review and send us a screenshot of that, we'll Then we'll send you a signed copy of the book, trust and inspire from our dad. And we're saying that the first 10 people that do this. A five star rating and review on Apple podcast. Send us a screenshot sent. You can send the screenshot to paradigm shifting books at gmail. com. Then we'll, and then also the address to send it to, we'll, we'll send that out to you. Don't do it. If, if you, if you don't believe that our podcast deserves a five star rating, obviously we're not trying to bribe people. I get it because I listened to a lot of podcasts and I, I like never do the rating and review, but. Being behind the scenes and running a podcast. You realize that those ratings and reviews really matter as far as, getting the podcast in front of new people. So we thought that it might be a fun way. If you feel like it's worth that review, then Hey, you can get a signed book and we'll send it to you. So if you've listened to the podcast before. We've had another leadership focus book on the podcast. It was Liz Wiseman and her book, multipliers, which is an incredible book. But the reason why we decided to include another leadership book is because we feel like there's something about this book about trust and inspire where it is able to define the type of leadership that we need in our world today. And it's really applicable, not just In an organization, in a business setting, but also in a family, in a classroom, in a church, wherever leadership is needed, people need to hear this message about trust and inspire. That's why we're highlighting this.

Brit:

Our dad has told us that, I mean, he's spoken on the professional circuit for 15 years now. And he's spoken to anywhere from businesses and fortune 500 companies to the military, to, you know, the government and police forces. He's spoken to pretty much every everyone. And he said that this message has resonated the most of any message that he's shared throughout his time on the, on the speaking circuit. I can attest to that. I've, My agent actually shared this book with the Eagles coaching staff. And, uh, I have recently had three of the Eagles coaching staff who have finished the book and they've come up to me with their insights and, and have told me that they've seen all of this in their life and they really like it. And like you said, As a parent, first and foremost, and I think that that's important to know is that it's this isn't just leadership, you know, in a corporate setting, this is probably first and foremost, in your own life and in your own home.

Stephen:

Let me share one other reason why we wanted to highlight this book is you may have heard the phrase before. This is an idea whose time has come. And that is what we feel encapsulates trust and inspire. So the world has clearly changed in the last 20, 30, 40 years. There's, there's been major shifts and major changes. But the argument my dad makes is that our leadership style has not changed in tandem with the other changes. I want to read one quick quote from Peter Drucker, who was the famous management thinker, that I thought was so insightful. And this is, this is in terms of talking about how the world is changing. Has changed in reference to, he calls it the knowledge worker age. So this quote was back in the year 2000. So think about when he said this, he said in a few hundred years, when the history of our time will be written from a long term perspective, it is likely that the most important event historians will see is not technology, not the internet, not e commerce, it is an unprecedented change in the human condition for the first time, literally Substantial and rapidly growing numbers of people have choices for the first time they will have to manage themselves and society is totally unprepared for it. So in the book, Trust and Inspire, our dad talks about there's five emerging forces that have all happened recently. Number one being that the nature of the world has changed and that's referencing Peter Drucker quote. The second one is the nature of work has changed. The third one is the nature of the workplace has changed, and that's been more apparent than ever, especially in the last few years with COVID. The fourth one is the nature of the workforce has changed. And then the fifth one is the nature of choice has changed. So amidst all these changes that have happened, the argument is that while those changes have happened, our leadership style has not changed. And basically what our dad has done in the book Trust and Inspire is he's put a name to the style of leadership that the world needs to move to. Because most people recognize, I mean, Britt, you've probably seen this, that most people Recognize that kind of the old way of leading and managing people is not super effective necessarily, but a lot of times people are not able to articulate kind of what we need to move to.

Brit:

Yeah, exactly. And I mean, in every human development class that I ever took, this was, Huge conversation point and we would talk about even motivators and what is the best motivation is fear a good motivator is love a good motivator and, uh, you go over some great quote unquote leaders of history who might have accomplished a lot, but at what cost. And anyways, it's, It, that's what I love about this book is it really explores those fundamental ideas and going back to the coaches, right? The coaches that I, that I work with, they always talk about each, you know, different things motivate different players. Some players you yell and scream at, and some players you can't do that, otherwise they'll shut down. I hope I'm not one of those players, but, different things impact different people. And I think this is a really good book about just the shift of overall. Uh, people and humanity and the workforce, like you said.

Stephen:

There's a few questions that I want to discuss with dad. So one of them is around kind of the topic of leadership in general. You know, what, what does he say to those leaders who. You know, quote unquote, get results, but leave a trail of bodies behind them. So I'm thinking in particular of someone like a, like a Steve jobs. I've read his biography and people kind of heard about his. Intense leadership style, but that's someone who clearly got results and changed the world with his company. And so I'm curious how, how dad responds to something like that, you say, well, Steve jobs seemed to be more of a command and control type of leader, not necessarily trust and inspire, but was able to get results. So what, what's your response? So that's probably a tough question, but that's, that's something I want to ask him.

Brit:

I always want to ask him about the parenthood side of this, because as you can probably attest, dad was a very good trust and inspire parent, but I don't think that's very easy to be. Um, and I'm so curious to hear kind of maybe his experiences and teaching others about this concept. And parenting. Um, but also just the idea of I think when people hear the word trust or inspire, they think of such a soft virtue that it's something. Just, you know, oh yeah. Rah, rah, trust people. Cool. But, but I think that there's something so much more almost scientific about it. And I'd love to hear his thoughts about that because when you hear trust and inspire, you kind of roll your eyes almost because it sounds soft. And so what about accountability? What about things of that nature and, and detail? And, uh, curious to ask him about that.

Stephen:

Another question I want to ask is this idea of are people just born natural leaders or can you learn leadership? So kind of our leaders born or made. I would just like to get kind of his insight around that as well. So there's a lot of good things, that we're going to discuss with our dad. And again, if you have a question, shoot us a text that you want us to ask him, not only about the book, trust and inspire, but about leadership in general. Um, he's really had some amazing experience. So I thought maybe to kind of end, I'm going to read just a short portion. From trust and inspire that I think introduces the idea really well. Um, and kind of highlight some of the things we talked about today. So this is from the book, trust and inspire to maybe, maybe peak your interest if you've, if you haven't picked up this book yet. So here it is, says when it comes to the way we lead in the workplace, in the classroom, at home, we've been repeating the same style of leadership for a long time, many leaders still view their role as much more like a machinist than a gardener. They approach it first with the priority that there is a job to be done and their role is to leverage the resources and people at their disposal to accomplish the task at hand. Let's call this style of leadership command and control. Has this approach worked? When you think about it, does it work for you? Let me ask a more pertinent question. Does this leadership approach work on you? Probably not. In fact, most of us have wanted a different way to lead and be led, but so far we've only been able to improve incrementally we've known. What we want to move from command and control, but we're less clear on what we want to move to this book provides the answer and the vein of Socrates, who said, the beginning of wisdom is the definition of terms. I suggest a simple term for the change we need. Trust and inspire. Trust and inspire is the new way to lead. Its goal is to unleash people's talent and potential, to truly empower and inspire them, rather than try to contain and control them. It's about trusting people to do the right thing, and inspiring them to make meaningful contributions. So that's the end of the quote, but I think it's a great, Introduction gets me excited to read this. And again, leave us that five star review, and then you can get a free signed copy sent to you as well.

Brit:

everybody for listening as well. It's really fun for us to do this together. Uh, we hope that it is entertaining and we hope that you hear more from the authors than you do from us, of course.

Stephen:

Absolutely. Well, we'll see everyone again in a couple of weeks back with our dad to review, trust and inspire. Thanks.