Dr. Mike Armour
We have an unfortunate phrase in English that says I earned their trust. In reality, we cannot earn trust.Trust is something that others choose to bestow upon us.

Jeff Ma
Hello, and welcome to Love as a Business Strategy, a podcast that brings humanity to the workplace. We're here to talk about business, but we want to tackle topics that most business leaders might shy away from. We believe that humanity and love should be at the center of every successful business. I am your host, Jeff Ma and I am always ready to have conversations and hear stories with real people, real experts and real businesses in mind. My guest today is the founder of Strategic Leadership Development International. for over 30 years, he has helped leaders and executives perfect their professional skills, attain peak performance and discover new dimensions of satisfaction and fulfillment. His experience includes being decorated three times for his groundbreaking work, and computerizing the naval intelligence community, serving as CEO of an international humanitarian organization. Being a successful author in leadership and other fields published in over 20 languages. Professional Speaking, podcast, hosting the list goes on and on actually does not even fit on my pages. So just trust me, the man has done a lot of things. Welcome to the show, Dr. Mike Armour. How are you?

Dr. Mike Armour
Thank you. It's good to be with you.

Jeff Ma
Wow, what an introduction. I wasn't sure how much to include, or how much not to but I was impressed it took took like five minutes to read. Just the list. So I'm excited to gain from your wisdom and your experience. But that always leads me to the first pressing question for me isit's kind of a two parter. One like today, what is your passion and purpose? And also, I'd love to hear with so much that's happened for you. How you got here, like, how did you? What's the story? I mean, maybe the short version, because I think there's, there's so much in there from the Navy, to being a CEO and all these other things. But yeah, what's your passion? And and how did you get here?

Dr. Mike Armour
Well, when I finally took the time to sit down and think back over my life, and try to identify those moments, when what I was doing had me so enthralled that time, all but evaporated, are when I was drained. But then something happened that gave me the energy to, to rejuvenate my my focus and to rejuvenate my drive, and go for another hour or two, just on the energy from that experience. What I discovered was the common denominator in those types of experiences, was that it was working with someone, training them, teaching them explaining things to them, introducing them to something new. And the light went on in their life eyes, there was an aha! And as I reflected on that, I began to see that the things I had enjoyed the most, through all my very diversified career, were those moments when I was giving people insight and clarity on what they were needing to do to take things to the next level. So if someone asked me today, what's your purpose? I describe it as helping people succeed by giving them insight and clarity. And I can facilitate that in a lot of different ways as an executive coach and leadership coach, but also in community service and ministry and the college classroom where I have been, there are a lot of venues in which I can take that purpose to, to fruition in the lives of the people that I want to touch.

I love that. And where you've reached today, I know you've you're actually I would consider you an expert in many different facets and experiences. Where do you kind of place yourself the most? Were you the most confident in giving people that clarity in that in that direction? What type of topics? Well, three or four seem to be themes that I naturally come back to in conversations with people. One very much in parallel with what you're doing with your thrust is to put a high emphasis on values. In fact, in training leaders, I tell them that as important as a compelling clear vision is being clear on their core values and being true to those you is more important in the long run to the success that they have as individuals, and that their organizations will have, then is even clarity of a vision. And I came to that realization, when I was beginning to work with a lot of high tech companies in the late 1990s, when the world of IT was changing. So fast software capabilities were expanding so quickly, that by the time a group got their vision defined, it was becoming obsolete. Because there was just continual churn in what companies had the capability of doing. And it was there that I began to realize that if people were clear about their values, and used them, them as buoy markers to stay inside, as they responded to new opportunities that came along, in the end, they would get to a good place. And so I began then to put more emphasis on values upfront than getting the vision clear and crisp. So that's one thing. The other thing that is important out of that is that values lead to a second emphasis. That's really important for me, and that is building high trust organizations. We are in a world in which there are three kingmakers that will determine the degree to which we succeed. The first is speed, being faster than the competition and bringing our product to market or delivering it to the person who has asked for it. The second is agility, the ability to change direction on a dime, the cause, the unexpected is always just around the corner for all of us. And the third is innovation. If we are not continually working on speed, agility, and innovation as a core asset within our organization, we're going to be left in the dust, we're gonna be trampled by the competition coming by us because they're trying to get faster, more agile and more innovative, and we better join the parade. As a result, those three things occur most effectively in a setting of high trust. And so I've gotten a trademark on the phrase trust centered leadership. I began to keynote on that 20 years ago. And it is a theme that I keep coming back to. In fact, I just posted a podcast this morning, on the challenge we have in the United States, with the fact that trust in our courts is now at the lowest level it has ever been in our history. What is our future as a nation, if we lose trust in our courts, to mediate the disputes that inevitably arise in a society where individualism and competitiveness are among our most celebrated values and virtues? Maybe not orally? Do we celebrate them but in terms of how we live, individualism and and competition, certainly are dominant forces in our culture. And those have the potential to become centrifugal forces that just tear the society apart, if we don't maintain trust in one another, and trust in the courts to arbitrate disputes. So those are sort of the things that are my primary thrust, the importance of values, and the importance of trust, being at the heart of them.

Jeff Ma
I love that. And you know, what you say about trust, obviously hits very, very much home for me, it's something that we talk about all the time here. And it's it's a simple topic, but it's also a complex topic.I believe you wrote a book on this entire topic, did you not write leadership and the power of trust?

Dr. Mike Armour
I wrote it. About 15-16 years ago, I've just recently revised it made some minor revisions that I've got available in an ebook form. I haven't taken it too hard copy yet. But as an that grew out of a series of experiences right after I started my firm here in Dallas, in 2001, I would be called into a number of companies, professional groups,even nonprofit organizationswho would say we'd like you to come in and consult with us because we've got a communication problem or we've got a slow decision making problem or we've got a customer relations problem. I would accept the engagement. Go in and start peeling back the layers of the onion and would inevitably find down underneath there somewhere either unrecognized, unaddressed or unresolved issues of trust. Yeah, they were not even aware of those issues were there until I surfaced. But once we surface them and address them,

then the problem they hired me for began to solve itself. Because collaboration opened up communication and accountability opened up. And all of a sudden, this mediocre company or organization began to perform at a level it had never been able to attain before. So that's where I got the idea that trustreally is powerful. And we need to look at the power of trust through the lens of what we as leaders are doing to foster a trust, friendly atmosphere within the organizations we're responsible for.

Jeff Ma
So so help me define in through your lens, what a trust friendly atmosphere looks like.

Dr. Mike Armour
First of all, it's important to remember or to recognize that trust is as much about how I feel about people and institutions, as it is about what I know about them. We sometimes try to build trust in people by doing what you did when you introduced me is giving giving a list of credentials giving a list of experiences that somehow make this person, trustworthy, credible. But the fact of the matter is that no matter what I know about a person, a trust is going to be formed as much as anything around how I feel about that person or that organization as what I know about them. Yeah. And so in order for an atmosphere to be trust, friendly, people have to feel five things.

They have to feel safe. And I mean by this psychologically and emotionally safe, more than just physically safe. Obviously, there are companies like railroads and mining operations and manufacturing centers that need a, an emphasis on physical safety. But I'm more concerned when I talk about safety, about the emotional climate and the the atmosphere of, of safety in which in which a person doesn't feel that they have to worry about what people will do with their transparency and open sharing. They don't have to be concerned about retribution being taken because they voiced an honest opinion, they feel safe. And then they need to feel informed. If Leadership isn't interested in keeping me informed, I'm not likely to trust them or anyone else who purposefully keeps me in the dark. I don't think they value me very much, if they're not willing to take the time to keep me informed. So we've got to be safe and informed. The third thing People have to feel is respect that they are heard with respect, that when people are talking about them, they're talking about with respect, they that the atmosphere around them is free of racist and, and ethnic and other kinds of slurs that would suggest a disrespect. Certain kinds of humor are not accepted in the workplace because they're not respectful of people, their their sensitivities, their needs. So safe, informed, respected, all of this thing going toward feeling valued.

Just yesterday, I was working with a manual, plant manual plant manager for a manufacturing company here in Dallas, that hires primarily recent immigrants from all across the Hispanic world. So he's got Venezuelans and Chileans and and Guatemalans, all kinds of people working on his plant floor, most of whom speak almost no English. And I was asking him what he felt it was most important to do in order to help these people become loyal to his employment. And he said,helping them feel valued.

Because they have left everything behind. They've left a culture, they're familiar with a family they're close to have come to a country where they can't even speak the language on the on the gamble that they can somehow make it here. And yet it is a society in which they don't get very many messages that say you're really valued. We're glad you're here. And he said, I want them to feel

valued, because that's probably the thing that the thing they're missing most from their life right now, I thought that was an interesting and insightful comment on his part, the so we want them to feel valued. And then we want them to feel understood. When I make a decision, as a manager, I may not be able to do what the other person what everybody wanted me to do. But if they feel safe, safe enough that they can be straightforward with me to share their in their suggestions, recommendations and feelings. And I've kept them informed. I've treated them with respect. And I've taken their suggestions in a respectful tone. And I've communicated that to them that they're valued. If they then feel that I understood what they suggested, but I decided to do something different. They're, they're capable of accepting my decision, even though it goes against their preferences, because I understood them, and I valued them. So that's the characteristic of all the companies I've studied, that have had a high trust environment. There's been a sense everywhere in that company, that as an individual, and as a group, we're safe, informed, respected, valued and understood.

Jeff Ma
That's very clear, very, very, like, very direct in summarizing kind of these elements, they make absolute sense to me. I always kind of, I always framed in my mind is when you talk about trust, broadly, if you ask somebody, Hey, do you have trust this team? Or do you have trusted someone, there's, you know, three high level ways that they can define that, right? There's the expertise, trust, like how I introduced you. There's the reliability Trust, which is, has this person historically shown up for me predictively. And then there's the relational trust, which is, a lot of what you just listed just falls under that last category. And studies have shown, right studies have shown that the first two categories of trust can be basically easily lost, but easily rebuilt. And if you lose one element of that it hurts your overall trust. But you combine all that it's nothing compared to if you lose relational trust, if something happens to the relationship. Not only is it most damaging to overall trust, but it's also the hardest to rebuild.

Dr. Mike Armour
Exactly, exactly. The the trilogy that I use, which somewhat parallels what you're talking about, at least in one dimension, is that trust takes on added dimensions as the nature of the relationship changes. So in a social relationship, where we're friends that have met at a networking event, and we strike up that kind of social relationship, the only thing it takes for me to trust you is that you give me evidence that you're a person of good character, that you're not out with some,some wicked agenda in the background, you're, you're you're really straightforwardly who you say that you are. But if you then become my dentist, or my surgeon, I want you to be a person of good character, because I don't want you to gouge me on my bill. But at that point, what you called expertise, I call it competency becomes really critical. You've got to have character and competency to be trusted in the professional arena. When you step into leadership, then a third dimension of trust comes into play. And that is that you've got to get credible results that match the desired outcomes of the organization, or the people who make up the organization. You could be a person of great character, and be professionally quite competent. But if as a leader, you don't get the results people want, they may still trust you socially, they may still trust you professionally. They won't trust you as their leader. They will look for someone who can get the results that they are there to achieve.

Jeff Ma
It makes a lot of sense. I like that I'm going to I'm going to shift my my trilogy over to yours for now. No, I I like yours. I was just thinking I've got to find a way to borrow yours. That's how we do this podcast. I love it.

I want to shift over to I guess mistrust or broken trust because as we both agreed on that relational trust and all these elements of being safe, informed, respected.

It's a delicate balance and as humans, we tend to fill in blanks. With our own narratives. We make assumptions.We assume ill intent of people, we it's just part of being human. And it often leads us to take actions and misbehave with one another, and, and, you know, lash out react all these things. And so it's it feels like at times that human nature leads us towards a state of mistrust when it's not intentionally worked at what in your experience is kind of a the right way to make sure you build trust organization, but also how to bounce back when when the environment is already filled with mistrust?

Dr. Mike Armour
Yeah, really good questions. As you were saying that I was thinking ofa, quote, months that someone said, it takes 20 years to build a reputation and 10 minutes to destroy it. It it, you get created and trust environment, once it's damaged, what do you do, then?

You are correct, that there is a there is something of a tendency within us to slip into distrust, not necessarily across all of humanity in the same to the same degree. For instance, I've done a lot of work in Russia, and a lot of work in Ukraine, and particularly in the Siberian portion of Russia. The default position that people take when they meet you for the first time is distrust. And that's because of their family histories of why they're in Siberia to begin with. It's because they know their government misled them and lied to them. For generations, when the wall came down, they really believed because that's what they had been told that they had the most advanced culture and civilization economically on the face of the earth. And then all of a sudden, when the barriers to the outside world were dropped, they began to see that they had been deceived all this time. Lots of things have happened in their history, the pervasive espionage that was part of the Soviet system, their default system is to not trust we Americans tend to default toward trust, we meet someone for the first time, we assume they're honest, we'll watch them but we're not distrustful of them.

So and then why does distrust get into the works in a culture where trust is our default position in building new relationships? It basically comes back to lack of information,failure of leadership, to keep people fully apprised of what's really going on.Because there's not a deeper drive within us as human beings, then to make sense of things we experience. That's why as soon as children start talking, they drive us crazy with why, why? Why? It's not that they suddenly thought of that question. They've been wrestling with that, for some time. They now have the facility of language to put their question to the world and hopefully get a response. But through all of us in our life, things disturb us when they don't make sense. And we've got to find a way for them to make sense.

The way we do that, in the absence of information is to speculate.And speculation almost always leans towards something negative or adverse in the works. I've said many times, in the more than 60 industries that I've worked with, in this phase of my career as a leadership development specialist, I'm yet to hear anyone in corporate America say, you know, the, the executive team has been meeting behind closed doors for four hours every day this week. Man, I bet something good is about to happen around here.

I'll never hear that. Because when we don't know, there is a system in the brain that kicks in a brain that is more predisposed to recognize danger than it does safety. And if you think about it, pre modern man living pretty much in isolation with it, just me and my comrades and family around me up against nature and whatever it throws at us and the marauders when they come through. We have this defense mechanism in us to notice danger quickly. And because we are so prone to notice danger quickly, speculation tends to elevate the possibility of danger more than it does the possibility of promise. And that then starts creating anxiety. Anxiety as it grows, turns into fear. And fear and trust cannot coexist. In fact, when a company asks me to do a, a survey of the strength of trust within their organization, what I usually do is go in and measure the level of fear and anxiety. Because to the degree fear and anxiety are dominant, I know, trust is in low supply. Now, we know from recent neurological research, that we can't even run trust and fear simultaneously in our brain, it's not wired to do that.

In fact, the stronger our fear, the less, the fourth portion of our brain that generates trust, is able to function without a lot of censorship. Fear simply overrides that capability within us. So you're exactly right. Distrust easily forms unless we communicate, communicate, communicate. And that's why the other thing I've never heard in corporate America is, you know, we don't have any communication problems around here.

I can, I can be assured that there are communication problems, wherever there are humans. And the more we communicate, the more people will feel informed and feel that they are valued, because we took the time to keep them informed. And therefore we neck at or nip speculation in the bud before it has time to do its damaging work.

Jeff Ma
I love the way you put that. That was That was amazing. And I think it's so important for people to to wrap their heads around that concept, whether you're a leader or otherwise, because that human tendency plays itself out too often in the background, right? Because Because to us their truths. To us those perceptions are reality. So it's not just we don't always catch ourselves speculating. And one of the hardest things and we work with folks is to practice what we call assuming good intent. Yes. Because Because the word assume isn't there. And you have to assume you know, what happens when you assume

so so I love that you kind of laid that out clearly and scientifically, because I think, yes, communication is absolutely the answer and the key. But we also as entire cultures have to practice assuming good intent, understanding that we are all a part of this communication chaos that we create right? around these things.

My last piece around this is, I guess, directed at what, what is another, there's not one answer, but what besides communicate, what are we needing? Let me put it this way. There's the conversation around transparency in an organization around Hey, here are how the numbers are looking the financials, here's what our next move is strategically. But then you find that leaders are themselves human, in many, many of their decisions. And many of their, their things that they're dealing with are not always on the business realm. Sometimes it's from a feeling sometimes it's they're having a bad day, sometimes they're doing human things as well. So I guess I just wanted to hear and confirm from you this communication, communication communication, does that also include that realm of transparency, being vulnerable with as leaders about where you're at in that space?

Dr. Mike Armour
It really calls for leaders to have the self confidence that they allow themselves to be seen as having feet of clay like everyone else in the organization. And that means transparency includes being free to say I really don't know are, that one caught me off guard. People will then say, he's really like me. She's really like me. I can trust the genuineness. We talk about transparency, I'm more inclined to talk about genuineness. I feel that this person is genuinely to come back to your word in your organization, humane and human. Are they projecting this aura that they want us to believe that they're almost a demigod in their judgment and their wisdom and their insight and their vision? Those kinds of leaders don't engender a great deal of trust.

One of the things that I say in my keynote notes especially I build around this point quite a bit is that we have an unfortunate phrase in English that says, I earned their trust. In reality, we cannot earn trust. Trust is something that others choose to bestow upon us. Trust like beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Nothing I do can compel someone to trust me.

What I can control is acting in such a genuine, trustworthy manner,that I make it easy for them to invest their trust in me. So the emphasis for leaders is on trustworthiness, not on building trust.

Because coming back to your comment, that trust is very heavy, heavily relational. One of the ways they're going, people are going to decide whether they want a relationship with me is whether they see me as being trustworthy. And thus, we're back to my triangle to that character piece again, even though as a leader, your trust is going to largely be determined by your concrete results, you're not going to have the trust to get those concrete results, if you aren't trustworthy at the level of character.

Wow, powerful stuff. I love that love that reframing. I'm gonna start stealing. I'm gonna steal that and use that as well from now on. So this has been great. Well, good. I wish I wish we had so much more time. But I wanted to also save time to talk, I want to hear a little bit about your book and your podcast and anything else that people might be able to find for you. If you don't mind. Okay. Well, the podcast is known as Upside your Leadership. It's a featured podcast on the C suite network, but it's carried by all of the major platforms, Spotify, iTunes, and those. So it can easily be found there. I'm actually in the process of developing the outline for a new podcast that I'm hoping to have underway, maybe by the fall, that will be an interview podcast like this one, instead of just me sharing my thoughts as the Upside your Leadership is, the new podcast is going to be called Brave Hearts. And the subtitle is going to be inspiring stories of courage, character and common sense, because I think all three of those are in short supply today.

So I want to I want a podcast that gets people to thinking about the places we all need to stand courageously in what's going on around us, where we need to show common sense and our decision making. And we also have to manifest character in everything that we undertake. The book, leadership in the power of trust, is available on Amazon. And that's probably the simplest place for most people to find it, but they can write me at Mike at leader perfect.com. And I'll be glad to send them a copy and build them accordingly. And the book has been widely read, widely utilized. But some of the illustrations I used in it, were getting a little dated, and I needed to bring you up to date. So that's the reason for the recent revision. My website is leader perfect.com. It's a very deep look websites about 600 pages long because it's got 20 years of a newsletter of newsletter archives and podcasts and, and it's blogs, plus just a lot of information pages about the the services that my firm offers. So that's substantively how I go about making a dime now and then.

Jeff Ma
Well, Dr. Armour, I really, really truly appreciate you taking the time today to come share and discuss with me I've had a lot of enlightening moments. I love hearing how your experience has been able to break down this topic of trust that's so near and dear to me. So thank you so much for joining me today. Well, thank you. It's been a real joy.

Awesome. And to our listeners, thank you as well as always, please check out our book, Love as a Business Strategy, also available on Amazon. And if you enjoyed the podcast, please continue subscribing it telling your friends, all that good stuff. And so with that, we end this episode and we will see you all next week. Thank you so much.