FCW excerpt of ‘The SPEED of Trust’ — in preparation for Wednesday’s Federal News Radio Book Club

The Federal News Radio Book Club is coming up this week — listen on Federal News Radio 1500 AM. But, as I mentioned earlier, we are working with Federal Computer Week on this project. In the Nov. 17 issue of FCW, there is an excerpt of the Federal News Radio Book Club book, The SPEED of Trust: The One Thing That Changes Everything by Stephen M.R. Covey. In face, they have several excerpts:

• Organizational success: A matter of trust: Leaders will reap dividends if they align their organizations with core principles and behaviors that increase trust.
• The 4 cores of credibility: The key to building trust in organizations is alignment — linking an organization’s design around those cores and behaviors.
• The 13 behaviors for cultivating trust: These behaviors stem from character, competence, or a combination of the two.

You can also read FCW editor in chief John Monroe on why he selection this particular section of the book here:

As the title indicates, this book is about trust — as it works with individuals, relationships, organizations, markets (in the case of businesses) and society as a whole. For FCW’s purposes, I selected an excerpt that focuses on how leaders can improve the level of trust in their organization.

Covey describes trust as one of the “hidden variables” in the formula for organizational success. An organization that fosters a high level of trust reaps “trust dividends” that have eventually improves the organization’s performance.

Read Monroe’s full post here.

In addition to the book excerpt, FCW has an interview with Dave Wennergren, the Defense Department’s deputy CIO, about books. As I have mentioned, Wennergren is one of the brightest people I know, a keen leader, and an avid reader… and he helped us select the first Federal News Radio Book Club book. As I mentioned, I got to talk to Wennergren on Federal News Radio about why he was fascinated by The SPEED of Trust. (You can hear that interview here.) FCW’s Mary Mosquera spoke to Wennergren about… why books?

Wennergren: While CIOs can often feel like they’re alone on a windy corner, there are actually lots of other people working on similar issues. Understanding best practices, successful management approaches and new ideas can inspire you, help set a coherent course, avoid unnecessary pitfalls and deliver better results. Even just talking about what you’ve read and learned helps build relationships, heightens trust, and aligns behaviors and expectations in an organization. You’re better able to do your job, and your team is confident, inspired and ready to move forward.

Read FCW’s full interview here.

And reminder… the Federal News Radio Book Club is Wednesday, Nov. 19 on Federal News Radio 1500 AM’s In Depth with Francis Rose program.

I posted additional resources over the weekend:

I have had several people who e-mailed me to ask if they need to be some place specific to participate in the book club. The answer is yes — just be near your radio or steaming FederalNewsRadio.com on your computer on Thursday, Nov. 19 for In Depth with Francis Rose, heard on Federal News Radio 1500 AM and federalnewsradio.com between 1-3p ET. On Nov. 19, we will have Covey on the program… also joining us will be Dave Winnergren, the Defense Department’s deputy CIO and one of the best readers — and best managers. More on that in just a moment… I will also be there as will, of course, Francis Rose.

Your comments on the book are always welcome.

@obama may be gone, but @change_gov is born

I told you last week about the buzz stirred as a result of Obama’s feed — apparently his campaign feed — on the microblogging site Twitter. [I had part one of a primer on Twitter last week.]

Well, it appears that there is a new transition feed — using the Twitter lingo, it is @change_gov.

It is essentially an auto-Feed of news and blogs from the office of the President-elect Barack Obama’s Change.gov Web site.

The @change_gov feed isn’t well known yet — there are only 28 people “following” @change_gov so far. By contrast, @BarackObama has 132,016 followers.