Trust Rules: How to Tell the Good Guys from the Bad Guys in Work and Life

Whom can you trust? It's not an easy question to answer, yet it couldn't be more important to try. Hook up with the wrong crowd, and there goes a career―or worse. As scholar Linda Stroh argues, trust is a prerequisite for effective management, and it contributes directly to personal success. To find out how to tell the good guys from the bad guys, Stroh interviewed over three hundred businesspeople. The result is a thorough and invaluable compendium of lively stories, lessons learned in the trenches, and practical tools and principles. Readers will learn how to identify the trustworthy at work and in their personal lives―giving their careers a boost and helping them sleep better at night.

That's because having trustworthy people around us makes organizational life much easier and less stressful. Yet, since ancient times, people have pondered the issue of trust. How do we decide who to let into our inner circle? To what degree do trusting relationships impact our performance at work? What are the consequences of misplaced trust? Must trust be unconditional? Taking these questions out of the realm of the philosophers, Linda Stroh draws from her extensive research to highlight common themes and the hard-won lessons learned from experience. She then distills their thoughts and experiences into practical tools and techniques for assessing trustworthiness―including your own―and applying these tools in a variety of situations. Integrating insights from management and psychology, Stroh shows readers how to pay attention to red flags in relationships and ultimately develop a network of trustworthy people that will help them succeed in business and beyond.

Combining rigorous primary research with practical application, and using engaging stories and insights throughout, this book will help general readers, professors and students, and professionals alike attain their goals more quickly and with greater satisfaction.