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The bulk of this short book might be characterized as "moral philosophy 101." It will be informative for moral imbeciles and those (many, by the measure of apparent business ethics) who don't believe that personal and business ethics have any connection. It's a basic outline of how to extend and create trust, and how to reciprocate when you receive it. Formulaic pop psychology.

The value of the book for me was in the first chapter. It makes the case for trust as a business value, that high trust increases speed and decreases cost. Covey gives the example of the acquisition of a $20 billion dollar business from Walmart by Warren Buffett, done in a two hour meeting, and with complete legal approval in less than a month, as a demonstration of just what a difference trust can make. On the reverse side, he points out the increased cost and inconvenience of air travel since 9/11 as an object lesson in the costs and penalties of reduced trust.

I remember when we started O'Reilly's publishing business. We would take orders on the phone, tell people to send us a check, and send out the books immediately, without waiting to receive payment. We did get stiffed a few times, but overall, it was a good plan.

Today, we offer our ebooks without DRM for the same reason: we trust our users not to screw us. It's good business.

Interestingly, I first heard about this book from Dave Wennergren, the CIO of the Department of Defense. It's an idea that really resonates here for government, and it's one that I've been passing on in my talks about gov 2.0.

In that regard, there's a great quote about Craigslist in the latest issue of Wired:

“If most people are good and their needs are simple, all you have to do to serve them well is build a minimal infrastructure allowing them to get together and work things out for themselves. Any additional features are almost certainly superfluous and could even be damaging.�
--Gary Wolf, Wired Magazine, Sept 2009

Even though I gave this book only three stars, it's worth reading for the first chapter.