The Code of Trust: An American Counterintelligence Expert's Five Rules to Lead and Succeed

by Robin Dreeke, Cameron Stauth, Joe Navarro Narrated by Robin Dreeke

Overview

Robin Dreeke is a 28-year veteran of federal service, including the United States Naval Academy, United States Marine Corps. He served most recently as a senior agent in the FBI, with 20 years of experience. He was, until recently, the head of the Counterintelligence Behavioral Analysis Program, where his primary mission was to thwart the efforts of foreign spies, and to recruit American spies. His core approach in this mission was to inspire reasonable, well-founded trust among people who could provide valuable information.

The Code of Trust is based on the system Dreeke devised, tested, and implemented during years of field work at the highest levels of national security. Applying his system first to himself, he rose up through federal law enforcement, and then taught his system to law enforcement and military officials throughout the country, and later to private sector clients. The Code of Trust has since elevated executives to leadership, and changed the culture of entire companies, making them happier and more productive, as morale soared.

Inspiring trust is not a trick, nor is it an arcane art. It's an important, character-building endeavor that requires only a sincere desire to be helpful and sensitive, and the ambition to be more successful at work and at home. The Code of Trust is based on 5 simple principles:

1) Suspend Your Ego
2) Be Nonjudgmental
3) Honor Reason
4) Validate Others
5) Be Generous

To be successful with this system, a listener needs only the willingness to spend eight to ten hours learning a method of trust-building that took Robin Dreeke almost a lifetime to create.

Editorial Reviews

Publishers Weekly

06/26/2017
Complex problems can have simple answers, as FBI agent Dreeke (It’s Not All About Me) shows in this guide to building trust. He exhorts would-be leaders to follow the five principles of his “code of trust”—suspend your ego, be nonjudgmental, honor reason, validate others, and be generous—and the “four steps to inspiring trust,” which are an action plan that implements the code. The four steps—align your goals, apply the power of context, craft your encounters, and connect—are explained in detail. As an example of aligning goals, Dreeke uses the story of another agent who managed to recruit a difficult source by listening carefully to what the source wanted. “Applying the power of context” means using psychologist William Marston’s “science of finding human similarities” to mesh together different people’s communication styles. “Crafting the encounter” involves preparing opening remarks, asking for assistance, making an offering, and sticking to the subject—the other person. The fourth and arguably most important step is making an emotional connection. Smart, empowering, and easy to follow, Dreeke’s manual should become a classic business—and personal—primer on the art of building trust. (Aug.)

From the Publisher

"Smart, empowering, and easy to follow, Dreeke’s manual should become a classic business—and personal—primer on the art of building trust." —Publishers Weekly

"Dreeke delivers a pragmatic, patriotic recipe for the key ingredient of leadership: trust. . . . A book of broad application with useful lessons for everyone from Girl Scouts to corporate masters to world leaders—and aspiring spies, too." —Kirkus Reviews

"As someone who has spent my career in the public and private intelligence fields, I feel this work provides great insights into the social psychological aspects of interpersonal dynamics from someone who has spent a lot of time in analyzing the criminal mind. A great insight for anyone with an interest in social psychology and how it impacts interpersonal relationships." —Phil Houston, CEO QVerity, 26 year veteran of CIA and co-author of the New York Times bestsellers Spy The Lie and Get The Truth

"To paraphrase Charles Dickens, it is the best of times, the worst of times, the age of wisdom, the age of foolishness, the spring of hope, the winter of despair. The Code of Trust is an antidote to the cynicism and fear of today. Robin Dreeke, my friend and colleague from the FBI, will take you on a delightful journey — his journey—to more effective leadership at a time when we ache for such genuine skills in others." —Reid Meloy Ph.D., forensic psychologist, author, and consultant to The FBI

"The foundation of leadership is trust. Robin shares his successful and, sometimes, unsuccessful experiences as a United States Marine Corps officer and as a FBI behavioral analyst that allowed him to crack the code to build trusting relationships. This book is a must read for leaders and those who aspire to lead." —Jack Schafer, author of The Like Switch

“Trust is one of life’s biggest obstacles, which is why Robin Dreeke’s book is so important. The Code of Trust gets to the heart of the issue by addressing the core of how we build and inspire trust. His real world examples in stressful situations offer an engaging backdrop to learn about human nature." —Shane Parrish, publisher of the renown Farnam Street blog

Kirkus Reviews

2017-06-05
"You don't work for your country by being greedy and playing dirty, day after day." FBI agent Dreeke delivers a pragmatic, patriotic recipe for the key ingredient of leadership: trust.With the assistance of Stauth, Dreeke, a veteran of the bureau with direct experience in securing confidences among reluctant respondents, begins with a provocative brace of challenges: "First: Be eminently worthy of trust. Second: Prove you are." As if that weren't difficult enough, there are built-in obstacles: just as we would trust few people with our lives or bank accounts, so few people trust us. How to inspire more to do so and thereby gain not just trust, but allegiance? Be more considerate. Put other people first. Listen without thinking of the next clever thing to say. It's not exactly Machiavelli, it's sometimes simplistic and often repetitive, and the presentation is a little formulaic, but Dreeke's set of rules is eminently practical and, if actually put into practice, would yield a measurably more pleasant world. Fittingly, many of his examples come from the oddly rule-governed world of espionage. If you're shady, he notes, you can build trust among a network of spies, "but it's a weak, fake type of trust, built on lies, manipulation, and coercion, and it can topple overnight." Given all the headlines about manipulation and backroom dealing these days, it's a useful observation that high-level leaders should consider, but in the main, the book is meant for ordinary Janes and Joes who seek to build their leadership skills. There, Dreeke proves a worthy guide, making observations that might go without saying if we lived in better times but that bear repeating—e.g., "common decency is the common ground of humankind"; "a terrible deficit in our current culture is the lack of the civil give-and-take that has expanded individual and societal intelligence for thousands of years." A book of broad application with useful lessons for everyone from Girl Scouts to corporate masters to world leaders—and aspiring spies, too.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940171924430
Publisher:	Macmillan Audio
Publication date:	08/08/2017
Edition description:	Unabridged

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