Good leaders live by their promises, since trust forms the foundation on which all key factors for an organisation’s success is based.
At all levels, leaders will vouch that their organisations would deliver more if everyone demonstrated a better sense of accountability. While it is easier to look through the window at people who fall short of keeping their promises and commitments, it is even more important to look into the mirror and see our own track record.
Culture of accountability
Organisations are a network of relationships at work and therefore, there is an enormous amount of interdependence. Delivering an organisation’s promises to customers and other stakeholders outside of the organisation demands that promises to internal stakeholders are delivered as well. In other words, what is needed is a culture of accountability at all levels.
Work by London Business School professor Donald N Sull and co-author, Charles Spinosa of Vision Consulting, can help organisations achieve the objective of managing and keeping their word.
The first step is to realise that a company is more than a bundle of systems and processes — it is, in reality, a dynamic network of promises. Therefore, this requires cultivating and coordinating these promises systematically.
~~Common understanding: The first phase of this promise-based management involves both, the maker and the receiver of the promise (the provider and the customer), striving to achieve a common, realistic understanding of what it takes to satisfy the customer, list out possible obstacles to delivery, and what the customer can do to help if difficulties arise or other priorities compete for the provider’s time and attention.
~~Making it happen : The next phase is making it happen. Even well-crafted promises remain fragile, susceptible to shifts within the organisation or in the broader business environment.
The least providers can do when they realise they can’t deliver on the promise is inform the customers as soon as possible, and renegotiate the time and other aspects. It is obviously not a trust-building exercise to wait till the last date and then surprise the customer, saying the promise is not being delivered.
Closing the loop : The final phase involves closing the loop, which happens when the customer expresses satisfaction that he or she has received the service from the provider. This phase is also marked by the customer and the provider sharing feedback with each other on the promise delivered.
Make a healthy promise
Moving further, the thought-leaders also provide some suggestions as to what makes a promise or commitment, a healthy one:
First, good promises are made public. This is what is recognised as “bumper sticker effect”. When you sport a bumper sticker on your car that you follow all traffic rules, you are more likely to stick by them. It is very difficult to not keep our commitments when we declare it to the audience that matters.
Second, good promises are active promises. In many organisations, customer hurl requests at the providers, pretty much like paperboys cycling through a neighbourhood chucking newspapers onto doorsteps. Providers catch such requests, throw them on a pile, and go back to work. Requests like these rarely translate into good promises.
Third, good promises are voluntary. The most effective promises are not coerced. At a philosophical level too, saying ‘Yes’ has no meaning if I cannot say “No” or “Later.” And that is why the provider and the customer need to discuss and negotiate if need be to make it a real promise.
Commitments are fundamental units of interaction in business. Winning organisations pay attention to how people make and keep commitments at work. And winning leaders pay equal attention to shaping their commitments in partnership with the people for whom they make these commitments.
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