A Guide to Developing A New Practice
By Hal Macomber
1. The promise, “Yes.”
2. The decline to promise, “No.”
3. The promise that the speaker will promise later, i.e., the ubiquitous parental “We’ll see…”
4. The request for more information about what’s been asked - with the (only implied) commitment to promise when the speaker has the information.
5. A counteroffer to the request.
And when is an accepted task a promise? When it has been listened to as a promise. Which leads us, given all of the above, into a fertile field of possible breakdowns…
Five Elements of a Reliable Promise
Why distinguish between the usual sort of project promise and a reliable promise?(4) First of all, on a project we often don’t have much basis for assessing the reliability of any performer for fulfilling whatever he or she promises us. Second, given the lack of reliability in the project environment, we make securing a reliable promise into a separate category as a result of our particular concern for the fulfillment of any promise made to us.
In offering a distinction between an ordinary project promise and a reliable promise, we create a different way to engage with the promissor while in the act of securing a promise that can be fulfilled.
The following five points are the additional elements of a reliable promise:
> The conditions of satisfaction are clear to both performer and customer.
> The performer (promissor) is assessed as competent to perform or has access to that competence.
> The performer has estimated the time to perform the action for completing the promise and has allocated (blocked) that time on the schedule (calendar).
> The performer is sincere in making the promise. In the moment the promise is made, the performer is not having a private, unspoken conversation that contradicts fulfillment.
> Regardless of what the future holds, the performer will make good on the promise - particularly if the promise cannot be performed, taking responsibility for whatever consequences may ensue.
Of course, we are not claiming that a promise will be performed just because we term it, “reliable.” Many things may get in the way of successful completion. The distinction “reliable promise” is simply a handle for people having conversations of a certain style and intent. Those conversations could be characterized as purposeful, deliberate, serious, and open.
The Kinds of Conversations That Result in Reliable Promises
Most project tasks arise from an assessment that something is missing required for work to move ahead or for the project to succeed. As a result of that assessment, someone, often the project manager, makes a request. If the performer takes the request seriously, it is likely that he does so because the request was stated in the context of the goals of the project. In other words, when the conversation does not include the context that gave birth to both the assessment and the request, the likelihood of that request being fulfilled dive-bombs. Explaining why always matters.
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© 2001 Good2Great™ Associates
