Del dicho al hecho hay gran trecho. (“From said to fact there’s great gap.”)
—Spanish proverb
Five frogs are sitting on a log. Four decide to jump off. How many are left? Answer: Five. Why? Because there is a great gap between deciding and doing.
Decisions are worthless unless they turn into commitments, but commitments are worthless unless they are made, kept, and honored with integrity. Integrity is an essential condition for effective work. When people cannot count on each other to deliver on their commitments, it’s impossible to execute plans and achieve goals. Besides the material losses, lack of integrity has a tremendous cost in human relationships and personal stress. It’s very demoralizing to work in a community without integrity.
The impact of integrity (or lack thereof) is similar to the one of honesty. Imagine how destabilizing it would be to work in an organization where people are dishonest, in a place where you never know if the other person is telling the truth or lying. It would be impossible to accomplish anything. Worse yet, it would be impossible to relate to others on a level beyond pretense. Imagine how disengaged and despondent you’d quickly become.
Lying is straightforward: it’s the opposite of telling the truth. But integrity is harder to define: we don’t always clearly understand when we violate it. Although we do understand in the abstract that lack of integrity is bad, we consider transgressing against it a minor issue. But integrity is as critical as honesty for effective relationships, both in business and in life in general. We need a practical definition that lets us see when we transgress. And we need to understand that whatever short-term benefits we imagine lack of integrity can afford us, they are dwarfed by the extraordinary long-term costs in the It, We, and I dimensions.
I define integrity as honoring your word. A person with integrity keeps her promises whenever possible, and still honors them if she is unable to do so. You make a grounded promise by committing only to deliver what you believe you can deliver. You keep the promise by delivering it. And you can still honor the promise when you can’t keep it by letting the person you are promising know of the situation, and taking care of the consequences.
Some commitments are explicit. For example, you promise to deliver your work product by April 9, or you promise to pay the mortgage by October 10. Other commitments are tacit: everybody expects you to abide by social rules of clothing, speech, action, and so on. Still other commitments are in the middle: when you enter into an employment relationship, you commit to abide by the company’s policies and to hold a fiduciary responsibility to act in the best interests of the owners.
In an interview before a World Championship match, a journalist asked Mike Tyson’s opponent what his plan was for the fight. The boxer gave a detailed description of how he was going to fight Tyson. Then the journalist turned to Tyson and asked, “What do you think about that, Mike?” Tyson’s answer was so pithy it made headlines: “Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the mouth.”1
Reality often punches us in the mouth. Things don’t go as planned due to innumerable factors out of our control. Sometimes nature gets in our way in the form of a big storm. But most of the time, the disruptive factors spring from human nature. The problem is not that things get out of our control. What destroys an organization’s ability to execute in the face of inevitable surprises is that people don’t act with integrity. Worse than that, most people don’t even know what integrity means.
In this chapter, I’ll show you how to build and operate an integrity-based execution system. The goal is threefold: to deliver results (the It), to enhance trust (the We), and to conduct oneself with integrity (the I). You’ll learn how to make commitments in a way that enhances trust and promotes efficiency. More important, you’ll learn how to preserve integrity, trust, and efficiency when things change and you, or others, are unable to deliver on commitments.
Jared, the CEO of SuperNuts, Inc. (not a real company but a stand-in for a real client of mine in a different industry), was furious. He had lost the biggest outsourcing contract in the company’s history due to a blunder by Victor, his operations manager. Furthermore, Victor’s blunder was an infringement of a company policy that Victor knew very well. Jared wanted to rake Victor over the coals, but he was worried that Victor would get so upset that he’d quit. Angry as he was, Jared wanted to keep Victor on because Victor was one of his oldest and most respected employees.
When Jared asked me for help, my first question was, “What happened?”
“Victor really screwed up,” Jared said. “We signed a huge outsourcing agreement with Organic Food Stores to produce their almond butter. The contract specified that to avoid contamination from peanuts, the facilities that produced the almond butter could not handle any peanut products. I signed the contract without a second thought, since our company has the same policy.
“Last week, while we were setting up, Organic Food Stores sent a surprise audit team to the plant that would be making their almond butter. They analyzed empty containers and found traces of peanuts.2 They asked the workers at the plant if there were peanuts being processed somewhere in the facility, and they confirmed that in a different sector of the plant there was a line producing peanut butter.
“When the auditors reported their finding, Organic’s outsourcing manager went ballistic. He referred the matter to their lawyers, who sent us notice that they were rescinding the contract due to our noncompliance. As if this wasn’t fun enough, they informed us that they were considering suing us. What a mess!”
Jared told me that he’d discovered that several months earlier Victor tried to improve efficiency and utilization by producing both almond butter and peanut butter in different lines at the same plant. He and the plant manager devised a cleaning procedure for the containers that prevented contamination. Victor asked the plant manager to conduct exhaustive tests to check that the procedure was safe. They found it to be so, so Victor gave the order to launch the peanut butter line in the almond butter plant. The decontamination process worked—so well that there was not a single problem for several months. That’s why nobody outside the plant knew that the company policy was being circumvented.
“In fact, the Organic auditors did not find any contamination; they only found minimal traces of the wrong molecule in some of the containers. Without the supersensitive equipment they were using they would have not found it, because the microscopic quantities were well below the detection limit in any product test. But find it they did, and all hell broke loose.
“This created not only a financial loss for us,” Jared continued, “but it’s also a public relations nightmare. Organic reported the reason for rescinding the contract to the trade media. Our industry is small, so everyone knows that we really messed up with one of the big players. Our reputation and credibility have taken a big hit, to say nothing of the personal embarrassment I’m feeling.”
Jared wanted to have a constructive conversation with Victor, but he was so angry that he felt like he would blow it. So I proposed that Jared and I do a “Houdini,” a special role-playing exercise I named for the great escape artist Harry Houdini. I play my counterpart and, in so doing, put myself into a conversational barrel. Then, like Houdini, I do my best to get out of the barrel before I plunge over a metaphorical Niagara Falls. The Houdini role play allows me to model constructive behaviors for my client (Jared), and for him to empathize with his counterpart (Victor). It also lets Jared experience how disarming it can be to interact with someone who uses a skillful conversational method.
In these scenarios, everything I say has to be aligned with the beliefs, emotions, and values of the person I’m working with. I have to play my client more authentically, more collaboratively, and with more integrity than they can even play themselves. This role playing is a real thrill for both parties, and it’s very effective.3
In my Houdini dialogue with Jared, I told him I would play him and he would play Victor. Before we launched into the dialogue, I asked Jared what he wanted to achieve through the conversation. I inquired about his goals for the task, for the relationship with Victor, and for himself.
Here’s what we said to each other:
Jared: I’d like to understand what happened and why Victor made the decision to bring the peanut butter production into the facility against the company policy, especially without telling me. I want to make it clear to him that this was a big mistake and make sure it will never happen again. I want Victor, and everybody else, to follow the rules.
Fred: Anything else?
Jared: I’d like to repair the three dimensions you mentioned—the It, the We, and the I. With regard to the task, I’d like to get Victor’s help to own up to his mistake and apologize to Organic Food Stores, and ask them to reconsider their decision to rescind the contract. Since he made the decision, I want him to be in the room with me when I talk to Organic Food Stores’s executives. Regarding the relationship, I’d like to reestablish trust. I feel betrayed, and my confidence in Victor has been shaken. He’s been a solid contributor for many years, so I’d like to not lose him over this breach. As far as my personal feelings and values go, I’d like to restore a sense of integrity. I would like Victor to apologize and to forgive him. I don’t want to stay resentful, and I don’t want him to carry a chip on his shoulder.
Fred: It looks to me like the problem is not just with Victor. There were a lot of people in the plant who should have known about the company policy of keeping peanut products separate. It concerns me that nobody raised a red flag when Victor gave the order to start the peanut butter line. The fact that nobody said anything tells me that the problem is much deeper than just one person making a bad decision.
Jared: You’re right. This is not just a conversation with Victor. This is a cultural issue that Victor and I need to address with his staff.
Fred: Then let’s also ask for Victor’s help to reinforce the company standards.
Jared: Sounds good.
Fred: Let’s start the role play. I’ll play you, Jared, and you play Victor. I’ll say some things that may surprise you, so you’ll have to improvise. Just let your intuition guide you, and don’t worry about trying to play Victor exactly. Don’t make him nicer than he is, but don’t make him nastier, either. Put yourself in his shoes and speak as you feel like doing. Let’s set the stage in my (Jared’s) office. I’ve called you (Victor) to discuss the problem of Organic Food Stores.
(Now the role play starts. I’ve marked the following role play with asterisks to distinguish it from the dialogue above.)
Victor* (played by Jared): I’m sorry, Jared. This surprise audit really screwed us. We had a very reliable process for decontamination, but these guys came looking for dirt. The traces of peanut butter they found would have never caused any problems.
Jared* (played by Fred): I understand, Victor, that the unexpected audit found a very small residue of peanut butter in the containers.
Victor*: Yes, it was barely detectable.
Jared*: Victor, I’d like to have a conversation with you about what happened. My goal is to understand what led you to take the decision to start a peanut butter line in the almond butter plant, and why you did that without discussing it with me first. I’d also like to find if there’s a way to make things less terrible than they are, not just with Organic, but also within our own company. This is a breach of trust that we need to fix so we can work together as a team. Does that sound good to you?
Victor*: Yes. I feel very bad about what happened.
Jared*: What actually happened, Victor?
Victor*: The plant had excess capacity, and our other plant that produces peanut butter was not able to cope with the high demand. So I thought that if we could ensure that the two substances would never mix, it would be great to use our excess capacity in the almond butter plant to cover for the production deficit in the peanut butter plant. Otherwise we would have to outsource production while having some of our equipment standing idle. It would have been quite expensive. All our tests of the scrubbing procedure were satisfactory so a few months back we started the peanut butter line. And we never had a problem. Until last week.
Jared*: I realize that the scrubbing was quite effective. And I can’t blame you for trying to save the company money through efficient utilization. In fact, I think that the second line is a good idea given that we can avoid contamination.
Victor*: I’m glad you see it that way! I thought you were upset with me.
Jared*: I am very upset, but not because you tried to improve our processes. I appreciate your commitment to try to do the right thing for the organization. You’ve been a great contributor for many years, Victor. That’s why I chose you for my leadership team.
Victor*: Then why are you upset with me?
Jared*: I am upset with you because you and I had an agreement not to mix almond butter and peanut butter in the same plant. You broke that agreement. You changed your commitment unilaterally, without letting me know and renegotiating it with me.
Victor*: Agreement? Commitment? What are you talking about?
Jared*: There’s a company policy that specifies that almond butter and peanut butter production will not take place in the same plant. You committed to implementing that policy. That’s a promise you made to me.
Victor*: I never thought of the policy as a promise.
Jared*: What did you think it was?
Victor*: I don’t know. I never thought about it this way. I assumed it was a safety rule, something that you wanted me to follow to avoid contamination. But since I found a way to avoid contamination, I thought I was respecting the spirit of the policy even if I didn’t follow its letter.
Jared*: I see that. Perhaps I failed to explain to you that when you agreed to follow this policy I took that as a personal commitment from you to me. I counted on you abiding by it. That’s why I signed the contract with Organic, which had a covenant saying we would not produce peanut products in any of the plants where we’d produce their almond butter. Since you never told me you were planning to do otherwise, I assumed that you were following our policy.
Victor*: So you think it was a mistake to repurpose our excess capacity?
Jared*: Not necessarily; I don’t know if it was or it wasn’t. What was surely a mistake was not discussing it with me first. That’s what bothers me, Victor. You and I had an understanding that you’d follow the policy. You changed your mind, but you never checked with me. You didn’t tell me. You didn’t ask me. You didn’t explain to me, or give me the chance to participate in, the decision. So I signed a contract with Organic that was in default before the ink on it was dry. I was out of integrity, as I am ultimately accountable for everything that our company does.
Victor*: When you put it that way, I feel like I have let you down. I should have told you but, you know, I thought it would be better to ask for an apology than for permission.
Jared*: That is the big mistake, Victor. That’s a get-out-of-jail-for-free card that you can use to break any promise. I can’t believe you’d want others to argue like this when they break promises to you. That’s the death of trust. If people can disown their promises because they’d rather ask for an apology than for permission, what value would anybody’s word have?
Victor*: You’re right, Jared. I totally screwed up by not discussing the matter with you. I’m very sorry.
Jared*: I accept your apology. I assume that this will never happen again.
Victor*: I learned a hard lesson, Jared. I will follow the policies religiously from now on.
Jared*: That’s the wrong lesson, Victor. Policies are not dogma. I don’t want you to follow them religiously. I want you to think out of the box and consider ways to improve our operations even if they challenge a policy. But what I want you to do then is to bring the matter up to me so that we can renegotiate our agreements. By the way, that’s the same thing that I’d need to do with the board if I agree with you and want to change a policy I have established with them. The lesson is that there is absolutely no legitimate way to break a promise unilaterally. It is always better to ask for permission than for an apology.
Victor*: That makes perfect sense. But this isn’t the way many people work. Lots of people in and outside our company don’t deliver on their promises on time.
Jared*: In that case, we’ve got a business problem around execution, and a cultural problem around integrity, Victor. And my belief is that these are two sides of the same coin. I feel responsible, and I’d like your help in addressing it. But before we do that, I’d like to go with you to Organic and offer our apologies for the breach. I’d like you to explain what happened. If we can regain their trust, perhaps they’ll reconsider their decision about the outsourcing deal.
Victor*: I was given specific instructions from our lawyers to avoid any contact with Organic.
Jared*: I’ll speak with the lawyers. There’s an issue of integrity here. We made a mistake and we must own up to it. Organic has been very reasonable in the negotiations. I trust that if we come clean with them, they will not use that against us—and they may even forgive us just like I’m forgiving you. On the other hand, if our apology ends up hurting us, we’ll take that as the price we must pay for our default. I’m willing to escalate this up to the board if our chief counsel of legal doesn’t approve of it.
Victor*: It’s kind of embarrassing. I’d rather not rub salt in our own wounds.
Jared*: It stings, for sure. But what’s the option? To hide and pretend nothing happened? What message would we be sending to our own people? I want this to be a culture-setting event, Victor. My first goal is that people understand that policies are not imposed upon them. They are proposed, and people agree to abide by them. This agreement is a commitment that puts their personal integrity, as well as their trustworthiness, at stake. I want everybody to be clear that asking for permission is not just the best way to deal with the need to renegotiate an agreement; it is the only way.
The real Jared stepped out of his role and remarked, “You make it look so natural! You said exactly what I wish I had said in our earlier role plays as myself. Why can’t I do it?”
“Don’t be so hard on yourself, Jared,” I replied. “This is as ‘natural’ as a great golf swing. It takes practice. So let’s start practicing. Let’s replay this conversation, but you’ll be you (Jared) and I’ll be Victor. I’ll play a very easy Victor, first. And once you are able to engage me constructively, I’ll ramp up the level of challenge progressively to see how you handle it.”
We did that, and after a couple of repetitions Jared was ready to have the real conversation with Victor. He was so excited that he called Victor into his office right then, taking advantage of the fact that I was there. Victor looked forlorn and apprehensive, no doubt because he knew he had screwed up royally and that his head was on the chopping block. But he behaved very well. He acknowledged his mistake and asked Jared to forgive him. Jared did a fantastic job and accomplished all his goals. It was the easiest facilitation I’ve ever done. I didn’t have to open my mouth at all during the meeting.
The preferable path to integrity is to keep your promises; that is, to do what you committed to do. You deliver the work product by April 9; you pay your mortgage by October 10. When you make a commitment, you incur a debt; when you deliver, you pay that debt. Therefore, you must make only promises that you intend to keep. Borrow only the money you intend to repay.
Here are the conditions for integrity when you make a promise:
Promise only what you believe you can deliver. If you don’t think you can keep your commitment or have significant doubts about it, don’t make a promise until you clear them. Since the promise is about the future, there’s always a risk that you may not be able to deliver. But this shouldn’t stop you from promising. A promise made with integrity that turns out to be beyond your reach is like a statement you make with honesty that turns out to be false. Just as an error is legitimate while a lie is not, a promise based on an erroneous assessment of capability has integrity, while one done with the knowledge of incapability does not.
Make a plan. To assess your ability to deliver, you need a robust plan that counts on skills and resources that you have or can reliably acquire. The plan must include foreseeable contingencies and strategies to deal with them. If you know of contingencies that could derail the plan, you have to let your creditor know at the time that you make the commitment—which is now conditional upon the contingency. Too often people make promises without any idea of how they will deliver. This is the source of endless breakdowns and breaches of integrity.
Have a tracking mechanism. You must assess whether the plan is on track. If you detect a significant deviation, you need to consider that your commitment is in jeopardy and let your creditor know right away.
Have a communication protocol. In this way, you can inform your creditor of any problems in a timely manner. For example, my assistant has instructions to include the telephone number and e-mail address of any person with whom I’ve scheduled an appointment, so that I can reach him or her if something goes wrong. My assistant also gives my counterparts my phone number and e-mail address in case any of them needs to reach me.
Promise only what you really intend to deliver. Be careful about the temptation to be “nice” and please others—especially those in authority. Before you promise, check in with yourself and consider whether you truly intend to do what you are about to promise. I often feel inclined to make commitments that I know I will later regret. But after many cases of “morning after” stress and disappointment in myself for committing to do things that I knew I shouldn’t have committed to do, I’ve realized that it is best to avoid the “night before” promise, even if that frustrates the other person.
There’s a world of difference between an order and a requested promise. The order relies on the authority of the person who issues it, but a promise relies on the integrity of the one who accepts the request. An order is typical of a boss, and it’s all about eliciting compliance. A request is typical of a leader, and it’s all about eliciting commitment. Coercion and threats will, at most, get you obedience but never discretionary effort.
When someone fails to execute an order, the boss’s complaint is usually “You didn’t do what I ordered you to do.” When someone fails to deliver on a promise, the leader’s confrontation is usually “You didn’t do what you promised to do.” Which one would hold more sway over you?
For a commitment to hold properly, it’s important that the promisor feels his or her integrity is at stake. A commitment, after all, is a contract, so the promisor has to understand the request and freely accept it. (Think of this as “informed consent.”) If you are going to get someone’s commitment rather than their compliance, they must feel they’re “signing on the dotted line” willingly, because they believe your request is productive, reasonable, and fair.
I can’t count the number of times I’ve heard employees allege that they can’t say no to their bosses’ requests. Targets, goals, budgets, and plans are often imposed on employees without asking for their commitment. In the employees’ minds, this means that their integrity is not at stake, because they didn’t really say that they could do what they were asked to do. If you want to be a transcendent leader, your authority must be moral rather than formal. You have to allow your reports to respond to your requests with something different than an obedient “yes, sir” or “yes, ma’am”—because a person who can’t say no can’t really say yes, either.
That doesn’t mean that your reports can just say no without further discussion. The basic employment contract specifies that they will do their best to honor your requests within the limits of their skills, resources, and values. As a leader, you will have explained to your reports that everything you and they do together is to help the team to win, and to play by the rules (i.e., in alignment with the organization’s mission and values). So if they decline a request, it behooves them to explain to you why, in a way that can allow a collaborative negotiation.
For example, my own employees have often declined my requests because their plate was full. They explained to me then what they were doing and the dates by which their existing commitments (mostly to me) were due. I was nearly always able to reprioritize their tasks in a way that fit their schedules, and that was compatible with the urgency of my need.
The commitment is the result of an interaction between someone who requests (the requester) and someone who receives that request (the receiver). I use the following guidelines to structure clear requests:
Explain. Describe the gap between what’s going on and what you’d like to achieve. Present the request as a way to bridge this gap with the help of the receiver.
Ask. Be explicit with your ask. Use the direct form of the verb (“I ask you to…” “I request that you…” “I beg you to…” “I invite you to…” and so on). Specifically define the conditions for satisfaction of the request, including deadlines.
Inquire. Give the receivers a chance to respond. Are they ready to make a promise? Do they want to decline your request, or do they need something more from you before responding?
A formula that integrates these three steps is: “In order to move from A to B, I ask you to deliver C by D. Can you commit to that?” or “I need your help to accomplish B. My request is that you do C by D. Can you do it?” (where A is the current state, B is the desired state, C is what you are asking, and D is the time by which you are asking for it).
It’s essential that after making a clear request, you don’t accept a less than full commitment. People often try to hedge, so they don’t say no directly but instead give you a murky pseudo-commitment like “Let me see what I can do,” “No worries,” “Someone will take care of it,” “We’ll do our best,” or “I’ll try.” In the famous words of Master Yoda, “Do or do not. There is no try.” The only answer that is a commitment is this one: “Yes, I promise,” or “Yes, I commit.” No “trying,” no “seeing,” no “someone,” no “we”—nothing but “I promise” is acceptable.
The best way to challenge “weasel” answers (and even to double-check the ones that seem clear) is to rephrase them as well-formulated promises, along the lines of “I understand you are promising to deliver C by D. Did I get that correctly?” I bet that most of the time you’ll get some hesitation from the other person, signifying that he or she was not really making a promise. And often you’ll get a clear “No,” signifying that your counterpart was reluctant to decline but unwilling to commit.
In my years of teaching this material, I have found only three acceptable answers (the last one with four subanswers) to a request. These answers clearly define who commits (or not) to deliver what by when:
“Yes, I promise,” or “Yes, I commit.”
“No, I decline.” It’s much better to know that the other person is unable or unwilling to make the commitment than to believe that they’re promising to do something that they’re really not committed to delivering.
“I’m not ready to commit yet because…” The receiver may not understand how your request helps you with your need, or how it meets the objective of the organization. Perhaps there is some conflict between your request and the receiver’s preexisting commitments, some policy of the organization, or something else.
When you hold formal authority over others, you must establish very clearly that they always have the right to say “I’m not ready to commit.” You are not giving people the right to decline your requests, but you are giving them the right to explain why it may be problematic to accept them. It’s perfectly legitimate for them to do this for any one of these five reasons: (1) they don’t understand what you’re asking them to do, or by when; (2) they don’t believe they have the skills or resources to deliver; (3) their ability to deliver depends on factors out of their control that may derail their plan; (4) they think that what you’re asking them to do would go against helping the team to win, or against a company value, standard, or policy; or (5) fulfilling your request would conflict with a prior commitment they’ve made to you or others.
If the receiver says, “I need clarification,” it means he or she needs to better understand your need or the conditions of satisfaction of your request. (By the way, this is an extremely useful answer when you receive a poorly formulated request.) If the receiver does fully understand what you are asking, they may say, “I can commit to give you C by D if you give me X by Y (or if X takes place before Y).” This is a conditional commitment that depends on some condition being fulfilled by you, or by reality.
Alternatively, they may say, “I can’t commit to do C by D, but I could do X by Y. Would that work for you?” This is a counteroffer that, should you accept it, becomes a commitment.
“I commit to respond to you by Y” is an appropriate response when the receiver needs to check his or her resources before making a definite (or conditional) commitment (or declines, or counteroffers). Notice that the commitment is to give you an answer at a specific date.
When leaders give followers permission not to accept requests, they are giving them permission to do what’s right for the team. Along these lines, I remember a story I heard in first grade about General José de San Martín, the Argentinean equivalent of George Washington.
Before one of the battles, San Martín went to the munitions depot to check on supplies. He was about to walk in when a soldier blocked his path. (In the Argentinean army, it is unthinkable for a plain soldier to even speak to an awe-inspiring general, let alone stand in his way.) When the soldier stepped in front of him, San Martín ordered him to let him through. The soldier said respectfully, “With your permission, my general, you gave us specific orders to not let anyone with spurs on his boots into the munitions depot.” Whereas a lesser commander would have reprimanded the soldier for insubordination, San Martín congratulated the soldier and made him an example of integrity. He had vowed to enforce San Martín’s order, and he did—even upon San Martín himself.
No matter how robust your plans are, you will not always be able to keep your promises. That is a manageable problem, though, since you can still honor your word. To maintain integrity, you must inform all parties involved as soon as you know that you may not be able to keep your promise. And you need to take care of the negative consequences that your failure to deliver will produce for them.
Even if you are holding yourself to the highest possible standards when making your promise, there will be times when you simply can’t deliver by the due date. You want to ship, but the plant did not finish production. You want to pay your debt, but someone did not pay you. Life is unpredictable; sometimes you might find yourself unable to follow through on your commitment—or maybe delivering is so onerous that it doesn’t make sense to do it. In these circumstances, it is all the more important to maintain effectiveness, trust, and integrity.
When you can’t, won’t, or think you shouldn’t fulfill a promise you’ve made, the secondary path to integrity is to “honor” it. That means that you do your best to take care of your creditor (the recipient and holder of your promise) to maintain trust in the relationship, and to reinforce a culture of integrity.
Doing this involves the following steps:
Announce. Let your creditor know that your delivery is at risk as soon as you consider that this risk is material. Don’t wait until the last moment—or, worse yet, past the due date—to inform your creditor that you won’t be able to fulfill your promise. Too often, people try desperately to avoid the awkward moment of informing their creditors of a possible breakdown, missing the chance to minimize its consequences. They work until the last minute and then default, surprising their unsuspecting creditor. (And then they resent it when the creditor gets upset.) If your creditor asks you, “Why didn’t you tell me earlier?,” the only honorable answer is “Because I didn’t know.”
The earlier you issue the warning, the better, as long as it’s a real warning of a material risk. The rule of thumb I use is to put myself in my creditor’s shoes and ask myself whether I’d want to know that there’s a problem.
Apologize. Tell your creditor that you recognize your commitment and that you would like to renegotiate it in a way that minimizes the negative consequences, maintains trust between you, and honors your word.
Explain. Let your creditor know what unforeseeable circumstances are preventing you from fulfilling your promise. Don’t use this as a justification or an excuse. Make it clear that you are fully responsible and accountable for your commitment and are telling your creditor what has happened so that he or she understands that the breakdown wasn’t due to your negligence (or if it was, to own up to your mistake). This is why it’s so important to announce the problem as soon as it becomes material.
Inquire. Ask your creditor what consequences are likely to ensue from your inability to deliver. Focus on the practical costs that your creditor and others will have to bear due to your unfulfilled promise. Then ask what your creditor would like you to do to minimize these consequences, and to make it up to him or her with some compensation for the unmitigated losses. What you can’t resolve, you can restitute. The goal is to take care of your creditor and others who will suffer consequences.
Negotiate. See if you can offer something even better than what your creditor asked for in the first place. Taking into account your creditor’s concerns and costs as well as your own resources, try to come up with a recovery plan that takes care of the situation as best as possible given the constraints. If you can’t do what your creditor requests, explain why and engage in a collaborative negotiation (i.e., put in practice what you learned in the previous chapter).
Recommit. Make a new commitment to deliver what you and your creditor negotiated. Make sure you specify what you will deliver and by when.
Check and learn. Ask your creditor whether he or she is satisfied with the process, or if there’s anything more to clear up. Make sure that trust has been reestablished and integrity maintained. Also, take notice of the cause of the breakdown and remember it as a risk next time you make a similar commitment.
In my workshops, I ask people if they would like others to fulfill these conditions when making commitments, and I always hear a unanimous “yes.” Then I ask them, “When was the last time that anyone renegotiated a commitment with you following these principles?” The silence is deafening, but it gets even louder when I ask about the last time they renegotiated a commitment in this way.
Paradoxically, it is possible to increase trust when you can’t keep your word, if you honor your word. People know that, sooner or later, circumstances beyond your control will prevent you from fulfilling one of your promises. But as long as you deliver, they won’t know how you will behave—and whether they can trust you—when you can’t. When that does happen, if you take care of them with integrity, they will redouble their confidence in you.
My daughter Sophie’s birthday is on August twenty-sixth. I was in the United Kingdom the week before her fourteenth birthday, facilitating a very important executive meeting for a client. The meeting was scheduled to finish on Friday night. I was going to fly back to the United States the following day and be at Sophie’s birthday party on Sunday, as I’d promised.
Someone once told me, “If you want to make God laugh, tell him your plans.” God must have had a good chuckle, because the team did not reach a decision on Friday and decided to finish the meeting on Monday. The leader of the team asked me to stay and help them the following week. I wanted to do this, but if I stayed, I would break my promise to my daughter. I told the team leader that I would get back to him by 9 p.m.
I went to my hotel, called Sophie, and explained the situation to her. “Sophie,” I said, “if you want me to return as I promised, I will do it. I still have my ticket for tomorrow morning. But before you say you do, let me ask you a question. Is there anything that I could do with you to celebrate your birthday the following weekend that would be better than having me at your party this Sunday?”
Without a moment’s hesitation Sophie replied, “Skydiving! Oh, Daddy, I’ve always wanted to do that! It would be even better than having you at my party.” I told her that I would do some research and get back to her in an hour.
I googled “Skydiving” in our city and found that there was a flight club that offered tandem jumps, but it turned out that Sophie had to be at least eighteen years old to do such a jump. So I called Sophie and explained that she wasn’t old enough to jump, but that the flight club offered what was described to me as “very exciting glider flights.” After a brief negotiation, we agreed on a two-part deal. I could stay in London and, in exchange, I would take her on the glider flight the following Sunday and on a tandem jump when she turned eighteen.
And so it was settled. I stayed, helped the team complete their discussions successfully, then flew back to Sophie and took her on a glider ride the following Sunday…which delighted Sophie and made me sicker than her favorite roller-coaster ride did.
Early in my career, I consulted two companies (let’s call them “A” and “B”). Company A had engaged me to do a three-day workshop on a specific date and agreed to pay me X dollars.
A month before the date of the workshop, Company B asked me if I would be a keynote speaker and facilitator for an all-day conference with their top five hundred leaders. This conference was on the middle day of the three-day workshop I had committed to do for Company A. For this keynote and facilitation I would get paid 2X dollars.
I definitely wanted to do both engagements (and make 3X dollars). But if I couldn’t do that, then I’d rather do Company B’s keynote, since it demanded one-third of the time for double the money. But I had already given my promise to Company A, so I was afraid that I would have to decline the engagement with Company B.
I called the learning and development manager at Company A and told her, “Mary, I’ve been asked to do a keynote on a day that conflicts with our upcoming workshop. I know that you have already invited the executives and that several of them have confirmed their attendance. I realize that changing the date at this stage would be costly for you. So I have the following proposition: If you’d like me to do the workshop as planned, then I will do it. But if you are willing to reschedule it, I will do it at a later date for free. I’ll waive my fee. You’d only pay for the travel and accommodation. What do you think?”
Mary didn’t need to think too much. “Deal!” she replied immediately. “Our budget is quite stretched, so it would be a welcome relief to save the money. I’ll deal with the change of date. If anybody complains, I’ll explain to them why we’re doing it.”
At the end, we rescheduled the workshop for the following week. I was able to do both jobs, and got 2X dollars for them, which was a good deal for me. In addition, my reputation as a supportive, flexible, and trustworthy consultant grew significantly. I worked with both these companies for many more years.
Let’s say that, like Jared in the almond-butter story presented earlier, you’ve been let down. Somebody made a promise to you that he or she didn’t fulfill. You are upset and want satisfaction. Execution is suffering, trust has eroded, and integrity is in question. You feel bad, and you want to make your defaulting counterpart feel bad, too. My advice: Don’t. If you go with your impulse, you will make everything worse.
Resentment calls for revenge, but that’s a terrible way to deal with the problem. Like a sugary soda that tastes good but doesn’t really quench your thirst and compromises your health, self-righteous indignation doesn’t really solve the problem. And it can leave your relationship in tatters.
On the other hand, if you want to execute with efficiency, preserve trust, and maintain integrity, you can’t stay quiet if there’s a breakdown. Silence is consent, so if you say nothing, you will be endorsing the behavior. You need to make a productive complaint.
When you complain productively, you seek to restore effectiveness, trust, and integrity. You confront only once, and you follow through to resolution. At best, you end up with a new agreement that closes the matter. At worst, you realize that your counterpart is not trustworthy, and you can responsibly decide what you want to do about it.
There are seven steps for a productive complaint.
Review your purpose for complaining and ensure that it is productive. You want to have a mutual learning conversation to repair the breakdown and lay the groundwork for better future interactions.
Share your intention with your counterpart as an invitation. For the conversation to succeed, both of you should want to improve your working relationship, not to accuse each other and defend yourselves. Your shared goal should be to address a breakdown that is affecting your work, your relationship, and your well-being. Again, your mantra should be “Repair and prepare.”
Many problems result from miscommunication at the time of commitment. You think you requested X; your counterpart thinks she promised Y. If this is the case, have a new conversation about the commitment and then discuss how to avoid repeating this misunderstanding in the future.
Check that your counterpart agrees that he or she did not fulfill the commitment. Your counterpart will probably give you a justification. Don’t engage in a discussion about it. At this point you are just trying to establish the facts.
Besides helping you understand the other person’s perspective, inquiry shows respect. It helps you evaluate whether the causes for the default arose after the promise was made and were unforeseeable. It also helps you separate the practical issues from the trust and integrity ones. The practical issues are related to keeping one’s word; trust and integrity issues are about honoring it.
For example, if one of my colleagues missed a meeting without letting me know in advance that he or she wouldn’t attend, I would ask them what happened. If they tell me that our CEO had demanded an urgent meeting, I would say this: “I can certainly understand that the CEO’s request has priority over mine. If he called me, I would have canceled the meeting with you, too. What I don’t understand is why you didn’t let me know right away that you couldn’t make it. It would have taken you just thirty seconds to call or send me a text message to apologize and explain what happened.”
To repair the breakdown, you may need your counterpart to recommit to the original promise, or you may require some additional conditions. The key is to clearly ask for what you need to close the issue, restore trust, and feel at peace. If you do get satisfaction, drop the issue, forgive, and forget. Don’t keep the matter as a “resentment trump card” to play in future conversations with this person.
Ask your counterpart if he or she is satisfied with the process. Make sure that trust has been reestablished and integrity maintained. Also, take notice of the cause of the breakdown and consider it as something you can both foresee the next time you make a similar agreement.
The evolution of humankind owes more to the division of labor than to the invention of the wheel. Many civilizations, such as the early Egyptian, thrived without the wheel, but no societies thrived without specialization. With increasing specialization, however, any society needs to develop methods of integration. Otherwise, the parts will break apart and the original whole will dissolve. When differentiation leads to fracture and independence rather than to relation and interdependence, the system collapses. And when this happens in the economic sphere, prosperity, well-being, and development go backward.
The market economy is the best integration mechanism for humans. It promotes social cooperation with maximal freedom and minimal conflict. It has evolved through thousands of years of social experimentation. Mutually voluntary transactions between buyers and sellers of goods and services within the institutional framework of property rights and the rule of law have allowed for the biggest demographic explosion, the biggest increase in the standard of living, and the biggest extension of life expectancy in the history of the world. Each one of the transactions in the market or in an organization is mediated by a prior agreement and by the trust that commitments will be fulfilled.
Whether we are coordinating our actions as buyers and sellers or we are working together as fellow organizational members, our ability to produce results depends on the integrity with which we exchange requests and promises. Integrity is the glue that allows us to reintegrate the specialization that underpins modern society. Integrity and trust are essential factors of production. As the political economist and author Francis Fukuyama has noted, “Economic life depends on…trust. This is the unspoken, unwritten bond between fellow citizens that facilitates transactions, empowers individual creativity, and justifies collective action….The social capital represented by trust is as important as physical capital.”4
But it is not only economic well-being that depends on our integrity. The social bonds of trust strengthen or weaken with it as well. When you promise frivolously or default carelessly, you harm your relationships. That’s why, if you want to be a transcendent leader, you need to be impeccable about your commitments. Your word must absolutely be your bond. And you must demand that everyone else operate with the same level of integrity.