DON’T FORGET TO . . .
Dan Mirgon, CEPA
Business and Financial Strategy - Helping you "Get Your End Game Right"
“I’ll get that for you by Tuesday”
“It’s on its way”
“I’ll get right back to you”
“Blah, Blah, Blah, etc.…”
I often find myself reminding leaders that people are asking three questions when they come to work in your company.
#1 – Are you going to help me? Is this job going to provide the things I need and want in order to take care of my family?
#2 – Will you know me as a person? Am I important to you as an individual human being or am I just a resource for you to use?
#3 – Can I Trust You? This is the most important question – because they want to know about your character, whether you are trustworthy or not.
Unfortunately, trustworthiness is not a word we hear very often anymore.
Trust is about Honor. If you violate your honor by lying, cheating, or stealing that is an obvious violation.
But when you don’t do exactly what you promised to do the way you said it would be done – you violate your honor and break the trust that people are placing in you.
The most common area where this trust begins to erode is when you don’t follow through on our commitments.
Oh, I know you’re busy, and in that busyness, you sometimes make quick decisions about what you will do – giving the other person an expectation that you now have to live up to.
And then the inevitable happens – you get distracted. Something becomes “more important” that takes you away from meeting the expectation that was just set in the mind of the other person.
And you can almost hear the air leaking out of the “Trust Balloon” that you have been trying to inflate.
Key Point:
Don’t make a commitment you don’t intend to keep – and commit immediately to get done when you said you would.
The other person is listening, watching, and waiting for you to prove that you are trustworthy. If you can’t deliver on it or commit to it, give yourself permission to not commit to it.
In the end, they will think more highly of you for not letting them down.
If we can help – that would be our pleasure.
Dan
Dan Mirgon
President / CEO
Dan Mirgon & Associates