Say what you do, do what you say

In 30 plus years of business experience I can tell you that while this may appear to be the most obvious of principles, I can tell you that it is far more common for people to routinely miss the boat on this one. Many people will only give generalities so that they don’t get ‘pinned down’ with making a specific commitment. Be specific – Don’t say “I’ll get it done next week”, rather say “I will complete the report and deliver it to you by Tuesday of next week by end of the business day”. And then follow up and make sure you do everything in your power to do in fact what you said you would do.

Take the next week or two and pay particular attention to what people say, and then watch and follow up and find out if they did what they said they would do. If you pay close attention, you will find many occasions when they just don’t do what they said they would do. They don’t mean anything bad by it, they don’t intend to miss out, they just were not committed. Now, why is this an operating principle? Very simple – in the business world, the competitors who rise to the top are the ones who consistently out-perform their competition. Just imagine if everyone on your team was specific in what they said they would do, and then followed up and did it! They would separate themselves from the competition over time and it will be noticed.