Managing by request and promise
It’s simple on the face of it. Your colleague makes a request, and you have four choices. You can say:
- “Yes.”: This means, yup, you’ll do it. And you’d better do it or your credibility goes out the window.
- “Yes, if…”: This means you need a promise in return, such as an essential bit of information, an introduction, cover for something, whatever.
- “Yes, but…”: This means yes, but with modifications, such as not by the time they want or not exactly in the way they want it.
- “No.”: This is a trump card that must be respected. The only caveat is, the more you use it in a Request-and-Promise environment, the more people will start to wonder what you’re doing there.
One more thing: the request is big, stretching, not just another task for your to-do list.
I’ve seen this culture take root for a time in two national organisations I worked in, and things absolutely rocked. The normal hierarchies went out the window.
How do you build such a culture? Deep and deliberate delegation.