An A/E/C firm assembled almost all its staff (engineers, architects, planners, surveyors, environmental scientists, construction managers and admin folks) in its headquarters city to listen to representatives of five strategic clients, one from each of the firm's market sectors, talk about what they wanted from a consultant.
Each person in attendance came in with an idea of what he or she thought the clients would say. And all of the preconceived notions had to do with technical quality, speed or cost of the work.
It was a very interesting session.
None of the client representatives mentioned anything about technical quality, speed or cost. Each expressed a different need as their primary concern, and the primary concern of one of them also showed up on the other four representatives' lists. And that was:
"Do what you say you're going to do, when you say you're going to do it."
In other words, keep your promises. Kids learn about the importance of promises as they grow up. After all, they don't want to disappoint their friends or their parents, or lose a coveted privilege. So they learn to deliver on their promises. Sometimes they even "pinky swear."
Unfortunately, as adults, we sometimes forget the importance of our promises. Or we decide it's OK to promise and then deliver something else or something less, or promise and not deliver anything at all.
And we don't stop to think of consequences. We don't stop to think what will happen to the intended recipient if we are late or don't deliver, because he or she may have committed to some action assuming that we will deliver on time, as promised.
And because many of us don't think of our promise as our brand, we cause serious, often irreparable, harm to our personal and company brands. Just by breaking a promise.
"Here's the deal," the client representative said. "If you tell me you'll have information for me on Wednesday, and you do, that's great. If you have it on Tuesday, that's even better. But if you don't have the information on Wednesday, call or email me anyway. Tell me the difficulty and give me a new expectation of when you will have the promised information. But don't neglect to make the call. That will just make me think that you don't value me or my business. And next time, I'll go to some other firm for the help I need."
The technical folks were stunned. After all, how could technical quality not be the primary concern?
One of them raised his hand and asked the client representative why quality wasn't his primary concern. He was told, "Technical quality is a given. We selected you in the first place because you showed you had the technical capability to do the work. Technical quality is assumed. But I need to know that you will live up to your commitments so I can make and live up to commitments of my own."
All five representatives agreed that the only promise that utimately has any value is the promise you keep!
And just for your information, the second most important concern turned out to be:
"Tell me what I really need to hear, and not what you think I want to hear."