Saving your business culture

How making and keeping promises can create a snowball culture of accountability

It’s hard to find a book where you agree with 100% of what the author says. I just finished reading “Accountability at Work: How to Make and Keep Promises.” I wrote a thread about it with many quotes.

First, we thought about motivation, from the carrot-and-stick approach to the more contemporary views of Daniel Pink and Dan Ariely.

But they both lack a framework to achieve motivation. We were limited by diagnosing the problem without an effective solution.

Carolyn’s book is mind-blown by the simplicity and straightforwardness. Accountability is explained in terms of promises and intentions, reputation and self-esteem, and that changes your perception of things.

It is clear in hindsight, even though many other authors touch on the topic tangentially. But I never saw it so crystal clear: it says what I believe is the most important thing: your reputation!

If to be accountable you have to keep promises, accountability is more than just doing something for someone else: it is, E-V-E-R-Y T-I-M-E, about building your reputation. Which in return boosts your self-esteem, which in turn improves all other aspects of your life.

That is why I started this post with two quotes that are actually not from the book. The first is from Jeff Bezos, saying that your brand, which I understand as your reputation, is measured by what other people say about you when they don’t have to fear your judgment. The second, from Feynman, kind of explains Bezos, as the reason why you need other people’s opinion is that we are easily fooled by ourselves, but not by others.

I would go even one step further than the book, which makes a clear connection between delivering promises, reputation, and self-esteem as rewards from accountability. I believe building your reputation and self-esteem should be the reason why we want to make and deliver promises.

I think this change in perspective, from reward to reason, is very important, because, as Balajis says that there is an abundance of capital in the world, but reputational capital is scarce. And Denise Lee Yohn says that your reputation reduces your operating costs and increases the upside of working with you.

Your reputational capital will also protects you if someone decides to attack or threaten your reputation.

The promise is a very powerful concept because we all have theoretical and empirical knowledge about it. Even if hard to define, everyone KNOWS the difference between a an intention and a promise.

Do you know what they say about you when you leave the room? Are you afraid of it?

Then stop complaining, take responsibility (the book explains how), become someone who delivers on promises, and start building or rebuilding your reputation.