Making & Keeping
Stock offerings are launched by making promises.
Lofty stock prices are guaranteed by keeping them!
Elections are won by making promises.
Legacies are secured by keeping them!
Weddings are begun by making promises.
Marriages are secured by keeping them!
Mortgages are begun by making promises.
Mortgage Backed Securities are made valuable by keeping them!
We’re in the business of helping clients master the art of story building and story telling —Making Promises! — in print, in person, on the phone and on the web. Presenting and Selling are fundamental to the art of Promise Making. And Promise Making is at the center of a successful company.
At the same time, we’re also dedicated to helping our clients understand and meet the challenge of keeping those promises over the long term. That’s where the other Cornerstones: Management, Strategy, Culture, and Ethics come in. It’s one thing to make a promise, another thing entirely to keep it — for as long as it takes. Combining the two is the secret of a successful culture.
In our disjointed popular culture, the distance between promise made and promise delivered has stretched to a longer and longer interval — leading some to conclude that the two are no longer even related.
In this new disconnected mindset, it’s enough to simply make the promise — whatever’s necessary to get the agreement, the vote, the deal. Leave securing the delivery to the other person, the other department, the electorate!
We differ. Though making and keeping are different by nature, they are truly, intimately related. And you can’t do one for long without focusing on its counterpart. In reality, they come as a matched and complementary set.
“Let me tell you brother, you can’t have one without the other.”
Yes, there are substantial and legitimate differences in the skills, behaviors and activities required between the making and keeping of promises. The guy who sells, the guy who services, and the guy who delivers are wildly different people — as they should be. The Salesman, the Mechanic and the Manager are unique, but to succeed, they have to play together and operate under a set of shared expectations, values and practices so that their customers, clients and colleagues can all recognize that theirs is One Organization, with One Overriding Value System. As a customer, I must know that I am being served by a team with one vision and one objective — my satisfaction.
Our civilization has come a long way. But have you noticed, as we have, an increasing gap between the making and keeping of promises? Are we moving so fast that one of our vital cultural norms is degrading before our eyes? We hate to suggest this, but such a gap is a signal indicator of corruption, failure and cultural decay.
Keep Making Promises Friends, But Keep On Keeping Them Too!
Applications
1. Individually
Perhaps the best place to reinstate the connections between making and keeping is in yourself. Have you made a promise about increased Health? Increased Financial Responsibility? More visits to Mom? Are they still waiting to be fulfilled? So start keeping those promises to the most important person in your life. Or, don’t make them in the first place.
Keeping your promises to your self is the foundation of character — and the signal which says that you can be counted upon.
2. At Home
Things may be coming apart outside, but your children and your partner will tell you that breaking a promise is how the relationship, the marriage, and the family start to sour. Keep the promises to the kids, and give the next generation a sample of what integrity is all about. They’ll have a model upon which to build their own lives going forward. Oh, and make sure they keep their promises too — what’s good for the Parents, is good for the Children.
3. At Work
Being trusted to deliver is fundamental to a great career. So make your Boss a promise, and keep it. Then make a habit of it. Then grow the circle and become the one at work that others count on and turn to when it absolutely has to be done. An honest promise starts a career. Keeping that promise, and all the others, is what makes it a win for you, your team, your boss, the customers and the company.
A successful culture and company are all about an endless sequence of promises made, and promises kept. In a world where not everyone believes or practices this, give it a try, and establish yourself as a leader.
“Let me tell you brother, you can’t have one without the other!”
Dessert:
Frank Sinatra performing Love & Marriage
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