For the 13 years that I have been around, the Chick-fil-A organization that I lead in has held to the value of Integrity. This one often finds its way onto the list for businesses, so no surprise there. But the way it is defined and applied can always vary. In my context the definition reads “We do what we say we are going to do”.

Can You Chart Reliability?

In my experience you can almost create a graph with one axis listing a person’s age/experience and the other axis showing in correlation directly how reliable they are or are not with doing things they say they will do.

Often I hear things like “Sure I’ll get their email address and send it to you”, or “Yep I’ll knock this out this week”, and the younger the person the less likely it is to actually be completed. This is not a reflection of lack of intention or care, but instead one of inferior process.

A tremendous amount of damage is done when a person tells someone else that they will do something only to then never actually follow through. This leads to lack of trust, feeling undervalued, and even things like future avoidance or micromanaging.

The Good News

The good news is there is a simple way to plug the leak and get the ship back afloat moving forward.

Pick one tool and every single time you tell someone that you will do anything, use that singular location to set a reminder and ensure it is handled.

For me, everything funnels to my email, so everything from “Input John’s pay raise” to “Buy AA batteries” goes into a snoozed email to myself. If it’s not in there then I will not do it, and if I’ve committed to doing it then it IS in there 100%. This simple system ensures that things are completed like clockwork.

At this point in time, do you have an effective system for ensuring that you do what you say you will do? Are the people around you able to count on you 100%?

One tangible action:

Pick one location and spend one week thoroughly putting every item that you must get done there. Then go there throughout each day and ensure 100% completion.

Pro Tip:

Use your email. You have to do email anyways so might as well funnel there as opposed to having to pull things out of email and move them elsewhere!