One of my most read articles is on a framework for making effective requests. It’s a powerful technique I learned in my ontological coaching, where being more specific and clear with our language can create a culture where everyone is more productive because they can rely on others to manage their commitments proactively.
I’ve shared this technique in my coaching and in leadership workshops for entire organizations. As employees embrace the framework and use it to manage their commitments and hold others accountable, it often shines a light on a related issue lurking under the surface. A culture that lacks reliability and accountability.
As I unpack reliability today, I encourage you to consider these prompts:
- Do the people that report to you have strong reliability?
- Does your organizational culture promote reliability?
- Do you have a reputation as a reliable individual?
I offer a simple framework to assess reliability.
Level 0 – Chaos
Two behaviors underlie my assessment that someone is reliable:
- They have a track record of consistently delivering on their promises.
- When an issue arises that prevents them from delivering on a promise, they proactively communicate the problem and develop a new plan.
I spoke with a leader who was frustrated with one of their direct reports due to their unreliability. As we dug into an example, it became clear that this was a level 0 scenario. The leader never made their expectations clear. There was no clear deadline. While the leader saw the employee as unreliable, as we explored the details, they realized that the employee didn’t make a commitment that they could be held accountable for.
As you assess someone’s reliability, the first question to ask is whether their commitment was clear in the first place. Make sure you are making an effective request. Without this clarity, you are in chaos.
Level 1 – Unreliable
As the organizations I’ve worked with begin to embrace the effective request framework, they quickly pull themselves out of chaos. Requests are delivered with clear expectations, a clear deadline, and a firm commitment from the recipient to fulfill the request.
As the chaos clears, it shines a bright light on unreliable behavior. You know precisely when the request is due. When the deadline comes and goes, and the request has not been fulfilled, you have an instance of unreliability.
The simplest component to address is proactively managing the commitment. Issues arise. We have competing priorities. We get new assignments. Life happens. We are going to fail to deliver on a promise we’ve made. The people with strong reliability keep track of those promises and reach out as soon as they realize the promise is in jeopardy. This may be as simple as extending the deadline, or it may mean reassigning the task to someone else, or redefining the nature of the request. The point is, if I’m the customer, I don’t have to manage you. I know you’ll reach out to me proactively.
I work with very reliable leaders. They are often frustrated when their direct reports are not. And yet, these leaders frequently fail to provide feedback. They tell me their direct reports “should just know to do this.”
If your employees don’t proactively manage their commitments with you, and you don’t hold them accountable when they miss a commitment, you are fostering a culture of unreliability. Each time you let an unfulfilled commitment go without feedback, you are reinforcing that it’s ok to be unreliable.
Suppose you find yourself in this situation. Start simple. Make sure each commitment has a firm deadline. By firm, I mean a specific time. “5 PM Eastern on Friday” is precise. “End of the week” could mean sometime Friday to some and before 9 AM Monday to others.
Make sure your employee knows you expect proactive communication before that deadline if something comes up that derails the commitment.
If the deadline comes and goes without communication, hold them accountable. Note that the commitment was unfulfilled, and you did not get a communication. Have a coaching conversation about what they need to do to improve for next time.
Hold someone accountable several times in a row, and you’ll break the cycle. Neuroplasticity will begin to occur in the employee as they unwind the neural pathways that have become hardwired to assume there will be no consequences for missing a commitment.
Suppose you’ve fostered a culture of accountability and are giving consistent feedback when someone fails to manage their commitments proactively, and you are not seeing a behavior change. In that case, it’s time to dig deeper. It may be that the individual needs to strengthen their organizational skills, in which case my Productivity Anthology is a great resource. Or, it may be you have someone who isn’t the right fit for this role.
Level 2 – Proactive but Unreliable
Getting an individual from Level 1 to Level 2 is pretty straightforward. You set clear expectations, get a clear commitment back, document as needed, and provide feedback each time they fail to manage their commitment proactively.
If an individual is good about proactively managing their commitments, but is regularly coming back and renegotiating a commitment, leadership becomes more interesting. I can’t offer a simple playbook for this situation. What I can say is, as with Level 1, it’s critical that you give feedback and have the courageous conversation about the behavior to determine a shift that brings more reliability.
I remember a time when I was part of a team that met weekly. We used an issue log to track open items and reviewed it at the start of each meeting. This can be a powerful tool to build a culture of accountability and reliability if used effectively. Everyone knows there will be an open discussion around unfulfilled commitments each week, and that can inspire people to a higher level of reliability.
The technique must be used with care, because it can also be abused (intentionally or not) and create an environment that is not psychologically safe. On this particular team, a leader had an open item that they kept pushing back, week after week. It wasn’t critical, so we didn’t pressure the leader, but after several weeks, I realized it was becoming an elephant in the room. Finally, I pointed out that the issue had been pushed back several weeks in a row, and I asked what the team could do to help this person complete the issue. They responded authentically by saying, “I don’t have a good answer for that right now.”
I realized in that moment there was more to the story, and a group setting was not the right environment to drive accountability. We connected one-on-one later on to talk through the issue in a more psychologically safe setting.
If you have an employee who is failing to deliver on commitments, I strongly encourage you to put on your coaching hat. If the solution were as simple as pointing out the behavior and telling them they need to change it, it likely would have solved itself already. Be open and curious to learn the root causes. Work with the employee to co-create a solution that resonates with them.
You may find that the employee struggles to say no, and they are making commitments they can’t keep because they need help setting boundaries and managing their priorities. You may find that your leadership style is encouraging that behavior. You may learn that there are challenges outside of the workplace that warrant employee assistance. Or perhaps this employee is in the wrong role and simply can’t focus on the work at hand. Be curious.
Putting It Into Practice
You and the people around you (professionally and personally) will see tremendous gains if you foster a culture of reliability.
- If the situation is chaos, begin by embracing the effective request framework.
- Give consistent feedback when others don’t proactively manage their commitments.
- Adopt a coaching approach if someone is struggling to deliver on their commitments. Be curious.
I am an executive coach and life coach with software executive roots in higher education and EdTech. I coach because I love to help others accelerate their growth as leaders and humans. I frequently write about #management, #leadership, #coaching, #neuroscience, and #arete.
If you would like to learn more, schedule time with me.
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