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Do You Promise To Do or Do You Just Agree To Do?

Trigger Question #48

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Why does it matter whether you promise to or agree to? Well, answer this question first. How do you win trust and influence outcomes? (Sorry, Dale Carnegie.)

First, let’s consider the opposite. How to destroy trust. (Politicians already know how, so they can ignore this.) You destroy trust by making promises you cannot satisfy, or don’t plan to deliver. The bonus is that you then don’t have to worry about outcomes.

We know politicians do this, and we complain about them. But we forget how often we also over-promise and under-deliver, and how easily we forgive ourselves.

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Why do we do this? Because making a promise isn’t the issue. Nor is knowing that we shouldn’t over-promise. You see, the surest way to build trust has little to do with over or under. The surest way has to do with never. Never promise to start with.

At least that’s the advice of the great American social psychologist, Tom Sawyer. Or was it Mark Twain? Whichever. One of them said, “To promise not to do a thing is the surest way in the world to make a body want to go and do that very thing.”

I know, I know. The caution refers to a promise NOT to do something. But I suspect it applies equally to a promise to do something. Except now it becomes, “To promise TO DO a thing is the surest way in the world to make a body NOT want to go and do that very thing.”

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Here’s why. A promise is a commitment made under duress. We make promises only when we have to. If you must make a promise, then your heart is not in it. And if your heart is not in it, then the best your promise can deliver is a half-hearted attempt by you.

The solution? Trick your mind. Never promise. Simply agree to do or not to do.

Welcome to my side of the nonsense divide.

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Quote of the Moment:

“Never make a promise you cannot break.” The Chief Nonsense Officer.

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