Above & Beyond

By Deana Fuhr

Underpromising and overdelivering your forecasts and promises is important for your business, personal brand, and reputation. You need to be able to anticipate what to promise and deliver to run effectively and efficiently. If you can deliver your promise it will boost your personal credibility. 

Everyone, from a two year old to a fifty-five year old, hates unfulfilled promises, it’s a normal human reaction. To mitigate this, we should always strive to underpromise and overdeliver in relation to the expectations of our employees and clients. And this isn’t because we want to “wow” our employees or clients with surprises all the time, it’s because we want to show that we can meet or exceed expectations, all the time. 

People respect people that follow through with their promises: people who say what they mean and mean what they say. To be an effective leader, underpromise and overdeliver; your employees will be happy with your consistency. 

Happy employees become loyal employees the same way happy clients become loyal clients. By underpromising, overdelivering, and understanding the impact of expectations on motivations, you can keep employees working hard and clients satisfied.