It is the ability to listen our customers and simultaneously observe and account for the fact that we are listening with our unique structure and filter. We must develop an ability to listen differently, to listen to our customer's interpretation of our promises and to craft and re-craft those interpretations and expectations to match what we have promised and our assessment of our competency and capacity to fulfill that promise. To carry out the promises to our customer, we must develop competency to coordinate action and manage promises. Sincerity is the assessment we and others make that our private conversations regarding the promise correspond to our public conversations. Competence is the assessment we and others make that we can perform effectively to provide the conditions of satisfaction being agreed upon.
Reliability is an assessment of our past actions regarding fulfillment of our promises.
Making requests of others and making promises to others requires competence in conversations for action and the management of promises. These interactions can be as brief as a phone call or as long as a two or three hour meeting. Ultimately, satisfaction is declared at the completion of the promise, the final interaction, where we deliver and declare our promise complete. However, we should never rely on this final delivery to insure satisfaction. We must produce the assessment of value at every one of the interactions we have during the process.