Where and how promises are broken

Strangely, almost nothing practical for managers has been written about how to manage promises in an organization.

A pivotal question on the minds of most managers when they first think about reliability in their organization is where and how promises are getting broken. A useful base framework is the “4x6” model which describes just this:

As the 4x6 model dictates, there are 4 places where promises can be unreliable.

There are six ways promises actually get broken. Two of the most obvious examples are given and the other boxes left blank to be revealed in the book. The model multiplies, so there are 24 possibilities in total.