How to motivate people to keep their commitments

As the founder of a startup, you typically spend a lot of your time trying to get different people to do new things. On the one hand, you will have to convince customers to try your offer. On the other hand, you will have to convince your employees, co-founders, business partners or other stakeholders in your company to do a lot of work for your project.

Therefore, a big problem that you will inevitably encounter as a team leader or business owner, in general, is the fact that many people would make commitments that they would not keep.

Here are 3 tips to minimize the likelihood of finding yourself in such situations.

In his brilliant book on negotiation "Never Split the Difference", former FBI negotiator Chriss Voss mentions three types of "yes": confirmation, commitment and forgery.

A "yes" confirmation is only an agreement on the stated facts. The “yes” engagement is the one you seek if you want to get people to take action for you. However, since people are often bombarded with such requests, many of them have built up a defense mechanism - the false "yes".

Sometimes it's easier to say "yes" without any real intention of honoring your commitment (at least wholeheartedly) in order to avoid short-term conflicts. You'll run into this situation very often if you're persuasive enough (i.e. a good salesperson), but the underlying incentives don't line up well enough (more on that below).

First of all, you have to realize that as a founder, getting a "no" is a much better option than getting a fake "yes".

The reason is simple: a no allows you to plan accordingly. A false "yes" leaves you in a situation in which your expectations will not be realistic, which means that your plans do not correspond well to reality.

In order to avoid this destructive scenario, you need to be direct. Explicitly saying "no" is also a viable answer and explaining that you're interested in their honest opinion helps a lot. Sure, that would probably increase the number of times you hear "no", but it's better than the alternative - lots of fake engagements that you can't plan for.

In fact, not being afraid to hear “no” is one of the big tenets of negotiation for startups. This would allow you to better understand where your offer to customers, employees or partners is not working well.

Actions are determined by incentives.

"If there is a secret to success, it is the ability to get the other person's point of view and see things from their point of view as well as yours." –Dale Carnegie

Understanding what each person gets out of your professional relationship and for a particular request is vital. The more abstract the task and the more time and energy it requires, the more important it is to have motivated partners and employees.

Of course, motivating your startup team and partners is a complicated subject in itself. In short, though, it's a good idea to think about extrinsic and intrinsic motivators.

The most common tool for extrinsic motivation that you can use is variable compensation - performance bonuses and employee stock options. Having a stake in the benefits of the project is a strong motivator and could push people to go the extra mile on behalf of their own interests.

However, intrinsic motivation tools are also important. Doing meaningful work and having a company culture with a strong sense of kinship and belonging are also motivating factors. People are social creatures - they thrive in social environments in which they are valued and would work hard to preserve and enhance...