Recently one of our vendors called me. He’d been missing deadlines and not following through on action items. I noted this trend to him and the vendor company, and asked their management to follow up with him. And now it was time for that predictable conversation where he said he was sorry.

Back when I was teaching at a behaviorally-based school, we used the term “Say-Do Correspondence” to signify how likely a student was to follow through on a commitment. A reputation for having a high rate of Say-Do Correspondence meant you could trust a person because they usually did what they said they would do. 17 years later, I still use this term.

What I love about Say-Do Correspondence is that it focuses on making plans and following through.

Below is a simple formula for computing Say-Do Correspondence:

(What you do) / (What you say) = (Your Say-Do Correspondence)

Everything else (e.g.: excuses, hand-wringing, apologizing, explaining how you feel about your performance) is embellishment of this main point: did you do what you said you would do? Did you make a plan and did you follow through?

Back to the phone call.

Keeping Say-Do Correspondence in mind, I answered the phone. The conversation when like this:

Me: (completely skipping the usual greetings and salutations) I don’t want to hear that you’re sorry.

Vendor: What?

Me: I don’t need an apology.

Vendor: Oh.

Me: I need to know what you’re going to do to fix this, by when. Then I need you to do it.

Vendor: Ok.

Me: Just a plan and follow through. Apologies don’t fix things. Plans and actions do.

I was pleased with what happened next. He took some time to talk to me about his plan, and together we set some commitments and checkpoints. By the end of the conversation, I thought we were in a good place. We had a plan; he understood that I’m not interested in helping him feel better, and I thought he was starting to understand that I wanted him to manage problems, not apologize for them.

Then, the other shoe dropped.

Vendor: So, I was really just calling to make sure we’re ok.

Me: (Palm smack to forehead)