Step 8 of seeking forgiveness is the commitment to zero: a pledge to eliminate whatever caused the original harm. Companies resist this because they fear future lapses will destroy credibility. But without a concrete commitment to prevent recurrence, reputation damage deepens.
Foreign. Welcome to the two minute drill. Number eight in the series on seeking forgiveness. Number step eight is commitment. And this is really important. It's what I call the commitment to zero, you know, zero dumb decisions, zero similar actions and circumstances. You have to make this commitment. Companies are really reluctant to make this commitment because these things could happen again. They could even be worse. But trust me, if you promise some kind of remediation and you promise it in a way that you know, well, we all know that bad things happen to good companies and you know, this could happen again, I mean, who's going to believe you? What's the point? Why would we trust somebody who believes this? You have to commit to. To make your best effort to see to it that this circumstance is not going to happen again. Is prevented from happening again. Prevented from happening again. Very important. Anything less than this, trust me, your reputation is going to be just that much more tarnished because this is the commitment you should be making and you know it. See you next time, Sam.
James E. Lukaszewski and Helio Fred Garcia discuss writing Influencing Leaders together
