Why Every Manager Should Keep an Eye on Their Team’s Say-Do Ratio

How bad Say-Do Ratios mess up team performance?

A low say-do ratio leads to a lot of problems that go beyond just missing deadlines. When promises are broken over and over again, team members lose trust in each other. People who have a stake in your team lose faith in its dependability. The worst thing that can happen is that team members start to doubt their own skills, which leads to a cycle of over-promising to make up for what they think they lack.
I’ve seen teams fall prey to this outcome. Instead of planning, meetings became times to make excuses. People on the team stopped making big promises because they were afraid of failing in front of others. Innovation died because everyone was too scared to try new things.
The costs on the outside are just as bad. Customers no longer trust delivery dates. Sales teams can’t make promises to potential customers with confidence. When one team consistently fails to meet its commitments, the whole organization’s credibility suffers.

What are the strengths, challenges, and best-fit environments for Accountable Performance Management?

How the Ripple Effect Affects Team Morale

When team members can’t trust each other’s promises, they can’t work together. Projects get stuck waiting for dependencies that never show up. High achievers get angry when they have to deal with unreliable coworkers. In the end, your best people will look for places where promises are kept.

How can we create a culture of trust?

Teams with strong say-do ratios work in a different way. They’ve learned to make fewer promises and think them through more. They make room for uncertainty. Most importantly, they’ve made it safe for people to talk openly about their limits and problems.
Follow Amazon’s example when it comes to promises. They’ve made “disagree and commit” a standard practice, but only after having a long talk about realistic deadlines. This stops people from making too many promises and from being stuck in endless debate.
High-performing teams are also adept at distinguishing between various types of commitments. A hard deadline for a client deliverable is different from an internal stretch goal. This small difference stops the all-or-nothing way of thinking that often makes it hard to be accountable.

How to Keep Track of and Improve Your Team’s Say-Do Ratio

• Begin with the basics. At your weekly team meetings, write down the promises that were made and check off the ones that were kept. Don’t worry too much about the math at first; just work on making a habit of making decisions with your mind.
• Make a commitment log that has these things
• What was done
• When it was due
• Who did it
• Status of completion
• Things that made delivery easier or harder
• The review sessions are where the magic happens. You can find systemic problems by looking at patterns over time. Maybe Friday commitments always fail because people aren’t really there. Maybe commitments that depend on things outside of your control need more time.
• Consider transforming your team meetings into ceremonies of commitment. When someone makes a promise, ask them to be clear about what success looks like and what might get in the way. This simple habit makes people more likely to follow through by making commitments more real and thought out.
• Celebrate improvements in say-do ratios as much as you do when projects are done. Recognition encourages the behavior you want to see more of.

How the Manager Can Help Say-Do Work

• You shouldn’t be the commitment police; you should be the commitment coach. If someone has trouble with their say-do ratio all the time, look into it more. Are they doing too much because they don’t want to let you down? Could they benefit from further developing their skills to more accurately estimate the time required for a task? Are things outside of their control getting in the way of their work?
• Be a good example of saying and doing what you say. When you promise your team something, keep track of how well you follow through and let them know. Nothing hurts this project more than managers who talk about being responsible but don’t keep their own promises.
• Make room for open talks about capacity. The best managers help their teams say “no” to requests that aren’t realistic instead of saying yes to everything and then failing.
• More than just the numbers: Being reliable to build trust. The main goal isn’t to have perfect say-do ratios; it’s to build a team where trust flows freely and commitments matter. Things get better when people know they can trust each other. Planning gets more precise. Less stress. Innovation goes up because people feel safe taking smart risks

This isn’t about making people afraid to make commitments. It’s about making a culture of thoughtfulness, where people make promises with care and keep them.