PROMISE THEORY AND LEADERSHIP INVITATION

Efficient and sustained improvement at scale requires a strategy based on science

From DANIEL MEZICK

Promise Theory (PT) is a theory of cooperation that includes a basic algebra of cooperation- a significant achievement. Here’s the link to the book, Thinking In Promises: Designing Systems for Cooperation.

PT has a couple of central tenets:

  • PT has several central tenets:Networks achieve linear scalability when individual agents in the network and are responsible for making promises, and then endeavoring to keep them. According to PT, only the agent responsible for an action can initiate a promise for that agent. Promises assigned to one agent by another are called ‘impositions.’
  • Promises are statements of intent, not guarantees.

Promise Theory is the basis of the Eight Open Patterns of Business Agility in general, and Leadership Invitation in particular. The Open Leadership network periodically offers a class in Promise Theory.

This video provides a brief introductory lesson in PT: