Ask people to bet on their commitments to you

An important concept known as Prediction Markets is based on the discovery that if you ask people to bet on the outcome you get a more accurate forecast than if you asked them to predict the outcome.

You can apply this in a very simple and practical way to people who make commitments to you by giving them 3 options in terms of how much they would bet on whether they will deliver for you or not:

1) A beer (i.e. something which is worth almost nothing)
2) Their phone or watch or ring or bracelet (i.e. something which is worth something)
3) Their house or car (i.e. something which is worth a lot)

You might be surprised at the answers you get!

Ken Thompson (aka The BumbleBee) blogs about bioteams, virtual collaboration and business simulation at www.bioteams.com.

Follow @kenthompson