In Henry IV Part One, we find Prince Henry, son of King Henry IV, carousing with Jack Falstaff and other criminals and deadbeats in a seedy part of London. This certainly is not the place for young Henry to grow into the next king. In the meantime, King Henry is dealing with a potential civil war from those that were more recently his allies. The last thing that the King wants to worry about is what his son is doing.

Yet the same Prince Henry, cum King Henry V, unites England from civil strife, and leads England to one of the most unexpected victories in military history. Facing the French who had as many as six times the soldiers and were fighting on their home turf, Henry V and England won the war convincingly.

This begs the question: why does the Prince Henry do this? Is he trying to test his father’s patience? Or does he find it more fun to hang out with Falstaff than in the stuffy corridors of the castle?

Here is what he says about his situation:

I know you all, and will awhile uphold
The unyoked humour of your idleness:
Yet herein will I imitate the sun,
Who doth permit the base contagious clouds
To smother up his beauty from the world,
That, when he please again to be himself,
Being wanted, he may be more wonder’d at,
By breaking through the foul and ugly mists
Of vapours that did seem to strangle him.
If all the year were playing holidays,
To sport would be as tedious as to work;
But when they seldom come, they wish’d for come,
And nothing pleaseth but rare accidents.
So, when this loose behavior I throw off
And pay the debt I never promised,
By how much better than my word I am,
By so much shall I falsify men’s hopes;
And like bright metal on a sullen ground,
My reformation, glittering o’er my fault,
Shall show more goodly and attract more eyes
Than that which hath no foil to set it off.
I’ll so offend, to make offence a skill;
Redeeming time when men think least I will.

The key is the last two lines: “I’ll so offend, to make offence a skill;/Redeeming time when men think least I will.” In other words, “I’ll behave badly so that when I start behaving good, I’ll seem to be better than I really am.”

Henry plans to underpromise and overdeliver.

This is a common cliche used to prescribe how to be successful. Specifically, how does one underpromise and overdeliver? We can’t perform poorly in the beginning, only to turn it on in the end, or we risk being fired before getting the chance. And we can’t create expectations so low as to cause the buyer to look elsewhere. Is it even possible to underpromise and overdeliver?

It is difficult, perhaps impossible, to underpromise. If our commitment is below the buyer’s/boss’s needs and expectations, then we won’t get the opportunity to deliver. We can try to temper expectations. We can argue that what the boss asks for is too much, or that it will take more time, or that scope needs to be shaved. Even so, there will be a minimum expectation that we will have to meet.

Perhaps the key is to overdeliver. I offer a few suggestions on how to overdeliver.

1. Free prize inside.

Seth Godin in his book “Free Prize Inside” talks about how as a kid he would run to be the first to open the new box of cereal. Why? Because there was a free prize inside. That free prize made opening the box exciting. It made eating the cereal fun, because as soon as the cereal was gone, he could open up another box for yet another free prize. In marketing, Godin argues, the free prize can be used to surprise customers. But for the free prize to work, it must have value to the customer and it must be unexpected. So listen to your boss, your buyer, your customer, or your client. What is important to them? Is there something that is important to them that is not part of your job description that you could do? Something that would be a free prize?

2. Be relentlessly nice

I once asked my uncle, a successful program manager for a software development company, what advice he would give me to be a successful project manager. His advice was to be “relentlessly nice”. He argued that much of what a project manager does is follow up with people to see where their tasks are – tasks that are critical to the project, but may not be that person’s top priority. A good project manager relentlessly pursues project status. He doesn’t give up until he knows what’s going on. But a great project manager is relentless as nicely as possible. She smiles. She finds out about the person’s personal life. She cares. She listens. She helps. She talks to the person even when there is no status to investigate. Yet, she continues to work hard at getting status, at encouraging, at getting results. She does it relentlessly and nicely; she is relentlessly nice.

3. Go the extra mile.

Jesus of the New Testament encourages his disciples to do extra when helping others: “And whosoever shall compel thee to go a mile, go with him twain.” This can take many forms in project work. Instead of finding and reporting a problem, you can investigate the problem until you discover it’s root cause, and then create a plan of action to resolve the issue. When hearing of a client need that you or your firm can’t serve, find a suitable vendor to fulfill that service. You can bring in firm experts to discuss an issue with a client, free of charge. There are myriads of ways to go beyond the scope of our contract, to go the extra mile and provide great service.

But be careful – if the intent is only to win more business, then these will backfire. These ideas only work when the intent is to serve the interests of the client, and not the provider. It’s not overdelivering if we expect payment every time we do more than is expected.

So while we may not be able to underpromise, it is quite possible to overdeliver.