In praise of TCS managers.. and what to do about promises

I am seriously impressed by TCS managers. Their ability to promise things to associates, get the work done and then smoothly not deliver on the promises is truly remarkable.

They won't fullfill their side of the gentleman's agreement but expect the associates to deliver, work hard, fullfill the commitments.

My advice to associates facing such managers is this:

1. Be relentless. Every one or two weeks ask for progress on promotion/onsite/role or whatever is promised
2. Bring it up publicly in team meetings and not just one on one. Same things may have been promised to many people simultaneously :)
3. All one on one discussions must be followed up by a mail containing the minutes. This creates a mail trail which can be used later
4. Give a hint that failure to keep promises may impact morale or say it's very frustrating. Say things like "not getting the promotion has started to affect me mentally as it's quite frustrating" or similar
5. Follow step 4 by going slow for few days without saying it loud
6. Always be polite to avoid HR issues
7. Finally, create dependencies in the project.

Remember, we can only try. All the best