On Friday, I realized I had failed at something—miserably. A few weeks ago, I met with a great team. We had an exciting project, we agreed on the action plan and next steps. This action plan was highly dependent on some things I committed to. Two and a half weeks passed. The person leading the project reached out, “Dave, we’d like a follow up meetings, but we are missing some stuff…….”
I was ashamed. I missed meeting a commitment. As a result it slowed us down. I dropped everything, quickly completed my work. But we’ve lost a little time, and I have betrayed the trust of the team. I know they will, legitimately, have a small question in the backs of their minds, “Will Dave meet his commitment?”
It doesn’t count that I had good reasons for missing the commitment. It doesn’t matter that it didn’t really slow us down, we are still on the same schedule–but now because I was slow, some of the others will have to take my work, re prioritize their schedules to be prepared for the meeting.
Ironically, this morning I was leading a meeting with a client. We had originally met about a month ago. The team had agreed on next steps and each person had action plans for what they were to do. These things were to be completed by this morning. This morning’s meeting was to checkpoint status, review the results, and look at next steps. You guessed it. The majority of the participants, were still “in process.”
When we originally agreed on the action plan, we discussed, “Was four weeks sufficient, could each complete the work they were responsible for?” The team assessed the work, their schedules and agreed on the action plan and this morning’s checkpoint meeting. All were well intended, but “stuff” got in the way. As a result, we are now at least 4 weeks behind in completing what we needed to do, and the target completion date for the entire project is seriously threatened. With possible big consequences.
And I see the same thing, time after time. People with the best of intentions make commitments, then fail in meeting those commitments.
It’s become so commonplace, that we are sometimes very casual about it—both in the commitments we make and our ability to meet them.
We sit in meetings, agreeing on next steps, what needs to be done, by who and by when. We casually agree on them, then go back to other things. And when we get back together, we see that we haven’t done the work that needs to be done, we slip the commitments, schedule another meeting, starting the cycle again, and again.
And we do this in project after project, meeting after meeting. Dates slip, changes get deferred, we don’t accomplish what we hoped to accomplish, performance slides……
And none of this is malicious!
And then, there are the commitments that are made on behalf of us. Assignments we are given that must be completed by a deadline, often by our managers or others.
I think we fall into bad habits. We go into meetings, make commitments, adding more to the pile of an already impossible set of commitments. We are optimistic in our ability to to complete things, but unrealistic in what it takes to do those things. We are hopelessly over-committed, yet keep growing the pile of commitments.
And not only are we not getting things done, but we carry the emotional burden/guilt of that with us.
What do we do about this?
While it seems like we may not be in control of these things, we actually have much more control than we think–or exercise.
First, somehow we have culturally begun to think of commitments not as commitments, but rather best efforts. We have to change our mindsets from trying hard to actually meeting commitments.
To do this, we have to stop making so many commitments. Or, in the least, making commitments that we can fulfill. I far prefer “I can’t do this by the time you want it to be completed. I can do complete it by this time….”
Even when a manager is asking for something by a certain date, if that is unrealistic, a response, “I can complete it by this date is a much more impactful approach. Often, the requests are made without an underlying sense of urgency, but just a desire for a goal. Even when there is a high urgency, the discussion about your ability to meet the commitment is important.
We tend to forget all the other commitments we’ve made and things we have to accomplish, when we make new commitments. As a result, we create mountains of commitments we can never achieve. As an alternative, whenever you make a commitment, it’s critical to think, “What do I have to stop/not do, to make this commitment?”
When managers are asking for something, a fair question is, “What do you want me to stop doing?”
So much of what we do that gets us into commitment trouble is we simply aren’t paying attention. We are used to making commitments, we are used to people not meeting commitments, we become unconscious…..
Commitments are commitments. Meeting them enables us to achieve our goals. Meeting those we’ve made with others is a foundation of building trust.
Commitments are often more about managing expectations, both our own and those of others.
Meeting our commitments transform our aspirations/dreams into reality. Are you meeting your commitments?
Afterword: Here is the AI discussion of this post. It is really superb! I’m finding, as the models get better and are trained on more of my thinking, the quality of these discussions is getting so much better. Enjoy!
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