Main Idea
When was the last time you told somebody you would do something and then when the time came, you physically could not fulfill the commitment? How often do you disappoint your spouse, your kids, your boss, or your employees?
Expansion of Idea
We all disappoint some people close to us at different times. These people can be employees or coworkers or customers at work. It can be friends and family members. It can be someone at church or at a nonprofit organization that you are a part of. Disappointment generally is a result of our failure to do something that we agreed to do. This agreement may be explicit or it may be implied. An explicit commitment is one where we have clearly said what we will do, such as saying that we will send a report to someone by a certain date. An implicit commitment is one where by not saying we disagree, we are actually committing to do something. An example would be when our boss tells us to do a certain job, tells us when he needs it done by and then leaves. If we do not say anything, we have agreed to do it.
Most of us do not have very good systems to monitor our commitments. Our systems generally consist of an internal voice that says we can do something or not. We may not have or be able to afford a personal assistant to keep us organized. But we can at least agree to spend 30 minutes a week looking at the upcoming week and month to determine where there are going to be problems. The first advantage of doing this is that we stop making future commitments during the problem times. The second advantage is that we can sometimes move commitments to free up some time or we can find someone to fill in for us. And if we are going to have to disappoint someone, then we can tell them in advance what happened. It minimizes the damage from broken promises. What would happen to your business if you and all of your employees fulfilled all of your commitments to each other and to your customers?
Start by Asking Yourself these Questions:
Clarify and verbalize your implicit commitments.
Evaluate your outstanding commitments.
If you cannot accomplish your commitments, discuss it with the other party as soon as possible.
Slow down the commitment process. Make sure that your “YESSES” Mean YES and your “NOES” mean NO.
Set up systems to evaluate open commitments. Find someone to help you evaluate your commitments.