Promises, promises
We all drop the ball sometimes; don’t make excuses, make amends.
I’m the personality type who flogs himself mercilessly to keep a promise. And I get exasperated when people don’t do what they say. I can get judgemental as a result.
For example, when I managed a consulting business several years ago, the rule was everyone had to submit their timesheets and expenses each week, enabling us to invoice clients and get paid. But the consultants were often too busy with other priorities and missed the deadline. It also wasn't considered as important a task as doing the actual consulting work.
I got angry, trying rewards, threats, pleas, and even taking away the corporate credit card from two people! But nothing made a difference.
My breakthrough happened when a colleague shone a new light on the meaning of the word ‘integrity’. He said I’d inherited a mindset that equated integrity with morality. In this worldview, a good person does what he says while a bad person doesn’t and thus deserves punishment.
A refreshingly new way of framing integrity was to remove the morality from my thinking and instead relate to keeping promises as simply the way to make things work. Living with broken promises is like trying to ride a bike without a chain.
I could also see that keeping promises is about being true to my values. I demonstrate my care for others by acknowledging the impact of my action or inaction on their lives.
Working with my team, broken promises became an opportunity to learn from our mistakes. I had to stop piling on so much work, and they had to speak up. We began to anticipate missed deadlines, letting people know in advance and negotiating new delivery dates. It was a new mindset for everyone. You could make a mistake and clean it up, no questions asked.
I offered these ideas to a newly appointed Finance Director who quickly realised few people in his new organisation kept promises. Reports were usually late, and when they arrived, were full of errors. No one was prepared for meetings, and deadlines drifted. When he asked people to explain, the response was a shrug and a flimsy excuse.
Les was under pressure to provide answers for the CEO and Board but couldn’t. It drove him mad. Yet he knew getting angry at a hundred people wasn’t the answer.
He reframed ‘promise-keeping’ as a way of caring for colleagues and clients. Anticipating a missed deadline and taking responsibility became an act of both courage and kindness. He also learned many people did not understand the new systems, some of which had been introduced without sufficient explanation or context, so he fixed the training.
After a few months Les saw a noticeable improvement in promise-keeping around the business without the need for harshness, significantly improving trust and relationship.
Maybe you’re slack at keeping promises, or a tyrant when others break theirs. Punishment and judgement are not the answer. It takes courage to honour your word, clean up the mess, and make life work.
“Living with broken promises is like trying to ride a bike without a chain”
