Subscribe Feed (RSS)Stop Making Commitments When You Can’t Live Up to Them!
March 12th, 2010 by Joshua Dorkin | Filed under Entrepreneurship.If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!
This is one of my biggest pet peeves. On almost a daily basis, I run into a situation where someone made a commitment to me, and didn’t live up to it. It is tiresome, annoying, and flat out rude. I don’t pretend to be perfect, and I’m sure I’ve made my share of commitments that I couldn’t keep, but we need to put this pattern of recklessness to a stop.
Just this morning, I can already count two instances where people made promises to me and failed to live up to them. The first one was for a weekly Friday morning meeting that we planned for brainstorming and masterminding — the other party has failed to show on three of three occasions (yes, I’ve already removed this from my calendar now) — and the other was from a writer who committed to provide articles to me weekly, but hasn’t in several weeks (and hasn’t responded to my emails, either).
If You Can’t Live Up to Your Commitments, Don’t Make Them!
I can’t tell you how many times I was really excited about doing business with another company and had to pass because we weren’t able to commit to executing on our side of the relationship. While at the time, these situations were disappointing to both us and the other party, in the end, being up front about it probably saved our reputation and relationships with those companies. I’m very aware of our capabilities and try to never make promises I can’t keep . . . I strongly urge others take the same direction with their businesses.
How do you feel about it?
Tags: business, commitments, relationships
I agree, there is nothing more disappointing than building up anticipation and preparing for a deal or a meeting, just to see that the other side chose to let you down without a warning. In big part it’s about being realistic while closing partnerships. It’s easy to get carried away when something sounds promising but if you’re in doubt that you or your partner will be able to fulfill promises – rather back off immediately and save yourself the frustration you’d otherwise experience.
Thanks for sharing your feedback, Helena! I’m glad that I’m not alone with this one!
I can totally relate to your situation Joshua. And I’m pretty angry when people don’t live up to their commitments! I see daily in my work, I work with a lot of teenagers and they seem to be the worst in not living up to their commitments. It’s just a shame and tiresome for the other person.
I totally agree – breaking a straight forward promise such as “I’ll call tomorrow” says a lot about what you can expect in the future from that person. Another thing that confuses me is why people say “we should meet up” when they don’t really mean it, they’re just making conversation?
I agree 100%. I am fed up with people, both on a professional and a personal level, who make commitments and do not honor them.
I also live by this saying. And have never made a commitment to any of my customer that i couldn’t deliver.
I agree with this completely. And I must add, it’s not just the major committments, even the small ones. Missing a promised deadline by a day, constantly moving dates, everything adds up to ruin creditibility.
Thanks, you’ve summarized nicely what I’ve been coming to grips with myself. This is very helpful.