‘I’ll do that tomorrow’, ‘I’m going to do that next week’, ‘Oh yes I’ll get round to that soon’, ‘I’ll call you next week’, ‘I’ll have that report to you by Wednesday Mr Smith’.
Sound familiar? There are human species out there called the ‘Going to’, are you one of them?
We are all fallible, all of us, even those you may hold in the highest regard – they just shroud it better than most. So why say something and not do it? It makes no sense. No sense for building trust. No sense for building credibility. No sense for building reliability. Just no sense at all. So why is there an epidemic?
This blog post is primarily about one thing. Being honest. First with yourself, then with others around you. And with honesty there is large diameter pipeline straight to the big C, commitment. When either or both starts waning in your customers, boss, or employee’s minds eye, believe me, it’s not good. In fact, it’s a light switch that once is flipped down can be very difficult to flip up.
So why do people say that they will then don’t?
Well here are some hypotheses:
- Rejection avoidance
- Truth avoidance
- Believing ‘I’m best off telling them what they want to hear’
- Believing ‘Ah they won’t remember I said I would’ (NEWSFLASH: they will)
- They always have and so it is a (disastrous) behavioural norm
I mean, it is just nuts not to do what you say you are going to do, right? When you don’t follow through it is like another drip of battery acid on the old trust equation (see above image). And there are some folk out there who give you one shot.
So why would you consciously choose this position?
“I’ll ring you”. Ever find yourself watching the words come out your mouth when knowing full well you won’t. Like after the first date with the girl/guy/whatevertakesyourfancy that you know won’t go anywhere. This is called direct rejection avoidance, who want to be blown out face to face? Nasty.
Are you accountable? More importantly can you open your mind-world to be accountable?
In the SME sector the lack of accountability among business owners can be deadly. The SME business owner is the man about town, I mean he owns and runs the show, right? But with freedom comes responsibility and the stats are sad sad reading in the western world for SME failure. A major contributing factor to my mind is due to the absence of business owner accountability, the reasons for which are a plethora. Accountability to a higher reporting chain, not to their accountant, lawyer, wife or best mate down the pub. You see, with accountability comes a smidgen of fear, and its remarkable what a small pipette of fear can do to drive compliance. Compliance to deliver what is needed to get you on the next rung of your goal delivery ladder. And let’s not forget business is all about PRP (Performance, Results and Profit).
Most well balanced and moral individuals detest letting people down, so the accountability model rubs that out by having a higher order relationship to hold you accountable to yourself. That is, working actively towards delivering your goals, not the coaches goals, not the accountants goals and certainly not your competitors goals.
Procrastination: painful, rife, yet avoidable (and no pharmacist required)
The great Brian Tracy has a remedy for that old man with a dodgy grey beard who lurks around in all of us from time to time. The old man is Mr Procrastination. What does Brian recommend? You eat something green, bulbous and slimy as the first task in the day which happens to be your most dreaded (the dish of the day? answers on a post card please). For you it might be the first 10 cold calls of the week or addressing that botched sales proposal with your no 1 Client. It may going to the gym at 6am on a Monday morning to go through the garlic grinder with your PT. It is your no 1 dread and interestingly the fear is often 95% wedged in the thought not the action.
Finale, the tips
So cutting to that chase here are my tips to you today for avoiding saying things that you won’t following through on:
- Get real
- Get honest
- Get accountable
- Get to the way of thinking that if I say something and don’t do it, it is actually like bloodletting my business
- Get in the habit of writing your commitments down and ticking them off, even the throw away ‘I’ll call you(s)’. Think of it that if you don’t, you have lost the trust of that person forever, and they will tell ten of their business associates, who will tell…
So sort it out, do what you say you are going to do today and for the rest of your life safe in the knowledge that by doing so the worm is going in the right direction relative to yesterday. Amen.
This is such a good topic as a professional networker I talk/meet over 150+ people each week and many people don’t like committing and they normally say stuff like… “I will email you and let you know if I can when I check my diary” I now look them in the eye and ask them when would be a good time for you them and I find that works best!
I have far more respect for people when they say it’s not really for me, at least you know where you stand.