If You Say You Will Do Something, Do It
Living up to your commitments is part of business ethics. My word is my bond.
—Isadore Sharp, Chairman of Four Seasons Hotels
It’s amazing how many people make commitments without having a true intention of delivering on them. Perhaps they find it easier to agree to a request than to debate its merits, hoping the person they made the commitment to forgets all about it.
Some may try arm-twisting you into a commitment, particularly if the work doesn’t surface anywhere near the top of your priority list. It is always important to exercise good judgment. If a request seems reasonable and requires only a small amount of effort, it probably makes sense to get it done for the good of the team and your own reputation. When it involves more work, buy a little time before making a commitment that you might not be able to keep.
Forgetting Is Rarely a Valid Excuse
It is rarely OK to lose sight of a promise made. As a leader, I would not accept “I’m really sorry, it slipped my mind” as a valid excuse. It only demonstrated a person’s lack of organizational skills. It isn’t that difficult to create a simple tracking system to manage and prioritize the various tasks on your plate at any given point in time.
When I was a young team lead at IBM, I worked closely with our finance team on budget-related matters. As we approached the start of our third quarter, one of their financial analysts reached out to me with an urgent request. He informed me that his VP scheduled a meeting for the next day to review the budget of our networking organization. They rolled up all our financials for the first half of the year and came to the conclusion that we had to reduce our spending in the second half. The analyst sent me a spreadsheet and requested that I complete it by the end of the day. They were seeking a 10 percent reduction in noncapital expenses and a summary of the associated business implications of any proposed cuts.
I led the Ethernet development team at the time, and my priority was to deliver the next release of our product on schedule and with high quality. My team was already feeling the pressure, and I didn’t like requests that came out of left field. I particularly disliked this one as I knew it would only make my job harder. Nevertheless, after a brief discussion with my boss, I committed to completing the work by the end of the day. I had to deal with a number of unanticipated customer issues that day, which made it impossible to get the work done as early as I had planned. Late in the afternoon, the analyst dropped by my office to ask me how things were coming along. I let him know that I hadn’t started working on it yet, but I would get it done later that evening. He looked a bit concerned, but he understood and thanked me for the extra effort.
I opened my laptop after dinner to begin the work. I remember the task taking much longer to complete than I expected. Since I had made a commitment, I felt I had no option but to work late into the evening to get it done. I put a significant amount of effort into it because it was important to clearly explain the impact of each cost-cutting option. I was concerned the finance team would primarily be interested in the numbers, so I highlighted the various options in green, yellow, and red to make it easy to spot the ones I was recommending. By the time I woke up the next morning, the analyst already responded to my e-mail and incorporated my input into his presentation. I was pleased to see that he maintained my color-coding and did not recommend any of the options that were highlighted in red. He was extremely appreciative and thanked me for the thoroughness of my work. He said he wished everyone would deliver on their commitments so conscientiously as it would make his job so much easier. His words of appreciation always stuck with me. I was happy with the option we selected, which reduced our budget only minimally and had negligible impact on any of our near-term commitments.
Despite our best intentions, unanticipated work sometimes gets in the way, and it becomes impossible to deliver on a commitment. It is important to deal with these situations proactively and to agree on a new date. It is far better to own the delay than to hope our lateness goes unnoticed. Whether we realize it or not, we are regularly evaluated by our peers, and they tend to have long memories when we don’t keep our promises.
Active Management of Your To-Do List
I ran my life at work using to-do lists. It was simple and satisfying, and it offered a sense of accomplishment every time I scratched an item off my list. It became instinctive to record every work item that came my way, together with its due date. I would review my list regularly, reprioritizing as necessary whenever I added a new entry. I was surprised by the number of people who ran their personal lives this way but didn’t think to do the same at work. While it didn’t necessarily reduce the workload, it did help organize it. It also helped me maintain perspective and to feel more in control of my day. I knew when I was falling behind and needed to put in extra hours at night to catch up. When I had too many items on my list, I would scrutinize each new piece of work that much more thoroughly. I was more likely to push back on incoming requests, but would do my best to find others to take on the tasks.
Responding No is often the best answer when facing certain requests. Inbound requests may make someone else’s life easier but make little sense in the context of your own priorities. I tried to assess all requests carefully and was much more likely to accept one when I knew I was the best person for the job. If not, I would do my best to suggest alternative candidates. If I was leading a team, I often delegated the work to one of my direct reports. Finding a way to say no nicely, by spending a few extra minutes to help find an alternative solution, is much better than dismissing the request altogether.
I have seen managers accept too many tasks personally, sometimes with the misconception that only they had the ability to get the work done properly. Others delegated virtually everything that came their way. The right answer lies somewhere in the middle. I worked hard to build highly motivated teams, and I expected my direct reports to volunteer to take on as many tasks as they could. I would define a broad range of extended responsibilities and sought to incorporate them into their formal role definitions.
During annual performance reviews, employees frequently asked me what they could do to increase their opportunities for advancement. I tried to anticipate these questions and did my best to prepare concrete answers. Additional work of this nature would help them grow and would help me work more efficiently. I was also fortunate to have some very skilled administrative assistants over the years. I defined their roles as broadly as possible and assigned them a wide variety of tasks. My objective was to utilize their skills fully and to make their jobs more interesting by exposing them to various operational aspects of the business. Whatever I could do to get more time back in my day to focus on the things that were most important, the better it was for everyone.
The Importance of Following-Up
In addition to my to-do list, I also maintained a follow-up list. When someone made a commitment that I needed to track, I would add an entry with a due date. At times, people gave me more credit than I deserved, believing I had an unusually good memory. Nothing was further from the truth. I just managed my day-to-day activities using my two lists, continuously reviewing and updating them. I reached out to people a day or two before a commitment was due to ask them how it was coming along. Trust but verify, as the saying goes. I set a high standard of accountability in this regard for myself as well, and my objective was to hold everyone else accountable to that same standard.
When commitments were delivered as promised, I would do my best to recognize them. It may have only been a simple thank you, but I felt the same sense of responsibility to acknowledge follow-through as I did to express disappointment when commitments were missed. When major deliverables were met by individuals or teams, I would recognize them more substantially. From my experience as a young engineer, I knew how important this was to everyone. I encouraged my management teams to prioritize recognition events as well. I believed the costs associated with thoughtful celebrations were insignificant when compared against the benefits.
Learn to Say No Without Offending Anyone
At times, it is unrealistic to make a commitment, regardless of date. There was one such situation at RIM that I didn’t handle very well. Our chief information officer (CIO) was leading a quality improvement initiative in support of our largest financial customers. I had an excellent relationship with her, at least I did prior to the meeting. The meeting was attended by a large number of employees across several departments. We were reviewing a long list of outstanding defects that were impacting several important customers. She expressed frustration during the meeting regarding the sheer number of issues. She asked my team to commit to a date when they would all be fixed. I responded aggressively, insisting the request was unrealistic, and it would be impossible to provide such a date. I pointed out several issues that were largely cosmetic in nature and said that in all likelihood, many of them would never be fixed.
My relationship with her went spiraling downward after this meeting. I wasn’t quite sure why until we had a one-on-one discussion a year later. She let me know how frustrated and disrespected she felt by my dismissiveness in such a public forum. We spent time airing our respective grievances, but we also acknowledged our mistakes. I reflected back on our initial meeting and thought about how I should have handled it. While I still didn’t think it was a fair request, I knew her intentions were good. A more appropriate response would have been to suggest a follow-up meeting for a few days later, to provide target fix-dates for all high-severity defects, and to report on daily defect resolution rates for the rest. In reality, that is how we proceeded anyway. When executives push hard for commitment dates out of frustration, they are most likely just looking for proposals on the best path forward. I should have told her what I could do, not what I couldn’t, and I should have remained more calm. The ability to remain positive and to be constructive is critically important in meetings of this nature. I learned a valuable lesson from the experience.
Making the Best of a Bad Situation
From time to time, we find ourselves in situations where we fall behind schedule, sometimes woefully behind. These times can be stressful, particularly when contractual commitments are made and large sums of money are at stake. They may develop into a source of friction between technical teams and leadership teams as well. I have seen managers attempt to reassure executives or customers that a project is under control despite mounting evidence to the contrary. Engineers sometimes develop unrealistic hopes due to a lack of courage to tell the truth. They may adopt a let’s survive another day mentality even if an inevitable disaster is looming around the corner.
I have seen this occur on multiple occasions, and it is almost always unpleasant. In one situation, our company signed a major contract with a well-known global customer. The deal was the largest in our company’s history. I wasn’t initially responsible for the project, but I inherited responsibility shortly after the trouble began. We had a capable technical team in place, but they underestimated the amount of work they were facing. My predecessor was very transparent with his team about the financial penalties associated with any delays. He tried his best to help mitigate risks, and the joint recommendation of the team and management was to add more people to the project. It ended up only making matters worse. New team members had insufficient knowledge to contribute fast enough and the experienced team members had no time to train them. The customer became angrier as the number of issues grew and the cost increased. The development team remained unrealistically optimistic, perhaps even delusional, as more time passed. They willed themselves into believing that each delay would be their last, but they were just kicking the pebble down the road. With each kick, they further reduced the confidence of all those around them.
The root cause of the issue was their lack of courage to tell the truth for fear of the consequences. When my management team was brought on board to help contain the situation, we established a safe environment to help uncover the truth. We knew the situation was bad, but we did not know how bad. We committed to moving forward with full transparency and with our eyes wide open. It enabled us to understand the severity of the challenges we were facing. We made sure that no one on the development team felt threatened, and that they were given sufficient time to analyze all the data. I appointed a seasoned executive to lead the project, and he quickly established the trust of the team. The advantage he had over the previous leader was that he carried no baggage. His mandate was to develop an aggressive but achievable schedule with no fear of repercussions.
After working closely with the development team for about two weeks, he produced a detailed plan, and it revealed the project would take another six months to complete. There were more outstanding issues and mandatory modifications than were previously revealed. I was the first executive to review the new schedule, which gave me the opportunity to ask questions and to provide detailed feedback. After my team responded to my questions and incorporated my input, I offered them my full support. We then moved forward to face the rest of the executive team together. The message was negatively received at first but reluctantly accepted after we were able to successfully defend the new schedule. Upon further discussion, we agreed to split the schedule into two distinct deliverables. A preliminary release would be delivered in two months and a follow-on release four months after that. The first release contained sufficient functionality to support a portion of the customer’s business going live. The balance of the functionality would be delivered with the second release.
We received a lukewarm reaction from the customer, but they eventually agreed. They even acknowledged that some of the delays were the result of change requests that they initiated. The team was relieved and re-energized, and they fully recommitted. The new dates were created bottom up by them, and as a result, they felt a strong sense of ownership. We smoothed things over with the customer by agreeing to some financial concessions. When the first milestone was met, the customer regained confidence in us, and the relationship improved. When the second release was delivered, the challenges we encountered were all but forgotten. The project was so successful that we even managed to win several follow-on contracts with them.
Don’t Commit to a Date You Don’t Think You Can Meet
Given the uncertainties, committing to deliver a project on a predetermined timeline can be problematic. Unanticipated issues almost always surface. It is important to include a buffer in any schedule and to fight the inevitable pressure to remove it. Teams must stand their ground and defend their position with data. Managers must challenge their teams to build aggressive, yet realistic, plans. They also must dive into the details to understand the various nuances. In the end, dates should not be unilaterally imposed on a development team, at least not without sufficient flexibility to adjust the level of functionality. While there may be no easy answer, a schedule based on hope and an environment based on fear rarely yield the desired results. It takes the courage and confidence of a strong development leader to recognize reality and to withstand the pressure. Most executives will help find an acceptable solution as long as the data being presented is defensible and comprehensive.
At times, we might be tempted to blame missed deliverables on some unforeseen event. David Yach used to say, “It may not be your fault, but it is your problem.” If we take the saying to heart, it can change the way we think well before we act. We must teach ourselves to accept full responsibility for the commitments we own regardless of the circumstances under which they were made. We must do what we can to deliver and to thoroughly analyze all the go-forward options when things go wrong. When we determine that there is no way to make good on a commitment, the fallback is always to uphold our integrity. This may take courage and an ability to defend our position against negative reactions and increasing pressures. By committing to do what’s right, however, we are much more likely to earn the respect of all those who surround us.
Key Takeaways
• Develop a system to track your work, your commitments, and your follow-ups. It isn’t that difficult to do, and if you keep your lists up to date, you will feel far more under control.
• If someone asks you to make a commitment that you know you can’t meet, think about what you can do as a compromise. If nothing else, it’s a much nicer way to say No.
• Delegate work whenever it is appropriate to do so. It will help others grow, and it will make it easier for you to honor all your commitments.
• When you find yourself unable to deliver on a commitment already made, take ownership early and recommit to the best possible recovery plan.
• When pressured to deliver a project on a date you don’t believe you can meet, stand your ground. Defend your position with data and strive to protect all critical schedule buffers.