The Promise

Following up on Follow-Through

A few weeks ago, I sat down with Kyle McDowell for the Humanity Working podcast to discuss his book Begin With WE. The episode will drop next week.

Kyle’s book has become a Wall Street Journal and USA Today Bestseller, and that’s no surprise. The book creates a simple but powerful framework for understanding what it takes to truly achieve excellence in the workplace.

In the episode, we spent quite a bit of time talking about one specific “WE.” (Kyle capitalizes every WE for emphasis).

WE Say What WE’re Going to Do. Then WE Do It

At the risk of boiling down a full chapter to a couple of sentences, Kyle recommends that employees and leaders prioritize being clear about what they intend to accomplish and then following through.

Obvious right?

Except so often, we don’t follow through.

Why is that?

A Personal Lesson

I’ve been interested in this for a long time, but an episode in my life really brought it home to me last year.

It started innocently enough. I watched an amazing webinar on authentic leadership from a pretty famous speaker (I’ll call him Jim). The talk was wide-ranging, but the one thing he emphasized time and time again was walking the walk – doing what you say you will.

I knew that Jim would be an incredible guest for my podcast Humanity Working, so I reached out to him on LinkedIn, and, amazingly – he agreed! This was a big deal. We got into specifics of what would be covered – even on a range of good dates. Then, abruptly, it all dried up. I’d been ghosted by the very person who emphasized how vital follow-through is.

“Who does this guy think he is?” I asked myself. “Jim’s failing at the ONE most important thing he was lecturing us on!”

A few days later, as I processed this – I put the finishing touches on a different episode of our podcast. It was a good one, and I was excited to get back in touch with the guest (who I’ll call Susan). At the time of recording, we had also discussed all kinds of partnership opportunities between our organizations – things we would revisit when the podcast was released. When I e-mailed Susan about the episode, I heard back immediately but didn’t get the kind of response I had expected.

“Do you REALLY think I’d be interested in partnering with you, given a) how much longer you’ve taken to release this episode than you said, b) how you didn’t communicate ONCE in the interim, and c) how you aren’t even acknowledging it even now? I gave up on you and your company weeks ago – I think you need to SERIOUSLY think about how you deal with people.”

Well, that told me, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that Susan was right. I decided to look into my own behaviors and try to figure out why this happens more broadly.

Follow-Through: Perhaps the Number 1 Soft Skill

One way to determine the most important soft skills is to examine what employers ask for in job descriptions. Communication is at the top of that list.

Communication is, of course, hugely important, particularly when it comes to getting hired. But what about moving up in organizations? It turns out that the number one soft skill you need to get promoted is following through with those immediately around you. The reason is deeply human. Following through is how you show others that they are important to you and that you can be trusted.

Here’s a non-work example: You bump into a friend at an event. She tells you she’s missed you terribly and will call you tomorrow to set up coffee.

Two days later, you haven’t heard from her, so you text her to check-in. And she doesn’t reply to your text for days or even weeks.

How do you feel about her…how do you feel about YOURSELF?

If you are like most people, you probably feel she doesn’t care about you like you thought, and you might even feel it’s because you aren’t worth caring about. And the chances are, you will remember that feeling.

That’s what’s unique about this soft skill. If you fail to execute it, you make others feel worse about you and themselves. And because others will not forget it – it can be really difficult to shake the narrative that you are “all talk.”

Why We Don’t Follow Through

Follow-through takes effort, usually in the form of time. Saying you will do something takes almost no time, but doing it takes longer, and we are all time-poor.

But unfortunately, our research shows that lack of follow-through is a more significant problem now than ever.

Before e-mail, messaging, and social media made connections free, we communicated with far fewer people – typically our family, closest friends, neighbors, and officemates. But we also saw people in that small group much more often and usually in person. The result? Fewer commitments and more accountability to keep those commitments.

Contrast that to today. Now, anybody can communicate with us at any time across dozens of different communications channels, and as we connect, we make commitments large and small – lots and lots of them. In fact, there is no natural limit at all to the number of things we can commit to, and many of us are making ten times the number of promises our parents made.

We are a generation that overpromises and underdelivers.

Who It’s Particularly Hard For

This was the most fascinating part of our research. Almost all of us let others down occasionally, but who are some of the people who do it most in a work context? People Pleasers and Workaholics.

The reason is actually the same for both categories. Overcommitment.

People pleasers overcommit because doing so makes others happy. Dinner tomorrow? Absolutely! New sales projections on Friday? Of course! What else can I do for you? That smile you get when you say yes is an instant dopamine rush, and actually doing the work? Well, you can figure that out later.

As for workaholics? Well, over-commitment is their natural state. And what’s one more thing? Somehow, they will fit it in by working just that bit harder. But of course, there is a natural limit to what every workaholic can do, and once that limit is passed, balls will be dropped.

What To Do About All This

Nobody is perfect at making and keeping commitments. But we have seen patterns in people who are better than most and broken it down into a five-step plan:

Step 1: Document Commitments in One Place

Step 2: Prioritize Commitments

Step 3: Reset Expectations With Humility

Step 4: Make Fewer Promises

Step 5: Assume the Best

Document Commitments in One Place

It takes a second to make a commitment and another second to forget it. The number one reason most people don’t follow through is simply forgetting that they committed in the first place, or at least the details.

If you don’t document your commitments in one place, you WILL forget at least some of them. Make a mental note, and it will disappear the moment a distraction comes along. Jot it down on paper, and it’s barely better, as it gets lost as every new item pushes it back in time.

Commitments belong in one spot that ONLY contains the things you intend to do and, ideally, is always available. That could be a mini-notebook you always carry with you or an application you can add items to by voice. As you note down the commitment, make sure at least you document the key things about it – what you promised to do, when you promised to do it, and who you promised it to. Don’t be afraid to pause a conversation temporarily to get the details down. Most likely, the other party will be impressed rather than put off.

Prioritize Commitments

Keeping all your commitments in one place that you check regularly ensures you won’t forget them, but it doesn’t solve the problem of having too much to do.

Solving that requires prioritization. For this, I’d strongly recommend using the Eisenhower matrix. The Eisenhower matrix suggests that every action item is categorized as important, urgent, both, or neither.

Then, when it’s time to take action, you do the important and urgent stuff first. Next is the important but not urgent stuff. As for everything else, well, it’s either delegated or not done at all.

The key here is that when you commit to doing something for someone else, that commitment is, by definition, at least important and possibly both important and urgent. Why? because following through is important in itself!

Practicing this diligently should mean that your commitments are nearing the top of the queue. If you have too many commitments, you will realize it because of the sheer number of important things on your list.

Reset Expectations With Humility

Have you ever promised someone you would do something, dropped the ball, and then avoided mentioning it ever again?

It’s embarrassing to admit to one’s own failures and much easier to pretend they haven’t happened. But it’s also hugely counter-productive. In my case with Susan, failing to own my actions created the impression that I was at least incompetent. But it was actually worse than that – she believed I was not a man of my word and I was someone who didn’t have the courage to own up to his mistakes.

I should have proactively acknowledged that the podcast was delayed, apologized sincerely, and set a new date that I was certain to keep.

Make Fewer Commitments

What’s better – making fewer promises and keeping them, or making lots and not keeping them?

We all know the answer to this instinctively, but it doesn’t stop us from promising things left, right, and center.

It’s time for that to end. Make a promise to yourself, and keep it. From now on, you will only make commitments to others you are sure you can keep.

A commitment should be something you:

Want to do or must do AND you will prioritize.

If you are not sure that both of those are true, don’t commit. This may feel painful in the short term, but over time, it will only add to your reputation.

Assume the Best

I have to include this step because it reflects reality. In this ridiculously busy world, we all let people down every now and then. We are all human, and we all make mistakes.

So when someone fails to do the thing they said when they said it, don’t rush to judgment. They probably don’t dislike you, and they probably aren’t trying to sabotage you. Most likely, they are just human, just like you, with a lot going on in their personal and professional lives.

Of course, it’s still important to hold people accountable, but doing so from a place of high trust will yield much better results.

If you want to learn more about how to improve your follow-through skills in an individual or team setting and get some exercises, please feel free to reach out to me and discuss our programs. Also, do read Kyle’s book and listen to the episode when it lands! It will help you with this and many other principles of building and sustaining a culture of excellence.