Everyone at some time or other has been kept waiting. You make an
agreement to meet someone at a specific time and place, you are there
and they don't show up. Your time is wasted and you begin to feel
something akin to skepticism with regard to any further agreements you
may make with that person. Eventually, when that person finally does
contact you, he or she has what seems to be a perfectly valid reason,
excuse or justification (and profuse apology) for not being where they
said they would be. And yet, it never seems to make any difference.
Your wasted time is never recovered and you still wonder whether or not
that person is really dependable.
Keeping your word is a black and white issue. You either make happen
what you said is going to happen, or you don't. If you said you're
going to produce some result by a certain time and you don't, no amount
of reasons, excuses, justifications or apologies alters that fact.
Reasons are one thing. Results are something completely different.
We're all on the same team. The degree you can be counted on to make
happen exactly what you said is going to happen is the degree of
success for all of us. Keeping your word has consequences for those who
depend on you doing what you said you would do. If you don't keep your
word, that has consequences too.
While it's true that you always have the choice not to make agreements
that are impossible to keep, it's in your best interests to become
known as someone who can be depended on to keep their word and simply
produce the result, rather that someone who knows all the reasons why
what they said is going to happen, doesn't.
Keeping your word makes a difference.
This essay,
Keeping Your Word Means Making Happen What You Said Is Going To
Happen,
originally appeared in my
thesisBREAKTHROUGH
SKYDIVING
which is available at