How to promise what you can deliver

Do you know someone who is always late? Or do you take a train or plane that is always late?

I flew to Glasgow this week. The flight was delayed by 2 hours. The man behind me in the queue confided that this was usually the case on that day of the week.

I can accept the odd problem that causes a plane to be delayed, but when it happens every week, you wonder what is going on.

Change the schedule

If the plane is never on time, why don’t you just change the schedule? I asked one of the staff this question and was met with a blank stare. We didn’t even get an apology from her.

Telling people what they want to hear

So many times I have seen problems caused solely by people promising things they just can’t deliver.

Work out when you can deliver and then promise people that date or time. Don’t pretend you can give a faster service than possible just to make a person happy at that moment – you are storing up problems for the future. People really don’t like being let down.

Don’t annoy people more than necessary

Even worse, our helpful member of staff told us that we still had to turn up at the published time next week (even if we could see the flight was delayed), in case they somehow manage to bring the flight forward (so that it was only 1 hour 30 minutes late).

This kind of behaviour shows a complete lack of consideration for others. It’s just the same in hospitals where people are often kept in the waiting room much longer than necessary.

Sometimes there is a real emergency

I have been going to the same dentist for 25 years. One of the reasons I stay with them is that they are so reliable. Last time I went was the first time I have ever been kept waiting. It turned out that two of the dentists were off and two emergency patients had come in that morning.

My dentist had had to deal with both of them. However, she apologised profusely and I felt that, given the previous track record, I was happy to cope with this one-time delay.

Most of the time you can schedule things properly, even appointments in hospitals.

You just need to put a bit of effort in working out how long things really take, rather than how long you would like them to take. This is the vital time management skill of estimating. Without it planning is useless.

Learning how to estimate

This is very quick to learn. All you do is estimate how long you think a task will take. Then measure how long it really does take. Work out the percentage difference and change your estimate next time accordingly.
Keep doing this, and very soon your skills will improve.

For more help with time management go here.

To see our teleseminar on time management go here