When Integrity is Missing

You know that person who says they will do something and then doesn’t do it? The one who says he’ll be at your place at 10:00, then shows up 15 minutes – or an hour – late. Or the one who says she’ll email you that document as soon as she gets back to the office but you still haven’t received it by the next afternoon?

I was annoyed with both of those people, which didn’t change a thing, of course. I knew I needed to follow up – to let both of them know that what they promised did not match their actions. But I didn’t want to hear their explanations. I just wanted to point out the gap between promise and performance, and figure out how to get things to match better in the future. If you know a nice way to do this, let me know.

The other thing is that those broken agreements are also my bad. Agreements always have 2 ends, and I am at one of them. Did I not get a good promise? Did I not let them know their being prompt mattered to me? With the person who showed up late, I failed to let them know I had a meeting to get to, and hoped they would be on time. With the person who promised the email document, I didn’t tell them I had promised to forward it to someone else. I had to revoke that promise and make the request again.

Letting people know WHY something matters to you makes a difference because it underlines the importance of the agreement. When people know it matters, they raise their attention a bit. I dropped that ball.

It also occurred to me to do a bit of housekeeping with my own agreements. I looked over my schedule and my Due List (it used to be a To Do List, but my husband pointed out that I needed to practice what I preach and list the “deliverables” and who will get them). Sure enough, I saw several places where I had let something slip past the due date. So I had some cleanup to do myself.

Integrity is about honoring agreements. First, I need to have a good agreement – clean and clear about what will be delivered, and when, and why it matters. Second, I need to schedule whatever work is required in order to keep that agreement. Third, I need to put that schedule and agreement where I will see it, instead of putting it in a file folder under my desk or something. OK: Agreement, Schedule, Visible. Lesson learned.