Once in a land we all lived in a long long time ago, I’d call a few people to arrange to meet. We’d fix a date, then we’d all magically find ourselves at the agreed location.
Today, I email out a doodle poll. A quarter of the invitees reply. The most popular date and time isn’t quorate, so I send a link on WhatsApp to try to get more answers. A few more people reply, but we’ve now lost the original dates as people have reallocated the time as they didn’t get a confirmation. We start a parallel email trail, copying everyone. The haggling goes on.
We reach consensus. Then a day before, 3 people say they now can’t make it. And on the day, 2 more just don’t turn up.
At what point did we reinterpret the tools that would allow us to have more flexibility into excuses for just not respecting the time of others? Is it because we’re now trying to cram in more than we did before? Is it because we’ve been conditioned that “me time” is more important than our commitments to others? That convenience trumps commitment?
Be the exception that honours your commitments, including to your own team – you’ll be in a minority. The value you’ll create in a trusting relationship will far outweigh the value you think you have in the flexibility of violating or waiting ’til the last moment.