but also the ones we just took on?
To quote Roger Merrill, Dr. Covey’s coauthor on the book First Things First: “When you make a commitment, you build hope; when you keep it, you build trust.” Everyone’s bandwidth is different in terms of their capacity to take on and execute their commitments with excellence. If you find yourself in the mess of overcommitting and underdelivering, consider exercising uncharacteristic restraint the next time you’re approached by a colleague, friend, or family member. They may be unwittingly attempting to move you past your breaking point. Our capacity to do is always more than our capacity to do with excellence. No reasonable person can resist a response like:
“I truly would love to be a part of that, but I’m so cognizant of not wanting to disappoint you and others I’ve already committed to that I’ll have to decline. If something changes with my current level of commitments, I’ll surely reach out to you. Thank you so much for your trust in me.”
I actually don't have a problem saying no. I say no all day long. But I love yes more, Particularly with projects that allow me to think big in terms of vision, impact, and uniqueness.
If this is hard to do in the moment, keep in mind a shorthand version: “Let me get back to you on that.” This simple phrase gives you space between the request and the response—time to consider your commitments and availability. If you have to come back and decline, crafting a nicely worded response can be seen as even more thoughtful than if you had dismissed the request out of hand from the beginning. You also pay a price when it comes to your personal brand and reputation (which are merely the collection of all the decisions and commitments you make, keep, or break in life). This is such an important topic, that I address it in the second Mess to Success book: Marketing Mess to Brand Success—30 Challenges to Transform Your Organization’s Brand (and Your Own).
Remember that fundraising initiative I listed as one of my commitments? There’s good news and bad news. The good news is, I’m finished. The bad news is, they’re not!
I’ll end this challenge here. I love yes. But I need to love no much more. Remember, 7 for 7 is way better than 7 for 10. The difference is in the second number in the ratio, not the first (and that’s the whole point).
From Mess To Success:
Make And Keep Commitments
•Choose a project or relationship that needs your attention.
1.Identify an unfulfilled commitment in this area.
2.How can you realistically follow through with it?
3.Acknowledge to the person your awareness of having not (yet) met your commitment, and recalibrate expectations on whether and when you will.
•Exercise integrity in your next “moment of choice” by being willing to politely say no.
•Inventory your current commitments. Realistically determine whether you need to unwind some of them. Your greatest gift may be to back out before you fail them and further violate expectations.
•Make sure your commitments are balanced—work, play, family, health, growth, outreach, etc.
How would your team describe your leadership style when things are stormy? when things are calm?
In the 1980s, Stone Kyambadde was a semipro football (known as soccer in the U.S.) player on the cusp of ascending to the Ugandan National Football League. During a match, an opponent intentionally injured Stone’s knee, ending his football career in a split second. Stone was forced to re-create his life, his legacy, and his future. Instead of wallowing in self-pity, Stone channeled his passion for football into coaching and developing a local team for at-risk youth in Kampala, Uganda. Through the sport, Stone mentored young men to become responsible, proactive adults in the midst of poverty and violence. Thirty years later, the team is thriving, and Stone shares his positive message of hope and endurance around the world.
Stone appears in a video highlighted in FranklinCovey’s The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People® work session as a model of a “Transition Person”—someone instrumental in breaking cycles of negative behaviors and decisions. Stone exemplifies many leadership traits: proactivity, choice, forgiveness, vision, compassion, and dedication, to name a few. But the one trait I believe Stone illustrates best is called “carry your own weather.” This idea deals with how reactive we can be to outside influences. Leaders who carry their own weather exercise emotional discipline and resist the temptation to allow external dramas to distract them.
Who doesn’t struggle with this? I certainly do. Self-regulating your emotions is a key part of your EQ (emotional quotient), which manifests for most of us as our emotional maturity. As I look back at my professional career, I could sum up my progress best as “two steps forward, one step back.” It’s headed in the right direction, but the inputs—delivering on a business result (two steps forward)—compete against my choice of outputs: acting like a jackass later that day (one step back). My brand is high on outputs and high on offenses—never illegal, immoral, or unethical; just consistently reacting impulsively to something that, with a bit more self-control, wouldn’t have damaged my credibility or modeled bad behavior for others… or required an expandable folder to contain all my HR grievances.
When we're triggered emotionally, it's easy to forget we have a choice as to how we will respond. Central to Habit 1: Be Proactive, from The 7 Habits, is the concept that between what happens to us and how we react exists a space. In that space lies our freedom and power to choose our response.
Beyond Stone, I know another person who exemplifies this concept better than anyone I’ve encountered. He happens to be Bob Whitman, Chairman and CEO of FranklinCovey. Now, I know what you’re thinking: This is my well-placed chance to suck up to the person reviewing both this book and my compensation plan. But you’d be mistaken if you thought I could influence any issue with him by writing a glowing (kiss-up) assessment of his leadership skills. Don’t I wish that were true. With a life full of tremendous success, Bob has also faced significant challenges. His ability to rise above such trials and model this principle makes his example even more noteworthy.
I have spent thousands of hours in the CEO’s office. Bob always remains calm. He’s anchored like nobody I’ve met, even when presented with information that would throw me and most others completely sideways. Carrying your own weather doesn’t mean being devoid of emotion. Bob’s not robotic by any measure; he gets frustrated and irritated like all of us. However, he carries his own weather by intentionally managing his temperament. He’s hard to ruffle because he keeps his “emotional rudder” tightly aligned with the guiding values that make up his core belief system, and he never allows other people or situations to impact that alignment. Bob once told me that a real leader’s true mettle is demonstrated by how closely aligned they are on the outside with how they think and feel on the inside. Damn, that’s hard! I’d say that’s as close to complete emotional maturity and congruence as it gets.
So let’s get real. Are there times when I wish Bob would celebrate more? Most definitely. Are there times when I can’t believe he doesn’t react more sternly to someone’s outrageous behavior? Yes, just not mine, please. He remains a superb example of carrying his own weather at all times, highs and lows.
For the first
