Last week, I was due to meet with one of our customers in London. This had been scheduled in our diaries since before Christmas. To make better use of my day, I also scheduled a meeting with a new supplier. To get to London I need to travel by train from Cambridge, which means either driving into the city and finding an expensive, hard-to-find car parking space at the station, or taking a local train from Newmarket and changing. I’d bought tickets for the latter on this occasion. Both meetings had been reconfirmed and I had everything organised and prepared. I was getting ready to leave when I received a text saying that my customer was unable to meet me and could we reschedule for another day? I felt it was too late to reschedule my appointment with my supplier and thought it was rude to let them down at the last minute, so I went ahead and just had the one supplier meeting.
What would you have done?
What do you do when faced with a similar scenario? Our ‘One to Watch’ video this month is all about What To Say When Someone Breaks a Commitment to You. In under three minutes, it illustrates how to handle the feelings of being let down and more importantly, how to explain to the other person how their actions have impacted you. By explaining courteously and firmly the consequences for you, the other person learns to see things from your perspective and is much less likely to break a commitment to you in future.
Don’t get upset
It’s easy to get annoyed when someone doesn’t do what they’ve said they’re going to do… or when a colleague fails to get back to you when they said they would… or when a delivery isn’t made on the date it’s been promised… It’s not nice when someone lets you down. But before getting too upset (and where does that get you, anyway?) it’s worth giving people the benefit of the doubt. Wasting negative emotion on something that is out of your control is not helpful. Tell yourself that you are not the person at fault but it is up to you to manage your emotional response to the other person’s actions. Focus instead on what you are going to do.
Ask questions
At this stage, you simply don’t know why the other person has broken their commitment to you. Sometimes there is a perfectly reasonable explanation. Sometimes there isn’t. Until you ask some questions you don’t know. Usually the person who has let you down will contact you themselves to explain what happened. But if they don’t, make sure you contact them. Maybe there was a medical emergency, maybe something happened which was outside their control… but you need to know. And when you know the facts, you can take the appropriate action.
Explaining the impact on you
Sometimes the other person ‘just forgot’ or they don’t really have a proper explanation for not meeting their commitment to you. In that case, you do need to spell out, politely and clearly, the consequences for you. Helping the other person understand the problems they caused you will encourage them to be mindful of their impact on others. And they are much less likely to mess you about in future!
The next time someone breaks a commitment to you…
The next time someone breaks a commitment to you, don’t just accept it – if they get away with it once, they will do it again. Address the problem in a positive way that stops you becoming annoyed and prevents it happening again. Use the ideas illustrated in the video to preserve your working relationship and improve the performance of your thoughtless colleague. Watch the video now by clicking on the link below.
The ‘One to Watch’ for February 2017 is ‘What To Say When Someone Breaks a Commitment to You’
The running time is just 2 minutes and 40 seconds.
See this video for yourself, now.
https://video.scottbradbury.co.uk/catherine5:bfcf78/watch/47/
Find out more
You can see a full list of our available videos here https://www.watchandgovideos.co.uk/videos/topics-and-titles/
If you’d like a free demonstration and access to our entire library of WATCH & GO® videos for evaluation purposes, please call 01638 723590 or visit www.watchandgovideos.co.uk
One other thing about breaking commitments:
Just occasionally, you may find yourself in the embarrassing position of having to break a commitment to somebody else. Bear in mind what you have learned in this video and ask to see our video ‘What To Say When You Have To Break a Commitment’ too.
February 2017