“You’re early. The organiser will let you in when the meeting starts.”
No, actually, the organiser is late.
Meetings starting (and ending) late is an epidemic in every company that I interact with.
𝐈𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐠𝐫𝐢𝐭𝐲 (as in ‘acting on your word’) seems to be at an all time low.
And most people find it acceptable.
Firstly, because they cannot trust themselves enough to live up to a higher standard.
Secondly, because they think it doesn’t have a big impact.
But 𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐤𝐚𝐛𝐢𝐥𝐢𝐭𝐲 suffers big time.
People need to build in a fudge factor into almost everything they do.
They need to confirm with other people, check in, reconfirm, recommit, order, command, send whatsapp messages, wait and hope that things will actually happen as promised.
Because most people also dramatically underestimate the mess they create in others’ lives by not being their word and thus do little to clean it up.
In fact it’s easier to live by one decision that replaces 1000 decisions. With integrity as your binary ambition, it becomes clear what to do:
– Commit to what you believe is doable
– Be your word
– Communicate early and clean it up when you fall short.
Without integrity, people overcommit and every aspect of work becomes a constant juggle of priorities and draining decisions to take.
So have fun twiddling your thumbs until the organiser starts the meeting (IF they show up, which is also not guaranteed by a lot of people).
