Keep your Words

Few things impress me in Fthis world as much as someone who does what he says he will do. Someone who keeps his word. I am dismayed by people who promise to deliver something within a specified but later on fail to live up to their promise. I went to a roadside restaurant (on one of my numerous excruciating incidents I ever endured) and ordered for three parotas. The waiter at the restaurant emphatically assured me that the order would be ready within precisely ten minutes. Hungrily, I waited for the ten minutes to elapse. Ten minutes later became fifteen, twenty and then twenty-five minutes and by this time my patience was already stretched beyond the intolerable limits of my stomach. So I rose from my seat in protest when the ten minutes became half an hour. The three parotas took more than forty-five minutes to be
brought to my table. It was as if the waiter had rushed to harvest the wheat from the fields, processed it and finally prepared dough to make the three parotas in forty-five minutes. Something I have often observed is the fact that it’s always at the tip of many people’s lips to say ‘One minute’ as an implied promise to deliver something within one minute
and yet they never deliver in one minute.

They often forget that the expeditious impression they intend to dispose to the otherparty in waiting may instead turnout to be a discontentment. I always want to make a promise to deliver at a time that is well budgeted for to accommodate any possible delays so that I don’t have to unduly keep the other party waiting. It’s wiser to promise someone a longer time of delivery beforehand than to promise him a shorter time within which you may fail to deliver. Time as they say is money and therefore it’s valuable. Any time wasted will never come back. If you do business you may not want to loose clients if you promise to deliver goods or services much longer than it would take your business competitors.
Incidentally you may forget to account for the aftermath in the eventuality that you don’t deliver in time as promised to the
clients. If what you said you would make happen does not happen exactly as you said it would happen, for whatever the
reason, then you did not keep your word. Everyone, at some time or the other has been kept waiting. You make an agreement to meet someone at a specific time and place, you are there but he or she doesn't show up. Your time is wasted and you begin to feel something akin to skepticism with regard to any further agreements you may make with that person. Eventually, when that person finally does contact you, he or she has, what seems to be a perfectly valid reason, excuse or justification (and profuse apology) for not being where she or he said to be at. And yet, it never seems to make any difference. Your wasted time is never recovered and you still wonder whether or not that person is really dependable.

Keeping your word is a black and white issue. You either make happen what you said is going to happen, or you don't. If
you said you're going to produce some result by a certain time and you don't, no amount of reasons, excuses, justifications or apologies alters that fact. Reasons are one thing. Results are something completely different. If we were all on the same team, the degree you can be counted on to make happen exactly what you said is going to happen is the degree of success for all of us. Keeping your word has consequences for thosewho depend on you doing what you said
you would do. If you don't keep your word, that has consequences too.
While it's true that you always have the choice not to make agreements that are impossible to keep, it's in your best interest to become known as someone who can be depended on to keep his or her word and simply produce the result, rather than someone who knows all the reasons why what he or she said is going to happen, doesn't. Keeping your word makes a difference.

                                                                                                                                                               Mr. Edward Kasamba is an
                                                                                                                                                               Alumnus of GCC (B.Com Batch
                                                                                                                                                               2003-04) and currently working
                                                                                                                                                               with Accenture, Bangalore.