Flaky or Polite

Questioning My Assumptions About People

I have been doing some statistics on follow up / follow through. In particular people that I have met in some “business networking” context.

About 20% of the people that I talk to and make a concrete offer of an introduction, piece of information or other resource that they say would be useful to have follow up with me to get it. In these contexts, I give them a business card and make a point of not taking theirs so that they know that the next move is theirs.

What is happening to the other 80%. I have been presuming that the world is made up of flaky people who lose business cards, can’t keep track of action items & commitments, etc.

Perhaps this is Hubris and Cynicism.

Perhaps the offers that I think are useful really aren’t. Perhaps my explanations of them are so poor that people can’t see the value.

Perhaps they are just being gracious and polite or conflict averse to tell me this. Perhaps I am simply not listening when they are telling me this. Perhaps it’s not their fault but mine.

I don’t know. I don’t know that I can know.

The effect is not limited to strangers. I see it with people that I know forever.

Maybe my third email reminding them that I need a paragraph to give to an investor isn’t my being helpful at keeping them on track, but rather my being annoyingly persistent on something they really shouldn’t be putting time into.

How would I ever know?

And going forward, how can I know?

How frequently do you not follow up because letting it silently drop is easier than saying, “Thanks, but no thanks,” up front?

Follow up article is posted here.

There is now a third article: Turn About Is Fair Play — Temptation to Flake.