Recovering From Broken Commitments
When breakdowns happen, lean into growth mindset behaviors to readdress and recommit.
When it comes to commitments, making the commitment is only one part of the equation. Delivering on that commitment and maintaining good commitment hygiene along the way completes the formula. We are accountable when we can abide by these guidelines in our working relationships. Accountability starts within the individuals on our teams: How do we show up for our work together? Committing to clean commitments helps us work better together.
How are you taking full responsibility for yourself as it relates to this work? Are you shirking responsibility, not delivering, blaming, not showing up, or acting out in other ways? That’s not taking accountability personally, and its ramifications ripple through the team in named and unnameable ways.
Being accountable means being ready to show up for the work that’s in front of us and be a contributor to the fulfillment of the goal of the whole. You may have a piece of that puzzle in your layer of management, but how you show up for that and operate cross-functionally, is a determinant factor in the success or failure of the thing–and how you show up for that can speak volumes of your reliability on the team.
Work is a very people-y place, and commitment breakdowns are inevitable. Here’s insight into what goes wrong, and how to take responsibility, make amends, and restore trust.
Why Breakdowns Happen
Breaking a commitment can happen for a few reasons. Sometimes, one person might think a commitment has been made, and the other person does not. At other times, commitments are broken because the conditions of satisfactory completion may not have been made explicit up front, leading to misunderstandings or expectations that are not aligned with performance. This is why clarity around the commitment and expectations (around what success looks like) is worth articulating or capturing in a useful format such as a document, email, or Slack channel.
In other instances, a commitment has been made, but it jeopardizes or competes with a commitment made earlier. If you’re saying yes to a commitment but have already committed to too much, check in on the level of priority of the new commitment in relation to the previous commitments that have been made. A discussion around priority can help determine what’s most pressing, and what timelines or expectations may need to be adjusted on prior commitments.
Fixed vs. Growth Mindsets
When it comes to commitments, a Fixed Mindset Stance takes no responsibility, is self dis-empowering, and suffers the consequences of others’ actions. A Growth Mindset Stance takes responsibility, is self-empowering, and knows it’s in the game and can affect the result.
If commitments have been broken, the fixed mindset stance offers a lens of things NOT to do:
- Don’t vent to friends and other sympathetic characters.
- Don’t unload on the person who missed the commitment.
- Don’t make assumptions (up the ladder of inference) and act on them.
- Don’t pay attention to only those factors that are beyond their influence.
The growth mindset offers a lens through which we can see what to lean into when commitments are broken:
- Speak directly with the person who’s missed the commitment as soon as possible (feedback best practices).
- Check for intention, rather than letting your emotions guide actions.
- Practice productive inquiry and advocacy.
- When faced with an irresolvable conflict, escalate to a higher authority with responsibility, if that feels like a worthwhile course of action.
Recommitment Conversations
How do you begin to address a broken commitment? Begin by making a sincere, productive apology. Acknowledge that you missed your commitment, and explain why you missed the commitment while still taking responsibility. Then, inquire about the damage done due to the missed commitment. For example, you might ask: What was the impact my missed commitment had on you or our work together? Once you hear more about the impact, then ask what you can do to repair the damage.
If there is something that you can do, extend an offer to help in specific ways. This is a recommitment offer. As part of the recommitment and rebuilding trust, discuss what has been learned from this, and how to work together to fulfill future commitments.
Making an Actionable Complaint
When someone has broken a commitment to you, be direct and approach them about it. Here’s a breakdown of how that could flow:
- Identify what was committed to you and how that commitment was unfulfilled.
- Ask why it broke down.
- Explain what damage has been done. (Again, remember feedback best practices here.)
- Ask if the other person(s) would like to repair the damage.
- If they answer “yes,” make a request and work toward a new commitment.
- Discuss what has been learned from this event, and establish expectations for how to work together going forward.
Broken commitments and not being accountable can disrupt trust in working relationships, and anywhere else in life. Repair is the essential piece to showing up maturely and taking 100% responsibility for your actions. Repair is what builds bridges and aims to restore lost trust.
