From the course: Managing Your Manager

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Making promises

Making promises

From the course: Managing Your Manager

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Making promises

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You know, sometimes we want to do something positive but then things go wrong and we create an unintended negative outcome. Making promises is one great example. You want to do the right thing, you want to help the boss. You want to say yes and you believe you can deliver. So, you promise. The boss tells you that the client really wants the report by Friday. Or maybe he tells you that you can't work any overtime until the end of the month. You understand where he's coming from and you want to do the right thing, so you say no problem. I can make that happen. Well, that's a promise. The only thing worse is actually using the phrase, I promise. Here's how making promises can be a problem. First, when you break a promise, you're breaking your word, and that can have a surprisingly big effect on how others view you. Making a promise is easy. Breaking a promise and making up for it is much harder. Next, people on average are not great at estimating their odds of success on a given task. We…

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