Guidelines: Under Promise and Over Deliver

Under promise and over deliver. My mother taught us that, growing up. She said it was far better than over promising and under delivering. The latter generates unnecessary stress on the one making the promise, and overblown expectations susceptible to disappointment on the part of the person to whom the promise is made. The first thing at stake is promiser’s good name; the second is the matter of trust. Many of us have over promised and under delivered. I sure have. And most of us have been disappointed if not deceived by one promising what they did not successfully deliver. Depending on how serious the disappointment, or worse, a string of them, the more difficult it will be to reconnect the broken pieces of the relationship.

In counseling troubled couples, there often would come a time, assuming that both persons wanted to work things out, when it was of the utmost importance that each person do exactly what they said they would do, and not disappoint the other by over promising and under delivering. I would caution them that trust, so difficult to reconstruct and so perilously easy to decimate, was at stake. And with trust as the foundation, the future viability of the relationship.

Why do we over promise what we can reasonably accomplish? Perhaps it is to impress another. The greater the promise, the more significant we might feel we can be to the other person, if not to ourselves. And it can be very rewarding to see the look of excited expectation on the face of a loved one, especially a child. Or perhaps we do so to challenge ourselves to fulfill our promise, while seeking to silence inner negativity that we will be over extending ourselves. When we over promise, we also elevate the level of expectations for both ourselves and the one to whom we have promised. So we set ourselves and the other up for failure, disappointment or worse, the ending of the relationship itself.

No wonder Jesus and James in the New Testament came down strongly against not just over promising, but promising at all. Their calming message is not to promise or swear to do or not do something at all. Jesus said: “I say to you, do not swear at all . . . Let your word be 'Yes, Yes' or 'No, No'; anything more than this comes from the evil one” (Matthew 5:34,37).

And the Apostle James said: “Above all, my beloved, do not swear, either by heaven or by earth or by any other oath, but let your ‘Yes’ be yes and your ‘No’ be no, so that you may not fall under condemnation” (James 5:12).

The great American business guru, Dale Carnegie, had this advice about effective leadership. Note his very first guideline:

“The effective leader should keep the following guidelines in mind when it is necessary to change attitudes or behavior: 1. Be sincere. Do not promise anything that you cannot deliver. Forget about the benefits to yourself and concentrate on the benefits to the other person. 2. Know exactly what it is you want the other person to do. 3. Be empathetic. Ask yourself what is it the other person really wants. 4. Consider the benefits that person will receive from doing what you suggest. 5. Match those benefits to the other person's wants. 6. When you make your request, put it in a form that will convey to the other person the idea that he personally will benefit. Love is multidimensional.”