Dee Davis (00:22)
Good morning and welcome to the Management Under Construction podcast. I'm your host, Dee Davis, and it is 4th of July, one of my favorite holidays because it's Freedom for America Day. Love it. So glad you're here with us today. Today we are going to talk about keeping your commitments. Whether this is at work or in your personal life, keeping your commitments and honoring your word, which includes telling the truth.
Are very, very important aspects of our business and our personal lives, our interpersonal relationships. This business is hard enough. The construction industry is rough. And if you can't trust the people around you to keep their commitments, then it makes it even rougher. So we've all worked on those projects where we've had a person or two, hopefully not more than that, that you just can't trust.
You can't trust them any further than you can throw them because they don't keep their commitments. So, what do I mean by that? That means they don't do what they say. That's what most people believe is a commitment, right? I say I'm gonna do it, and then I actually follow through and do it. And then I tell the truth. That's also keeping a commitment because there's an unspoken bond between humans that we will speak the truth, even when it's hard. And that's when.
It's the hardest is when things get a little jiggy, when things get a little hard, to keep telling the truth and keep our commitment to one another when we're doing that. So let me give you some examples. I've had a project where I had a superintendent that nicest guy liked working with him, and we had some quality issues on the project.
And I'd pull them aside and I'd say, Hey, let's sit down and talk about this. we need to get this stuff done or we need to get this rework done. And how are we gonna do it? And when are we gonna do it? Okay, yeah, I'll get that done for you by Friday Dee And I said, Okay, great, that's awesome. Well, Friday would come and go and the work wasn't done. In fact, the work hadn't even been started. This happened over and over and over again. This was a lovely young man.
Who was probably put in a position that he shouldn't have been in. He probably didn't have adequate experience in the industry to be running a project. And I doubt he had the proper support and supervision to do it either, and was just sort of left flapping out in the wind there. Now, is that all his fault? Maybe not, but I did end up speaking to him numerous times and he kept failing to meet his commitments. Now we have a trust issue. Now I can't believe anything he says.
I go to his supervisor and I say, Hey, listen, this is the problem that I'm having with this guy. I think he's a nice guy, we get along great, but he's not keeping his commitments. Don't tell me what you think I want to hear. Tell me the truth. If it's not going to be done till three weeks from next Tuesday, then tell me it's not going to be done until three weeks from next Tuesday.
When you break your commitment, you break that sacred bond of trust. And that's extremely important. Just recently, I had a young guy come and work with me. nice young man, not super new to the industry, but new enough in this first 10 years of his career. And something went wrong, and the lies started coming out.
That's also a break of a bond. I expect that when we're working together, that we're going to tell each other the truth. Our founding fathers told the truth and kept their commitments to us, the citizenry of the United States. It's a little bit of a trust thing that we have within one another. And then, but now we have politicians that don't always keep their word. We have people in leadership that don't always keep their word.
That's a problem. That's why we have trust issues as a society with some of these folks and some of these positions. And we can't afford to do that in our own personal lives. Imagine if you couldn't trust your spouse, your significant other, your brother, your sister, your mom, or your dad. Wouldn't that be terrible to not be able to trust them? Those are people that turn out very angry and bitter in life because the people that they love and that they're very close to.
Can't be trusted. So we have to make sure that we keep our word and we have to expect everyone else around us to keep their commitments as well. We have to make sure that we're always telling the truth, even when it's hard. So if you screw up, here's the thing: tell the truth. I screwed up the other day. I still screw up all the time. You guys, I've been doing this for a really long time. I still make mistakes.
I screwed up the other day and somebody said, Hey, I heard you did that. And I said, Yep, I sure did. I sure did. I make mistakes. It doesn't matter how old you are, it doesn't matter how much experience you have, you're going to make mistakes. And you know what? You're a human being. It's okay. Nobody gets mad when you say, I did it. They get mad when you lie about it.
And then try to hide it. And usually most of us are not the best liars. And it's really obvious when you start telling lies, and then you got to tell more lies to back up your lies. And the next thing you know, you're the kind of person that nobody can trust, nobody wants to work with, nobody wants to be around. And that is stressful. It's not good for your personal life, it's not good for your professional life. So make sure you honor your commitments.
In all of that, while you're making sure that you're the kind of person that other people can trust, make sure you honor your commitments to yourself too. That's actually really important and something people don't do enough. So let's use the example here that most of us are familiar with. When you make a commitment at the beginning of the year, New Year's resolution, I'm going to go to the gym this year.
Statistically, it's proven that over 90% of people break that commitment in the first 30 days. Not a very good commitment. And in fact, when somebody says, I'm gonna, what's your immediate gut reaction? If you're an I'm gonna guy, I've known a few, you're always saying, I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna lose weight, I'm gonna do this, I'm gonna do that, I'm gonna.
Gonna go to this class, I'm gonna learn this, I'm gonna do better, and you never do any of it, nobody believes you anymore. Don't be an I'm gonna guy. you're breaking the commitment to yourself. Nobody else believes you, by the way. They stopped believing you a long time ago. You're breaking your commitment to yourself. Be very careful with your I'm gonna because you gotta make sure that you follow through.
And actually, you're making a commitment to yourself. You are a very important person to keep your commitments to. So make sure that when you say, I'm gonna, like I did earlier this year, one of the things that I said I'm gonna do when I started this project, and I ended up with extra time in the evenings by myself, I'm gonna learn Spanish. And I have, I'm working on it still. I have an elementary proficiency with.
Spanish right now I would call it very elementary. I'm using Duolingo almost every night, not quite every night. I have little pauses here and there when other things come up. But five, six days a week, I'm on Duolingo for 15 to 20 minutes a night. building my vocabulary, learning new words and phrases, and now I'm able to converse just a little bit more with the people around me that speak Spanish.
So pretty soon I'm gonna be in a position where I'm going to be able to have conversations with some of my Spanish speaking friends, at least at an elementary level. So be careful. If you're an I'm gonna guy, make sure that you make those commitments to yourself and you hold those commitments. Because guess what? If you can't hold a commitment to yourself, what are you doing? Who are you even doing this for? It's so much easier, we think.
to make commitments to other people and hold those, but what about the commitments to yourself? So make sure that you're honoring yourself, you're keeping your commitments. Celebrate your Fourth of July safe and happy. We'll talk to you next time. Have a great day.
