When Did Doing What You Said You’d Do Become Too Much to Ask?

I’ve been thinking a lot about standards lately.

It started with something fairly mundane: property management.

We have a house that we rent out, and over time we’ve worked with a number of property managers. We’ve always been very clear that we want the property managed to a high standard because we care about the experience people have when they stay there, and we’re prepared to put the effort and money into making that happen.

And yet, regardless of who we’ve worked with, we seem to keep running into the same problems.

Statements don’t arrive when they should.

Emails go unanswered for a week.

I ask three specific questions and receive answers to two of them, while the other disappears into some mysterious administrative black hole.

So I follow up. Then sometimes I follow up on the follow up.

Eventually, I find myself becoming firmer because by this point I’m frustrated. And that’s when something interesting happens: I start to feel like the difficult one.

Recently, I found myself genuinely wondering, “Am I being unreasonable? Are my expectations simply too high?”

It’s possible.

Not a picture of me, but exactly what I wore to Hotel School (minus the earrings. Earrings were not allowed!)

I am trained in five-star hotel management and silver service, and every role I've ever had has somehow revolved around client experience. So yes, my benchmark is high. I know what exceptional service looks like, and how much work goes into providing it.

But I’m talking about something much simpler… doing what you said you would do, and communicating when you can’t.

When I mention this to other people, they nearly always have a story of their own.

The tradesperson who never sends the quote.

The business that promises to call back and doesn’t.

The accountant who needs three reminders to send something they said would arrive last week.

So it made me curious.

What’s actually going on here?

Have our standards slipped?

Are we all so overloaded that this has simply become normal?

Is there a bit of the Australian “she’ll be right, mate” mentality creeping in? Or is there something about human behaviour that helps explain it?

We don’t all mean the same thing by “I’ll do it”

One of the things I talk about is the way our brain filters our experience. We interpret what happens through everything we already believe, our memories, values and previous experiences.

If I say, “I’ll send that to you by Friday,” my filter hears a commitment. Someone else may hear, “I’m aiming for Friday.” We don’t realise we’re operating with different rules until Monday arrives and I’m wondering where the document is while they’re wondering why I’m chasing them.

That’s the fascinating thing about our filters. They actually feel like reality.

Then discomfort enters the picture

There’s another piece of human behaviour that I suspect plays a fairly big role: avoidance.

Imagine I’ve promised to send you something on Friday, and when Friday arrives I haven’t done it. I know I should email you, but now I feel uncomfortable because I have to admit that I haven't delivered, so I think, I’ll get it done first thing Monday.

Monday becomes Tuesday, and then your email arrives.

“Hi Beck, just following up on…”

Now I feel even more uncomfortable. And by the time you follow up again, something very human can happen… you become associated with my discomfort.

Suddenly, I’m thinking you’re demanding or impatient, when all you’ve actually done is ask me to deliver something I agreed to deliver in the first place.

This is one of the reasons I find human behaviour so fascinating. Once we become curious about what’s happening underneath it, it often makes far more sense.

Understanding it, of course, doesn’t remove our responsibility for it.

And this is where this particular train of thought became slightly uncomfortable for me.

Other people can be very useful mirrors

It would be easy for me to finish this article by saying customer service standards have fallen and everyone needs to lift their game.

Except...

I do it too.

Damn.

There are things I tell myself I’m going to do and then don’t. I tell myself I’ll exercise, eat well, follow through on the things I know matter - and sometimes I don’t.

My explanations sound remarkably reasonable inside my own head… I didn't have time. I didn't feel like it. I couldn't be bothered.

In actual fact, they’re a bunch of lame excuses.

And there it is: the gap between what I say and what I do.

It’s the very gap I’ve become fascinated by in my work. We know what to do. We intend to do it. We may genuinely want to do it, and then our behaviour tells a different story.

Perhaps that's why other people's failure to follow through has been bothering me so much lately.

They're holding up a mirror.

We judge ourselves by our intentions

When I don't do something, I know the backstory.

I meant to.

I've been busy.

Something came up.

I have access to all the good intentions behind my behaviour.

When somebody else doesn't do what they promised me, I only experience their behaviour.

And that’s worth remembering, because every time we tell another person we'll do something, we create an expectation. When we follow through, we're teaching them something about us. When we repeatedly don't, we're teaching them something too.

Over time, those seemingly small moments build trust, or they erode it.

So, are my expectations too high?

I've thought about it, and yes, I have high standards. I'm comfortable with that, and I don't think the answer is to lower them.

But perhaps I've been looking in the wrong direction.

Instead of spending so much energy wondering why other people aren't meeting the standards I expect of them, there’s a far more useful question I can ask myself:

Where am I failing to meet the standards I expect of myself?

Where have my words and my behaviour drifted apart?

What have I said I'll do that I keep putting off?

And when that happens, rather than reaching immediately for an excuse, what might my behaviour be trying to show me?

Because the gap between what we say and what we do leaves clues.

And sometimes it takes being thoroughly irritated by someone else's behaviour to recognise our own.

Perhaps standards haven't disappeared after all. Perhaps we just need to start by holding ourselves to them.

If each of us expected a little more from ourselves, perhaps we wouldn't have to spend quite so much time expecting more from everyone else.

Sometimes the most useful thing we can do is stop looking at everyone else and get curious about our own patterns.

That’s exactly what we do in 5 Days to Clarity.

Over five short sessions, we look at what’s been driving the gap between what you know and what you actually do, so you can understand yourself more clearly and start making different choices.

If you’re ready to take a closer look, book a quick 10-min call with me to find out if it’s the right fit.