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O P I N I O N
Keeping commitments
W hatever time management system you follow, whether it’s a fancy app that tracks your minutes or the back of a napkin, it still needs to do one thing: help you keep your commitments. When you don’t meet your commitments, you disappoint people and they remember it. If people can’t count on you, they won’t hire or promote you.
To understand why this is important, think about how you would explain wealth building to a 4-year- old. First you have a piggy bank. Now you put money in, so you make deposits. You don’t take any money out. You don’t make any withdrawals. And over time, you’ll have more money. In all of our relationships we maintain an emotional bank account, based on how we feel about someone and how they feel about us. Whether you’re aware of it or not, you’re either making deposits or withdrawals in your emotional bank accounts. How do you make deposits? With clients, it’s being on time, being reliable, responsive, helpful, personable. What are withdrawals? Just the opposite: being late, unreliable, not following up or being unresponsive, just being difficult, coming up with problems, being negative or combative. Over time, deposits build trust and cooperation. Withdrawals
undermine trust and cooperation. The choices we make have a big impact on how people feel about us. How you manage your time affects your emotional bank accounts. This is the easiest way of thinking about it: Keep your commitments. Maintain your balance. That’s it. Listen to this story to see how Patti, a project manager, keeps her commitments and decide if she’s making deposits or withdrawals. Patti’s day starts at 7 a.m. She forgot to check her calendar the night before and it’s her turn to take the kids to school. She yells at the kids to hurry and get in the car, and during the drive she curses at the slow moving cars in front of her. She’s late to a client meeting, and spends time texting people on her phone during the meeting. She gets back in the office, but waives staff off who have
Leo MacLeod
See LEO MACLEOD, page 12
THE ZWEIG LETTER OCTOBER 5, 2020, ISSUE 1362
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