But I thought we agreed on that

On Friday, a colleague tells me that the draft for our presentation will not be finished.

1. M

   Me

   “But we agreed on Friday.”

2. C

   Colleague

   “No. I said I would try to get it done by Friday.”

We are both convinced that we remember the earlier conversation correctly. Perhaps we simply understood “I will try” differently.

As soon as my work depends on a result, or someone is waiting for a result from me, that ambiguity has consequences. The next step can be delayed, and a gap in our agreement can quickly turn into a judgment about the other person’s reliability.

An agreement that was not one

“I will try to make it by Friday” can sound like a commitment to me. The other person may mean a goal that still depends on other tasks, or on information that is still missing.

“That should be done this week”, “Will you take care of it?” or “We need this as soon as possible” are just as vague. During the conversation, sentences like these seem clear enough. Only later do we notice that we did not mean the same thing.

I fill in what seems obvious to me, and I do not notice it while we are talking. “I will try” becomes “I will do it”, “this week” becomes “by Friday noon”. By “take care of it” I mean the full implementation; the other person may mean only clarifying it.

Asking would be the simplest thing: “Does that mean I can count on it on Friday?” One sentence, and we would both know where we stand. Yet often we just nod and go our separate ways. Neither of us notices that we have different ideas of the result.

When a gap turns into a judgment

On Friday, I see the unfinished draft. I do not see the gap in our agreement. My colleague comes across as unreliable, as if they had not taken responsibility or had not really listened to me.

They, on the other hand, may hear an accusation. From their point of view, I am turning a goal into a firm commitment after the fact, and I am not counting what came up in the meantime.

Of course they may have given a clear commitment and not kept it. In that case, I address it as such. Before that, though, I try to reconstruct what we actually said or wrote down.

Reconstruct first

With “But we agreed on that”, I declare my memory to be our shared truth. The other person can only agree or defend themselves. So I would rather start like this:

“I understood Friday to be a firm deadline. How do you remember our conversation?”

After that, we clarify four questions:

• Was Friday a firm deadline or a goal?
• What was supposed to be finished by then?
• Which dependencies were known?
• When did we want to talk if the date turned out not to hold?

As in the first post, I separate two things here: what I can still reconstruct and what I have concluded from it. Perhaps we cannot settle the earlier conversation for certain. Even so, the reconstruction shows us what we need to talk about this time.

Expectations that do not match

In doing so, we may notice that our expectations do not fit together at all. For me, the draft on Friday was only an interim milestone: I present our proposal on Tuesday, so I need the finished presentation on Monday. My colleague, however, can only manage a draft by Monday, with the figures still missing.

For conversations like this, the BOUND method helps me. It asks in turn about the realistic starting point (Baseline), the facts behind it (Objectivity), the constraints on the other side (Understand), the options (Negotiate), and what we record of all that (Document). Two of these questions are enough for me here:

• What is realistic in the time available?
• What options do we have in terms of scope, deadline or support?

Going through them, I notice that my own demand was not right as stated. I do not need a finished presentation on Monday. I need the three sections that I will be explaining on Tuesday. I can add the figures myself on Tuesday morning.

Briefly note what stands

The D in the BOUND method stands for Document, and that is exactly the part I am most likely to leave out. After a good conversation, the matter feels settled. A few days later, we still have different versions of it in our heads.

So I try not to leave important conversations until three questions have been answered: What exactly? By when? Who? I write down the answers, along with what is still open and who will get in touch if the situation changes. I picked up that habit after a few Fridays like that one.

In everyday work, three sentences are enough for this:

“You will send me the draft with the three sections we discussed by twelve on Monday. If you are still missing figures for it, you will let me know by nine on Monday. Then I will add them myself on Tuesday morning.”

The other person can reply: “That is not how I understood it.” Then we sort it out right away, instead of next Friday.

A written agreement can be changed too. If the figures arrive later or another task becomes more important, we need to talk again. The short message then shows us which agreement we are working from.

When I say “I will try” myself

I am probably on the other side of this conversation more often than I notice. Someone heard my “I will try” as a commitment and has been waiting ever since.

So when I am not sure, I try to say what I mean: “It is not certain, I am still waiting for the approval. I will know more by Wednesday, and I will let you know then.” That is less comfortable than “I will try”, because it means admitting that it is not entirely in my hands.

In return, no one waits until Friday for something I never promised.