How I learned not to promise more than I can deliver
My wife and her mum had a lovely day out in London at the weekend: checking out Queen Lizzie’s dress exhibition and the Christmas lights.
When she chatted through it with me afterwards, we got onto the subject of Oxford Street – and whether the Mayor of London has delivered on his active travel promise.
Bear with me, non-capital folks, it’s not really about London. It’s about intent versus delivery, and that wily corporate get-out: “best endeavours”.
How many times have you worked for someone who kept promising you something, only to underdeliver? The promotion that never materialises. The investment in more people and money that gets scaled back. The “process improvement” that adds three hours of admin to your week.
Which brings me back to the Mayor.
I asked whether they had visited the new traffic-free Oxford Street whilst they were there. The response was less than enthusiastic: ‘Yeah, it’s alright. Bit odd.’
This backed up what I’ve read. Very few people seem pleased with the scheme, which is a shame after such a long wait. A decade of public pressure led to a 2024 announcement that it was finally happening. Yet when it was unveiled on Monday 26 October, two years of planning added security barriers at each end of a half-mile stretch of tarmac, and little else.
Despite the promises of enhanced cycling provision and night-time access for bikes, the whole area is now 100% pedestrian. Very little re-modelling has gone on, so people step off the pathways onto what was, and still is, a road.
My wife and I visited Rotterdam and The Hague last year, and the easy flow of shared cycling and pedestrian spaces was a joy. I immediately wanted to move there (ignoring complications like family and visas!) Central London’s compromise doesn’t come close.
From the shrug of my nearest and dearest to the Critical Mass protest on 30 October, when 600 cyclists ignored the £160 fines and filled the new zone, the lack of inspiration is obvious.
So, what went wrong? Were the original messages misleading? Or, as often happens, were compromises needed along the way to avoid an impasse? I can’t answer that. But I can offer this.
Not every failure is down to a lack of capability or disingenuous intent. Sometimes, best endeavours aren’t enough. I know, I have been there, where what I wanted and believed could happen, didn’t.
Early in my career, in the first team I ever managed, I had a rising star. Young, enthusiastic, smart, and asking great questions that showed she had more to offer. I had big plans for her, and I kept telling her so in our monthly one-to-ones.
I was desperate to keep her and needed some budget to create the right role, so she could fly. That budget never materialised. Six months later she left for a better job elsewhere. My promises never matched what I could deliver, which showed a certain naivety on my part.
So, whether Mayor Khan meant to or not, he mirrored my failure to follow through.
These days I’ve learned my lesson and never promise things I don’t have at least some control over delivering. I even turned down a lovely piece of work last week because I didn’t have the capacity to do my best job. Ouch. Integrity costs!
What I do have are a couple of coaching slots freeing up over the next couple of weeks.
So, whether you’re facing a lack of delivery from others, are the one who’s made promises you’re struggling to keep, or something very different – let’s get a call set up.
I promise you – I have the space, and I can deliver!
