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Honoring and Fulfilling Commitments 185

• “I hope I can complete this tomorrow.”
• “I will do this, but I wish I had more help.”
• “It might be completed by the end of this week.”

Hedging language, such as perhaps, maybe, hope, wish, try, might be,
could be, and conceivably are used in casual commitments. Again, try is
the biggest culprit in casual promises. If try is a word you frequently use,
then pay attention to how you feel about making commitments. When you
make a commitment, do you feel boxed in, stuck, or trapped? Many peo-
ple experience commitments as limiting and taking away their choices.
Interestingly enough, the exact opposite is true. The condition of “trying”
is limiting and stagnant, whereas taking a stand and committing open up
boundless possibilities.

The Leader Who Tried
Malcolm hedged practically everything he said. He changed his
mind frequently and liked the flexibility of not tying himself down.
When he was promoted to the position of assistant director in a mid-
size government agency, he opened a meeting of leaders with the
following statement:
“We have a lot of challenges ahead of us. In the next 20 minutes,
I’ll try to describe what we must address. And, if I miss anything, I’ll
do my best to get you the information you need. I hope to set up a fol-
low-up meeting soon to check in on our progress. And feel free to stop
by any time I’m in the office.”

Hedging and Casual Promises. When you listen for hedging words
or conditional language, the real message practically screams at you,
“I am not committing to anything, not now, not ever.” Malcolm used
multiple hedging phrases—try, do my best, hope, soon—and he even
used a conditional statement, “any time I am in the office.” Malcolm
was an expert at hedging. When we asked him to eliminate hedging
language in his speaking, he replied in complete sincerity, “I’ll try.”

If you discover that you make a lot of casual promises, then decide now
to make only those commitments you plan to keep. Eliminate casual
promises for which you have good intention but no commitment to action.