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Honoring and Fulfilling Commitments 187

CTO did not have the report. He took the offensive and said, “My peo-
ple didn’t get the report to me on time, but I can give you an overview.”

What Happened. This is an interesting backdoor strategy. The
CTO blames others for his failure to keep a commitment. He does
not take accountability for the failure of his team to deliver on time
or the impact it had on the executive team. He simply makes the
problem everyone else’s except his.

Pie-in-the-Sky Promises
A pie-in-the-sky promise has no deadline; it is a deliverable that is not
grounded in a specific time frame. Therefore, no one can be held account-
able. Without a specific “by when” promise, there is no commitment. For
example, the phrase “I will call you soon” is a pie-in-the-sky promise.
“Soon” is not a date, but we treat it as an acceptable nuance in our lan-
guage. The statement “Let’s have lunch sometime” means, “Let’s pretend
this is a meaningful agreement that we both know will never happen.”
An effective way to determine if someone is making a pie-in-the-sky
promise is to ask for a specific time and date. For instance, if a coworker
says, “Let’s have lunch sometime,” answer right away with “Great, how
about next Tuesday at 11 a.m. at the High Street Café?” The moment you
attempt to tie down this type of promise, you will uncover the real inten-
tion of the speaker. He or she will respond by either withdrawing the offer
or hedging and saying “Let me get back to you after I check my calen-
dar.” Examples of pie-in-the-sky promises are

• “I’ll call you soon.”
• “I’ll get this to you as soon as possible.”
• “It is almost completely done.”
• “You’ll have this before long.”
• “No problem—I’ll get this to you immediately.”
• “I’ll have this done right away.”
• “You’ll get this in short order.”

The English language is full of vague references to time. With such an
abundance of words and phrases, we can keep just about every promise
unanchored with no deadline in sight. Consider the following: