If you offer to help, mean it

Take on new commitments carefully, and keep your team up to date on your progress.

• Keep your team updated about any commitments you’ve made to them but not yet delivered. Tell them how you’re progressing, and reassure them you haven’t forgotten.
• Make new commitments carefully. If you agree to help (or offer to help) be realistic about what you’ll be able to do. Stick to your promises: broken commitments undermine trust.
• If you genuinely can’t keep a commitment, tell the person who you’re supposed to be helping in advance. Explain why you can no longer help, what you can do instead, and make sure that’s still helpful. You’ll still let them down, but at least you’re looking for an alternative.
• If you can’t take on a new commitment, be honest about that. Talk the request over and see if there’s another person who could help instead, or another way to solve the problem.

When to take this action

This action is from 'Commit' and should be used when someone's asking for help, when you owe someone an update, when someone's waiting for you to deliver