Commitment and Unbending Principle of Flexibility

Lord Michael Bates, the UK International Development Minister, was set to answer questions before the British House of Lords last year on January 31, but arrived a few minutes late. When he entered the hall, he discovered that the Council had discussed a question addressed to him during his absence. When the session concluded half an hour late, he asked for permission to the lectern, apologized profusely and offered his resignation. Here is what he said,

“During the five years in which it’s been my privilege to answer questions from this dispatch box on behalf of the government, I’ve always believed that we should rise to the highest possible standards of courtesy and respect in responding on behalf of the government to the legitimate questions of the legislature, I am thoroughly ashamed at not being in my place and therefore I shall be offering my resignation to the prime minister . . . with immediate effect.”

This may be too dramatic a decision even for a British lord. Some would question the wisdom of such a dramatic decision for a seemingly minor infraction while others may even question his motive. I would applaud his commitment and integrity with ultimate respect. All our politicians should understand that they are ultimately supposed to be the servants of the people and take their commitment with ultimate integrity.

You generally do not want to be late for any important meetings, any meetings at all for that matter, but a sincere apology is generally sufficient for schedule change or for being a few minutes late if you have legitimate reasons. We’ve all done it – arrived a few minutes late for a meeting or other work commitment due to traffic, back to back calendar commitment, or even wrong meeting rooms.

I had an experience in China fourteen years ago for a national conference of several hundred attendees which was postponed three times without any explanations. I later found out that the conference closing remark was going to be delivered by a senior government official. Every time his schedule changed, the conference organizer would change the entire conference dates to accommodate his schedule! I do not anticipate similar occurrences in current business environment, but many Chinese government officials are overworked or overbooked with their commitment and often have no choice but to make last minute adjustments in order to keep up their hectic routines. One time during a dinner I had with a vice mayor of a large city, he realized during our discussion that he needed to convene his cabinets for a meeting the very same evening at 9 PM. I was later told everyone was there at nine and worked until one o’clock in the morning. 

I had another different experience in Indonesia for a meeting with a senior Director of a stated owned company in Jakarta many years ago. I flew all the way from US to Jakarta for the meeting previously scheduled but the Director forgot about it. He took a day off on that very day and was taking his car to a service shop. He asked us if we could drive to the shop where he was waiting for his car and meet there. I would probably be much more reluctant to do so today, but this was before 911 and I had a different mindset in terms of safety and security. We drove through the small alley and found the car shop and sure enough he was waiting for us, in a pair of shorts and flip flop. It was all business but not exactly a setting I had expected.

Anyone who speaks a little bit Spanish probably have heard the phrase “ma?ana” which literally means tomorrow but usually to say in a satirical sense sometime in the unspecified future. I remember another story about someone visiting Mexico got really frustrated when she was told that ice cream was coming right away while she learned later that “ahorita”, which literally means right away, shouldn’t be taken literally while waiting for ice cream to arrive. 

Different people have different sense of time commitment and different cultures have very different interpretation of commitment as well. To make things worse, the sense of commitment and interpretation are also changing with time as society changes.

In today’s global business environment, it is more important than ever before to not only hear what people say but also understand what they truly mean. When it comes to time commitment, it never hurts to err on the side of a firm commitment but do not get too frustrated if your scheduled meeting just moved to 7am in the morning while you are still getting ready for a shower. Believe me, it will happen.

In the end, you always need to know your fundamental business principles and stick with your principles but sometimes you might have to be adaptive in terms of the protocols. Quoting late US Senator Everett Dirksen, “I am a man of fixed and unbending principles, the first of which is flexible at all times.”

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