On Overpromising But Underdelivering

"The euphoria of winning is often soon offset by the reality of achieving!" - Futurist Jim Carroll

Do you remember that phrase, "underpromise and overdeliver." It's a useful mindset for achieving goals!

But what happens if you "overpromise and underdeliver" - does that work?

Nope.

Lots of folks are soon to find that out.

Remember the Fyre Festival? Awesome times!

The promise?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mz5kY3RsmKo

The reality? It was so underdelivered that it became the subject of not one, but two full-length documentaries - including one called "Fyre: The Greatest Party that Never Happened."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uZ0KNVU2fV0

Massive promises never delivered. Oops. The founder went to jail.

So - to that point - a lot of people now expect things to suddenly get massively better in the next little while because, well, all the problems will be fixed.

Here's the thing - it's going to be tough to improve on an economy that is already firing on all cylinders. It's going to be difficult to bring back entire industries - think about the automotive sector - that have not already made the investments that are necessary to get to the future. It's going to be difficult to provide jobs that require newly emerging skills if you haven't done the retraining necessary with people to fill those jobs. It's not going to be easy to have a successful economy that is massively reliant on migrant labor if you are going to try to terrorize those people. ?It's going to be tough to take away healthcare and old age security from folks when the very people who voted for come to realize that you were talking about taking away their healthcare and old age security! It's going to be difficult to fire millions of federal workers when people suddenly come to realize how those workers make things function.

Oops. Fun times ahead.

Here's the thing about overpromising - as soon as it becomes apparent that all you can do is underdeliver, mindsets move. The excitement of winning is only temporary, particularly when the promises are so grand and significant that they are unachievable. The simple fact is - that while initial successes can bring a sense of euphoria, it’s the sustained actions and continuous innovation and delivery that define lasting success. That's probably unlikely given the known volatility and recklessness of some of the folks who have provided the euphoria hit.

The same thing happens in the corporate sector. True success isn’t just winning once, but being prepared to innovate, evolve, and keep achieving despite new realities or challenges. It;'s about celebrating achievements but not losing momentum after the initial triumph. Otherwise, there's a quick loss of trust in the leadership team - when expectations are set too high and not met, customers and stakeholders lose trust in the brand - or worse. Unrealistic overpromises usually crash and burn. Think about Theranos - they promised revolutionary blood testing technology that never worked as advertised, leading to legal issues and a loss of credibility - and the founder went to jail.

Oops.

The reality of underperforming on overpromising is ugly.

We live in interesting times.

Futurist Jim Carroll knows, at a personal level, that chasing a big promise in the face of long odds can be overwhelming?—?but often necessary?—?because the alternative of underachieving is too miserable to face.

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