JUST ANOTHER FOGGY, OVERCAST DAY

Always Shoot to Under Promise and Over Deliver

August 22, 2017

By:  Dave Cook, Career Counselor, NE MN Office of Job Training

2024 – That is the next time there will be a total eclipse (cue Bonnie Tyler), except maybe here in Duluth. On Monday, August 21, 2017, a total eclipse of the sun happened. For the previous 15 days the Twitter-sphere, Facebook, and news organizations from across the globe waited with baited breath for the eclipse.

Don’t look at it…you might go blind. What does it mean for us or the world? Is it a sign? What will happen to the GRID? Was the eclipse caused by global warming?

All the hype and Duluth said; huh…just another foggy, overcast day.  The eclipse turned out to be…just Monday.

It is amazing how many things get built up only to create false expectations. I will date myself here; who remembers Y2K? Computers were built with only two digit years in their programming. SO, when the year flipped from 1999 to 2000, we were told that potentially the electrical grid and the defense department could go dark. So as the ball dropped and Dick Clark (he was Ryan Seacrest before Ryan Seacrest) started counting down to the year 2000, everyone watched with baited breath 5, 4, 3, 2, 1.

And the year 2000 started, just like the previous 2000 before it. Over promised and under delivered.

It is easy when dealing with people, to do the same thing; over promise and under deliver. You get your customer, case, or patients excited about a situation and outcome and then nothing happens. A person orders a shirt on-line and the color is not quite the same color which was shown on-line. The savory spices turned out to be pepper, the beer was from the bottom of the keg, the eclipse did not end the world, no one went blind, and the lake decided that we should be overcast and foggy.

Always shoot to under promise and over deliver, that way your customer, case, or patient will always be happy and pleased with your efforts. In the era of the Twitter-sphere, is under promising even possible? 

 ~ Impact one person every day.

Go be great!

DC