5Make It EasyHow to Make Keeping Commitments (Almost) Painless

Ability will never catch up with the demand for it.

—CONFUCIUS

It’s time to move to the ability side of our model. We’ll start with an example. Kyle, a political analyst who works for you, was supposed to write a position paper for an upcoming debate and have it on your desk by noon, but he didn’t. You call him in for a private discussion and describe the gap. He lets you know that he really wanted to do what he promised and says that it wasn’t his fault that he didn’t. The specialist who conducts the statistical analysis was hospitalized with a burst appendix, and she’s the only one who understands the data.

In any case, Kyle was prevented from doing what he agreed to do. And then ...

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