There’s something so infuriating about waiting for a response from someone who’s promised to deliver a service, complete a project, sort a problem, or provide an update, and then getting nothing. The deadline has passed. The messages have gone unanswered. The calls have been ignored. In the end, you’re left wondering whether they’ve forgotten, abandoned it, or simply don’t regard your time at all.
I’ve had this experience in my professional relationships with service providers, colleagues and business partners. What makes them so disappointing isn’t always failure to deliver. Sometimes things just go wrong. Projects go wrong for all sorts of reasons: the resources we need simply aren’t there, the priorities shift, and people just don’t deliver. That happens. That happens even in a very well-run organisation. What’s hard to fathom is the failure to communicate when things don’t go to plan.
Feedback isn’t just a courtesy. It’s a professional obligation. We must recognise that, as professionals, delivering on a promise matters, but communicating when you can’t deliver matters just as much. If you’ve promised to complete a task by Friday and realise on Wednesday that you won’t meet that deadline, why wait until Friday to tell them? If you’ve promised a customer a service recovery and then find it will take longer than expected, why leave the customer to chase you for information?
A simple message saying, “we’re experiencing a delay”, explaining the situation, and giving a realistic new timeline will make a world of difference. It tells them you’re aware of what they’re expecting, that you respect their time and that you’re going to honour your commitment. Silence damages trust.
In marketing, we’re constantly talking about customer experience, relationship management, brand reputation and trust. We teach organisations that customers don’t judge a brand on what it promises; they judge it on what they experience. The same applies to professional relationships. Every interaction affects how people view our competence, reliability, and credibility. If we don’t give feedback, then we create uncertainty. That uncertainty builds and eventually becomes frustration. Frustration can then become disappointment, and that can lead to a loss of confidence.
Consider a provider who promised to address and resolve a customer’s issue but then fails to provide any update when the resolution is delayed. The initial service failure may have been perfectly understandable. The failure to communicate the delay is a second failure. In fact, poor communication during service recovery can do more damage than the original problem.
The same is true of colleagues on a shared project. If one team member can’t get their part done, it can have a knock-on effect on the others. They may be unable to move on, the whole project may be delayed, and the project may be in a worse state as a result. A timely update would have enabled the team to re-prioritise, re-distribute or find an alternative.
Feedback demonstrates accountability. One myth about feedback is that it should only be given when there’s good news or when a job is complete. That’s not the case. Professional feedback must also communicate the problems, delays, errors and limitations. You don’t need all the answers before you communicate. You don’t need to have resolved the issue before you give an update. Sometimes the most professional thing you can say is: “I’m sorry we won’t be able to meet the agreed deadline. We’ve hit an unforeseen snag and are currently working on an alternative. I’ll be sending a further update by tomorrow”. That one bit of communication shows awareness, accountability and respect. It’s also vital to remember that feedback isn’t the same as making excuses. It’s about sharing relevant information, taking responsibility, and helping people understand what’s going on. Where appropriate, it should include what went wrong, what is being done about it and when the next update can be expected.
Respect people’s time and expectations. We must be mindful that our commitments are often embedded in others’ plans. The client may have made decisions based on our promise to deliver. A colleague may be waiting for our input before they go any further. The business partner may have made some kind of financial or operational commitment based on the agreement. When we don’t communicate, we pass the burden of uncertainty onto others. And that is unfair. We can’t always control the circumstances, but we can control how we talk about them. We may not always be able to deliver on what we’ve promised, but we can be completely honest about what’s changed.
Make feedback part of your professional culture. Whether you’re a business owner, a consultant, a lecturer, a manager, a colleague or a service provider, make communication part of how you work. If you can’t deliver, then communicate that upfront. If there’s a delay, then communicate that. If you’ve made a mistake, then admit it. If you’ve promised a service recovery, then deliver that or explain why you can’t. If you need more time, then say so rather than just vanishing.
Ultimately, professionalism isn’t just about the projects you do, the clients you’ve got and the promises you keep. It’s also about how you handle things when they don’t go to plan. You might not always have good news to report, but you must never leave people in the dark. In business and in life, silence doesn’t protect your reputation. It tends to damage it more than anything else.
Remember, communicating when things go wrong is just as important as delivering when things go right.
