The word treaty has been used for more than 600 years to convey a sense of negotiated agreement between two parties with the power to make a promise and keep it. 

But an agreement is only as strong as each party’s willingness and ability to keep their promises. 

In the First Fort Laramie Treaty of 1851, the United States promised the Cheyenne, Sioux, Arapaho, Crow, Assiniboine, Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara Nations that the great plains “as far as the river flows and the eagle flies” was Native American territory. In return for an annuity of $50,000 per year, the Native Americans promised to guarantee safe passage on the Oregon Trail, to allow roads to be built, and to stop fighting with United States soldiers and each other. The stated goal of the treaty was peace.

The treaty was broken almost immediately. Immigrant miners and settlers built towns, diverted water, slaughtered bison by the hundreds of thousands, and took over lands that had been protected by the treaty. Killing resumed as people fought over hunting grounds and resources they needed for survival. Many Native Americans were forced off their lands entirely. 

The conditions after the treaty were worse than before. Not only were people stealing and killing each other again, but now they had perfectly valid reasons to distrust and sabotage each other. The broken promises appeared to confirm their worst suspicions about each other.

Promises are the building blocks of the relationships, symbolic stories, and social networks that put homo sapiens at the top of the food chain. These oral, nonbinding agreements create bonds of trust and social norms. Promises are important – which is why broken promises are traditionally major historical causes of resentment and revenge in every society around the world. 

For as long as I can remember, my Mom hammered home the importance of keeping promises. To this day I won’t make a promise unless I am 100% certain I can and will keep it. When I commit to something, my family, friends, students, and clients know I’ll deliver. 

Making and keeping agreements is fundamental to every type of relationship. The importance of an agreement becomes clearer when someone breaks it. Breaking agreements creates fractures. If we work to heal those fractures, sometimes we can grow stronger bonds, but if we leave them unattended they can get infected and at some point we may have to amputate before everything gets ruined. You only get so many chances to break someone’s trust.

So: What do you do when someone says one thing and does another? Do you stay quiet? Go along to get along? Give them another chance? Speak up? What advice would you give the spouse of a cheater, or a federal government employee in the current administration? 

Over the past couple weeks I reflected on this question because I met a prospective client who repeatedly broke promises. “Keep the date open, I’ll confirm on Monday!” (Crickets.) “Drive an hour each way in LA traffic to meet with me on Friday!” (Took the day off.)

As long as I’ve been in the “help people learn together and improve” business, it’s always ticklish to call out a need for improvement. I still get a little nervous when I think speaking up will run the risk of hurt feelings or rejection.

Providing critical feedback without complaining or getting upset is a skill worth learning and practicing. The challenge of developing that skill is one reason why honesty and “how to have difficult conversations” are such popular topics for advice columns, self-help books, and motivational speakers. 

When the news is good we don’t need help. (Test this for yourself. Imagine that you’re just about to leave the house for the evening. Your partner walks in and says, “How do I look in this outfit?” If they look like a rhinoceros stuffed in a go bag, the honesty stakes go up – choose your words with care. But if your partner looks fantastic, honesty is easy!) Since we don’t need additional support, courage, or strategy to provide positive reinforcement or heartfelt compliments, there is no research problem or need for expert insight. AI agrees. According to ChatGPT, “There isn't a widely recognized keynote speech specifically titled "How to Give Good News."

So let’s focus on being critical with a purpose. Intent matters. Critique can feel uncomfortable to offer or receive, but it’s actually a service when it’s intended to improve a project, situation, or relationship. In that context, critique is a healthy, helpful kindness. I devoted a whole chapter to this in ACADEMY OF ONE. There is such a thing as a better breakfast burrito, and being able to evaluate what makes a breakfast burrito better will make your breakfast and your life better. Judging helps us survive (how else will you know what will nourish you and what will poison you?) and supercharges our interdependence (how can you make a friend or hire a colleague without judging character?).  

I see my clients and audiences nod in agreement when I talk about this stuff in workshops and keynotes. So why do so many people sweep things under the rug instead of naming it when someone breaks a promise? Maybe we’re already too stressed out and traumatized for what we fear will be another cortisol-inducing conflict. Maybe we don’t want to risk being identified with a problem or seen as a complainer. Maybe we fear rejection or the end of a relationship.

Unfortunately, staying quiet won’t fix any of those things. Avoiding conflict may feel like a relief in the moment, but over time false acquiescence only makes things worse. You’re not a saint or a more graceful, dignified professional because you silently endure a broken promise. You’re just a person who has been hurt – we have the fMRI data to show that a broken promise inflicts injury on the brain. So now you’re the one being dishonest, and you may even be enabling abusive behavior that will continue and possibly hurt others. 

Operating without integrity is more expensive than airing a grievance. Dishonesty and broken promises create distraction, negative emotions, and poor performance. I’ve been a consultant in one form or another for nearly 30 years. In all that time I cannot think of a single instance when getting away with being unaccountable served a person, an organization, or a collaboration over the long term. On the other hand, I can think of more than a few times when one person’s momentary irresponsibility or emotional convenience was responsible for the breakdown of an entire initiative or strategic plan. I remember a partner who nearly sank a prominent accounting firm that way.

So, a few days ago I sighed – just because it’s a good idea doesn’t mean it’s fun – and I emailed my prospective client: “If we’re going to collaborate, I need to be honest with you…” 

And that was the end of it. I got a seven-word reply that would’ve felt more human coming from AI. No acknowledgement, accountability, or apology. On one hand, I felt a loss. I really like the consultant who introduced me to this person and I had hoped to hit a home run. On the other hand, I was also relieved. If this person couldn’t keep their word on little things like showing up for a meeting they scheduled, what would’ve happened when the stakes got higher?

Here is something the advice columnists and “thought leaders” don’t mention often enough. It’s OK – important, even – to risk ending a dysfunctional relationship over a broken promise rather than turning ourselves into pretzels and overcompensating for someone else’s fiction. (This is especially true when the other party outranks you. How much will we all admire any elected GOP leader who stands up to the president?) Putting our cards on the table sooner rather than later is one way to determine whether the relationship is strong enough to sustain change or constructive conflict down the road.

Investing in honesty now can seem risky, but it’s worth the future upside. At minimum, you’ll learn something about another person and you’ll learn something about yourself. So speak to the broken promise. Honest reflection and communication is the best way to ensure that someone else’s broken promises don’t become your problem.

I promise.

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Where is your boundary for living with someone’s broken promises? Does it depend on the relationship? The history? Job security? The principle of the thing? Drop me a line – I’m curious!

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Open-Source Learning is yours. Free. Get the white paper here. Use what works and customize whatever you need, however you want. I’m here to help.

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Curiosity is worth practicing. That’s how we get better at it. When it’s done particularly well, curiosity can be elevated to an art form. Curiosity makes life worth living. I am literally Curious AF. And now you can be too! Click HERE to unlock your free membership subscription. 

Here is a taste of what I’m doing, reading, watching, and thinking about.

What I'm Reading –

I’m making slow work of it, but I’m still plowing through Robert Sapolsky’s Determined, which comes to mind today because neurological studies have also accurately shown via fMRI whether people will keep or break a promise – well before they admit their intention or even become aware of it.

What I’m Listening To Because of What I Was Eating –

Since the 1990s (when it was a.k.a. “Little Addis”) the block of Fairfax between Olympic and Whitworth in Los Angeles has also been known as Little Ethiopia. Ethiopian restaurants and shops line both sides of the street. A couple weeks ago I had lunch at Rahel Woldmedhin’s new place (she used to own the restaurant next door). I was debating whether to ask for more injera when I tuned into the music playing over the speakers. The song was familiar – Peter Gabriel’s “Biko” – but the version was new to me and I loved it. Shazam told me it was a collaboration with Ladysmith Black Mambazo, Geoffrey Oryema, and Alex Brown on Manu Dibango’s album Wakafrika. I’ve been listening to Dibango and after a couple albums I concluded you can’t go wrong. Here’s Dibango and friends performing “Biko”: https://youtu.be/r7X9zeK0zyQ?si=RmtlrlyzdnPAgrB_

Quote I’m pondering –

Researching a mural on a building in downtown Los Angeles led me to this piece by Morley at the 2017 SorryNotSorry festival in Ghent:

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David Preston

Educator & Author

​https://davidpreston.net​

Latest book: ACADEMY OF ONE

Header image: "The Promise" by Rene Magritte 1966 – Fair Use License via https://www.wikiart.org/en/rene-magritte/the-promise-1966