9 Best Ways How Overdelivering at Work Can Backfire

Overdelivering – For any business or relationship, the most central section is to manage the expectations, and it can be entirely problematic. The term “under promise and over delivery” is not an unknown term in today’s generation, nor it is a surprise to know that it is used by all companies whether small or big to woe their customers. Identical urges smears on setting the hopes lower than what actually can be implemented. Although there are lots of scenarios when this occupational stratagem makes an outstanding nous, it should not be forgotten that if it is wrongly done or overused then, it surely will backfire.

Let us understand why this is a bad idea and why it needs to be used carefully and cautiously.

“The substantial menace for the preponderance of us lies not in setting our goal too high and plummeting it too short, but in setting our objective to too low, and achieving our spot.” This is an intuitive appraisal by a person who although never for a corporate sector but surely had some great insight that every certified personnel needs to understand.

“Make an under promise, but during delivery make it out of the box!” This at first glimpse appears to be a rational attitude, perchance even an intelligent one. Tell all the clienteles that the project will take more than two weeks although in actuality it will take max one week to finish and then astonish them by delivering the project before the estimated deadline.

The hitch in this is, it’s truly a dreadful belief when viewed from a greater perspective. Eventually, the clients will start assuming that you are certainly bad at guessing the minimum time required for the project to be done, and this assumption makes you and your firm look incapable. Or the worst case scenario can be, the clients understand your tactics and hence, in the long run; it won’t work.

The condition where the companies do make over promises but during the time of delivery they under deliver is a similar yet contrary situation of the above stated scenario. This situation even by name seems to produce very bad result. This one is too apparent to be tried and hence should be avoided at all possible costs. And yet from time to time, people gets uncomfortable during the time when they have to admit that they have overloaded, and now they don’t have the relevant resources or that the project can’t be completed in the estimated time frame. By under delivering, the companies show that they can’t be trusted and that you surely have no idea how the budget, resources or time needs to be managed.

Here is the catalogue explaining how overdelivering at work backfires:

#1. Overdelivering- Setting Impractical Beliefs

Imagine a scenario where your employer has assigned you some work, and you committed to doing it in three weeks. Your company allocates an assignment, and you undertake to do it in two weeks. In a common situation of overdelivering, you finish it in just one week time. It probably will feel divine, and your employer may even pat your back for the accomplishment but with this appraisal, you have established a prevailing thought in your employer’s brain. The expectation is saying that you can complete your task prior the deadline and that your words should not be taken too seriously. If you don’t get cautious on time, then it is the probable scenario that your employer might start expecting over delivery at every possible opportunity irrespective of the actual deadline you have agreed to. Hence, in the long run, they will begin taking it for granted, and it will no longer be a surprise to them and remember that day won’t be far when you will not be able to over deliver and that day might prove to be the disastrous day for you.

#2. Overdelivering- Don’t give them ideas that can’t be executed

When your client says that they welcome the “out of the box” kind of thinking, and you immediately start developing ideas that are challenging and disrupting. But at the time of presentation, your client gets aggravated and proves to be unimpressed. The only thought that comes to mind is, “All we did was, provide some extra benefits then what went wrong that aggravated the temperament of the client and why the client became so mad that they threatened to cut the knots with the firm?” If the new, “overdriven” plan is scrutinized elaborately, then it can be seen that the new plan is not working with the current original plan and is irrelevant according to the business of the client. This creates an awkward scenario and has the highest potential of backfiring. Once the customer starts to believe that your thinking has nothing to do with the reality then get this fixated in your heart that this perception of the customer is hard to dismiss and, in the long run, might adversely affect your relationship with your customer. Hence, it’s better to think through all possible doubts and obstacles and exhibit how the plans are related to the exact business model of your customer before you present your idea.

#3. Overdelivering- Wastage of time and funds

There are cases where companies over delivers just because they have fixated in their hearts that the over delivered product is much better that what was initially planned with the client without even knowing how the client might be using the product and this leads to complete wastage of resources and time. For instance, if your employer gave you a file and told you to check the correctness of the data in the file but you along with checking the data, spent your time in advancing its outlook. Later in place of getting an appraisal you come to know that only the data is required and it is being converted to a spreadsheet, think how bad you might feel that all your effort went to vain. For the time being it might appear to be a great idea but without a solid pathway to follow, it simply becomes a wastage, an underuse of time and money.

#4. Overdelivering- Stop throwing unnecessary stuff at your client

To stay on top in the fields of the newest know-how, fashions, product modernisms, and technical updates, and there are various sources from where you can get these latest stories like the different industrial sites, LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook. Being a worker at the agency, it is possible that you might love to share these exciting information with your clients. But the reality is, what might appear to be interesting to you may be useless for your client. Hence, sharing a link every time you find something interesting to your customer can backfire. If you want a full appraisal from your client for the extra effort you put, then choose you’re outstripping And most importantly, check and make sure whether the information you are sharing with your client is relevant to their business or not and if yes then in what ways.

#5. Overdelivering- Taking the Wrong route

One might think that nothing could be worse that the wastage of time and resources on unnecessary, pointless work. But the truth is, overdelivering something that keenly damages or disrupts the other projects. The reality is that we can never know the whole picture within a firm. In fact, in large companies, no one can know the whole plan, and only a fragment of the scheme are introduced to each, only the kind of knowledge that is relevant to their proper working on the project. Hence, it is possible that you might not be knowing what other people are working on, or what the progress rate of other projects is. If by any chance, you go rogue, even though unintentionally, you affect the other items adversely making the life of other workers troublesome and complicated.

#6. Don’t make your firm look wrong with half-cooked plans

Sometimes the companies’ gets excited on finding fascinating chances and possible methods of changing the client markets. In this excitement they, in a hurry, set the quickly set the introductory meeting with the clients to get their feedbacks, just to check its merits of the occasion. These kinds of meetings backfire to the firm because even though the agency was holding an informal meeting, the clients attend it in the hopes of it being a proper And this should not be forgotten that the aftermath of these case is not gentle or peaceful. These scenarios put the agency in a backlog in the view of the client. To avoid these situations, the companies should make sure that the limitations of the presentation are well explained to the customer beforehand.

#7. Don’t wait for the appraisal for all the extra time invested for the completion of the task

Project scope creep or commonly known as client direction change, is the term of which almost all firms have been a victim of in one or another way. In most cases, the companies just perform their task or goes above and beyond. It is not wrong for them to see themselves as heroes but this backfires. Placed or accessed wrongly, this overdriven work can be considered as the companies’ weakness, and this perception continues in the long run. To avoid these situations, never be quite nor expect an applause for the extra labor. But neither leaves the credit you deserve, and this can be achieved by maintaining a constant communication throughout the project. And by letting the client know why and how the project team has delivered much the effort.

#8. Didn’t want to take your eye off the trophy

The most philanthropic work to deliver overdriven facilities to the clients can backfire any moment. The clients will hold liable for the overdriven products for mistakes, miscommunication, or interruptions even though there exist no correlations. If in your customer‘s perception, you have been unfocused and distracted on the routine matters, then beware, you might be losing your client’s trust. Because no matter what, even though the client is wrong then also the client’s perception is always right. So in due time, make sure that your company takes care of the client’s standard requirement before taking care of the value added service, or this might put your relation in jeopardy.

#9. Overdelivering- Cut to the quick

Occasionally, people get pretty possessive of their work. The extra effort put in by the company may be considered as invasion of their comfort zone and might put your business in the bad eye of the client and may get you bad feedbacks.

This should be not taken in a negative way as putting extra effort at work is great and often does the trick. In this competitive world, all wants to be ahead of the other and there is nothing wrong in this, but there is nothing wrong with being attentive and when and how you overdeliver because you never know when it might backfire and all your efforts may go in ruins. As no two people are same so how can same tactic work for all? Similarly, overdriving is not for all and neither it is appropriate for all conditions. Everything has a boundary and so does overdriving, and one must learn to look for these limits.

So how do you negotiate – and set the platform for long-term fidelity and dependability?

There are three ways of doing so, which includes:

1. know the boundary of using the time, resources, and money;
2. be up-front concerning the intentions; and
3. Having, at least, a two-week processing time for the project completion.

The above-given rules do not set the path for under promise and over delivery. In fact, the scenario of under promise and over delivery should be avoided to get rid of unwanted risk that can hamper the reputation of the firm in most dangerous ways. It not only puts the company in compromising positions but may even break the clients trust. If the companies wish to overdeliver the product, then they should contemplate hard and plan it thoroughly so that it works in their favor and not in contrary.