She said she had it under control.

She didn’t.

My client had just been pulled into a meeting with his boss and a teammate and was essentially told, “Fix this”.

She said had the project under control, but a few days later told his boss that she was overwhelmed and couldn’t keep up.

What happened?

My client didn’t realize that his new teammate was very polite and tended to agree to things that she couldn’t actually deliver on.

We developed some How questions that he could use to help determine what she can and cannot actually do. Questions like:

“How are you going to find the time to do this?”

“How are you going to fit this into your schedule?”

“How will we know we’re on track here?”

“How will we address things if we’re off track?”

If you need the other person to think through whether they can actually do a task, “How” questions are often a handy tool.

Josh