To Confirm or Not to Confirm?

I found myself speaking with the Hon. Eileen Nadelson, a retired judge, at a recent networking event. After realizing we had a lot in common in how we approach legal communication, we arranged to meet later and continue our conversation.

As the day of our meeting approached, I thought perhaps I should confirm the appointment. My standard operating procedure was to send a day-before email to the person I was to meet; after all, things come up, reminders are overlooked, life happens, etc. But besides coming from a generally trustworthy profession, Judge Nadelson cultivated her habits in an era before smartphones enabled frequent last-minute plan changes—in a generation, I reasoned, in which a person followed through on what she said she would do. So instead of checking in, I went with the intuitive idea that the judge would be there.

When I arrived at our meeting, Judge Nadelson told me, "I noticed you didn't confirm—that really impressed me." She said she had also thought about confirming, but her philosophy is that she keeps her appointments and her commitments, and she only wants to work with others who do as well. According to the judge, it’s easy to get a sense of whether a person is going to be flaky or not, and if your suspicions are confirmed, it informs your approach to your professional involvement with that person. (Though personal matters, of course, have a whole other set of rules and vocabulary.) 

I thought what she said was revolutionary. Even if not confirming results in a certain amount of inconvenience—everybody flakes or is flaked on sooner or later—if it helps screen the people one spends one’s professional time and reputation with, a bit of inconvenience is a small price to pay (especially if you have other work with you to stay busy, or always travel with a book).

I've used this approach twice since then. I met Stacee Mandeville, a body language, and speaking coach, for coffee without confirming in advance. And a few days later, I sat down with Aaron Pierce, a fellow attorney whom I’d met through an e-introduction. We had set the appointment weeks earlier, so I thought there was a possibility it had fallen off his radar. But sure enough, he proved reliable and turned up as well. 

In my conversations with both Stacee and Aaron, I mentioned our mutual lack of confirmation e-mails, which I noticed after my discussion with Judge Nadelson. That they both agreed with the judge’s perspective came as a pleasant surprise, and I’ve resolved to change my approach.

Writing now as a Reformed Confirmer (sounds a bit like a religious denomination), it’s nice to think that something as simple as keeping your word without extra prompting can help build your reputation as a trustworthy business partner. And it makes me wonder what other small, everyday transactions we enter into that can affect how people view our practices, our businesses, and our brands.

Do you conform to the norm of confirming?