In all the years I’ve been doing work in the private sector, I’ve made it a point to ask nearly every entrepreneur and executive I’ve worked with whether, over the course of their entire careers, they have ever been a witness to or a party of a negotiation in which a missed deadline had negative repercussions. Among hundreds of such clients, there’s one single, solitary gentleman who gave the question serious consideration and responded affirmatively. Deadlines are often arbitrary, almost always flexible, and hardly ever trigger the consequences we think—or are told—they will.
