The Importance of Deadlines
Our lives are about getting things done – either by ourselves or (as leaders) through others.
One of the aspects of leadership and task management that receives less attention than it deserves is setting deadlines. We’ve probably heard the phrase “they want it done yesterday!” meaning that (senior management - or whoever) want something done as soon as possible.
Not setting deadlines has a significant impact on how people prioritise. If the deadline’s close, they’ll put it at the top of their list. The human mind naturally focuses on tasks with deadlines versus tasks without. As a result, they prioritise what’s “urgent” but not always “important”. This phenomenon has been well documented in what’s known as the Eisenhower Matrix which provides a graphic representation of the differences on how we should handle tasks that are:
- “Urgent and important”
- “Urgent but not important”
- “Important but not urgent”
- “Neither urgent nor important”
We tend to focus on the “urgent” tasks, whether they’re “important” or not at the expense of the “important but not (yet) urgent” tasks.
Setting deadlines is vital to all our activities as leaders. Some leaders are excellent at giving deadlines for every task delegated (and sometimes the deadline is even realistic!). Others, however, just describe the task but not when they need it done. A week later they come back asking “why haven’t you done it?” Or “is it ready yet?” Of course, the person to whom the task was delegated may well answer in the negative as they didn’t realise that that task needed to be completed within (say) a week.
Another practice I came across when delegating tasks was for a leader to say, “unless I say otherwise, I want things done within a week.” Giving this kind of guidance saves time on both sides.
Equally, we as team members need to get into the habit of asking “what’s the deadline?” if none is specified (and if our leader tends not to set deadlines).
My (unspoken) guideline for responses to emails that I send is latest seven days of the date of that email (unless I specify otherwise). I diarise to chase after a week, so that the recipient knows I’ll be keeping an eye on them. Is this fair? Perhaps not, but it does work for me and means that I stay “on top” of things.
A common email fault is people prefacing emails with “urgent” (often in capitals followed by two exclamation marks!!) The problem is that if this is their habit, recipients will realise very quickly that most messages from that person aren’t “urgent’ and won’t prioritise them in as such.
Setting expectations in terms of deadlines as a leader is critical to the smooth functioning of our team. New team members should be told that we expect them to respond to a delegated task within (say) one week unless specified otherwise. We should also be explaining to them that, if they run into problems, they should let us know so that we can arrange support.
Another issuing encountered was a team member’s perception that everyone else’s deadlines weren’t important (let alone urgent). It wasn’t until I explained that often, when I set them a deadline, it was so that information could be gathered to pass onto another senior manager who had to consolidate that information with other information before submitting it to a more senior manager within that senior manager’s deadlines. This resulted in a “lightbulb moment” for that colleague who’d clearly never considered this. Once they knew how to distinguish things that might be urgent and what their potential remedy was, they were able to plan their day as well.
I explained that if this person felt that the deadline was unrealistic, they should say so and explain why to allow us to ask for an extension if possible (or at the very least explain why meeting the deadline might result in substandard information being supplied).
Like “urgent” emails, this only works if it’s applied sparingly. If it becomes a habit, you’ll only gain a reputation of being disorganised, incapable, a poor planner, bad at prioritising or whatever people care to describe you as.
(Interestingly, I’ve observed that human beings also tend to meet deadlines which are important to them, aside from those that are perceived as urgent and imposed by others.)
I’ve spent more than half my life delivering change in different world markets from the most developed to “emerging” economies. With a wealth of international experience in international financial services around the world running different operations and lending businesses, I started my own Consultancy to provide solutions for improving performance, productivity and risk management. I work with individuals, small businesses, charities, quoted companies and academic institutions across the world. An international speaker, trainer, author and fund-raiser, I can be contacted by email.
Labels: Career, Leadership, Productivity, Teamwork
The "Automation Paradox"
In previous articles, I’ve discussed the role that human beings play in business, along with concerns over AI and others.
I’ve recently been introduced the concept of the “automation paradox”. What this says is that the better the machines get, the more we struggle when they fail.
Ever have your car’s satnav lose its signal at that critical point where, if you make the wrong turn, you end up miles from your destination?
Businesses all over the world have some degree of automation. Whereas, in the “old days”, banks used to keep ledger books, everything’s now computerised. Even our statements are either emailed to us or sent via a mobile app.
But what happens when “things don’t work”? I see articles in the press about how banks are embarrassed by their mobile apps failing at critical times (usually when salaries are paid). We’ve also heard of “cyber-attacks” on various services, rendering an organisation’s ability to deliver products or services non-existent.
Even car engines are so computerised now that, if something goes wrong, it must be towed to the nearest service centre for the computer to be reset.
In any plan for automating services or systems, we need to be fully aware of the consequences of what might happen if the technology fails. What’s our contingency plan? I remember a delightful occasion when, talking to a banker in Moscow about whether Y2K (remember that?) would impact them, his answer was along the lines of “We’ve only recently automated, and if things do go wrong there are still plenty of people who remember the manual processes!”
Humour aside, that gentleman had the answer. If automation fails, are we able to implement a semi-automated or even fully manual workaround until the problem can be fixed?
As well as being judged on how they deliver their products and services, organisations are also judged on how they handle crises. As leaders, our job is to work out “what could go wrong” and find a way around it. If we rely on an external or third-party to deliver part of that product or service, do they have a contingency in place in case things go wrong for them?
As technology advances, it usually improves our lives but when it fails, we realise how much we’ve come to rely on it and struggle when this happens. As leaders, our job is to identify possible areas of failure, their likelihood and how we’re going to sort them out.
I’ve spent more than half my life delivering change in different world markets from the most developed to “emerging” economies. With a wealth of international experience in international financial services around the world running different operations and lending businesses, I started my own Consultancy to provide solutions for improving performance, productivity and risk management. I work with individuals, small businesses, charities, quoted companies and academic institutions across the world. An international speaker, trainer, author and fund-raiser, I can be contacted by email.
Labels: Crisis Management, Customer Care, Leadership, Productivity, Risk
So, Where Are You From?
This is a question we get and hear regularly. Assuming we don’t interpret it as a politically incorrect, racist, anti DEI statement, how do we respond?
People might say they’re from… and the name of the city or country. Others, like me find it more difficult.
I was born in Asia as were my parents.
I was educated in Pakistan, the USA and the UK. I’ve worked in eight different countries in the world from the Far East to the Caribbean.
My mother lives in the South of England. One of my siblings lives west of London, the other in France.
I’ve now lived in Brunei for the past 12 years and am married to a Brunei citizen.
I carry a British passport…
So how do I answer? “Where are you from?”. I don’t consider this an invasive or offensive question. It makes me think. Where am I “from”? Am I “from” the part of the world in which I was born, educated, live now or whose passport I carry?
How do children of mixed marriages or “third culture kids” answer? How do I myself identify?
Boundaries are blurring. Mixed marriages are completely normal (although when I was a young child, they were still very much a novelty). Some societies turn in on themselves; others are outward looking and embrace the changes that this brings.
So back to “Where are you from?”. The short answer is “you tell me!”. I’ve loved living, being educated in, and working in every country whose shores I’ve touched. I’m British by nationality and loyal to the crown but also support where I live and work now.
I have multiple “identities”.
I love the diversity that we can now find in this world, where in the Far East I can encounter someone of Indian origin who speaks with the strongest Birmingham accent. Labelling people by “where are you from?” Is becoming an increasingly complex process.
Perhaps some of the social problems we face in the world are because people can’t identify “where they’re from”. They feel they have no identity or place in the societies in which they find themselves. These may be the children of immigrants to a country, refugees, or anyone who finds themselves in an environment radically different to that which their parents and grandparents may have known. The sense of displacement and “not being one of us” can have the most significant impact on the psyche of these people.
Similarly, some people clearly have difficulty in “identifying” others if they can’t put them in a “pidgeon hole”.
Why will I ask someone where they’re from? It’s because I find it fascinating to be in a third country and meet someone who is clearly not from that country either. What’s their story? What did they go through to get there? What does that make them as a person? What might they have experienced? Life can we the most fascinating tapestries and yet we still at times insist on using the same-coloured thread.
Why not change the thread?
I’ve spent more than half my life delivering change in different world markets from the most developed to “emerging” economies. With a wealth of international experience in international financial services around the world running different operations and lending businesses, I started my own Consultancy to provide solutions for improving performance, productivity and risk management. I work with individuals, small businesses, charities, quoted companies and academic institutions across the world. An international speaker, trainer, author and fund-raiser, I can be contacted by email.
Labels: Customer Care, Social
Renew your Subscription
One thing I’ve noticed over the last few years is that more of the “apps” that we use on our devices now charge a subscription fee to use them. In the past you just paid a one-off price.
Whilst we’re used to annual subscriptions for newspapers, journals, professional bodies, subscriptions for “apps” are still relatively new.
If anyone provides a business or service, they need cashflow to sustain and improve that business. App developers are discovering this and need to show investors that they have “sustainable income” to bring them on board.
This episode doesn’t concern an app, but a yearly subscription for a newspaper that my company recently renewed. We’d been subscribing for some five years and in the past, the newspaper used to remind us when our subscription was due for renewal.
This time, nothing happened.
We renewed anyway but it made me think: how often are we all guilty of forgetting to send reminders about renewing subscriptions, paying fees, paying a bill that’s overdue, meetings and appointments (the list goes on)?
Assuming we weren’t the only ones who didn’t receive a subscription renewal reminder, other subscribers were in the same boat. They might have renewed, forgotten or decided not to renew as a deliberate act.
When our revenues depend on regular payments or subscriptions, we need to make absolutely sure that we have the processes in place to remind people when they need to pay. Businesses often fail because they run out of cash not because of poor management (although that’s another good reason). For a small business, this generally means a diary system of some sort, although off-the-shelf systems now exist that can often generate reminders for us (and no doubt our subject to subscription charges!)
Business conditions change all the time. If we forget to send timely reminders, we lose money – and it’s our own fault.
I’ve spent more than half my life delivering change in different world markets from the most developed to “emerging” economies. With a wealth of international experience in international financial services around the world running different operations and lending businesses, I started my own Consultancy to provide solutions for improving performance, productivity and risk management. I work with individuals, small businesses, charities, quoted companies and academic institutions across the world. An international speaker, trainer, author and fund-raiser, I can be contacted by email.
Labels: Financial, Productivity, Strategy
