Give Them a Deadline

Hello everyone and welcome back to this month's edition of Building Value. You feel that your employees, some or all, are not being as productive or as efficient with their time as they should be. Feel that in some form or fashion, this is costing you time, money, and energy. But it doesn't have to be that way. Let me give you two pieces of advice.

First, stop comparing them to you. No one is you. No one will care as much as you, nor will anyone spend as much time in or on the business as you. That's okay. But the problem remains: you've hired amazing people, and you know that they can be doing more, at least doing what is asked of them more efficiently. So, what's to be done? Give them a deadline. A clearly communicated, ideally highlighted and bolded deadline written in an email to them. No confusion, no miscommunication.

From there, if they don't understand the ask or they feel they don't have the tools or the capacity to complete the ask, then it is on them to communicate. But what this will allow you to avoid is stuff slipping through the cracks or growing frustration that the things are not completed in a timely manner. From there, if they do not understand the ask or they feel they don't have the capacity to complete the ask, then it is on them to communicate. But what this will allow you to avoid is stuff slipping through the cracks, growing frustration that things are not completed in a timely manner, and wasted time, money, and effort.

To be frank, previously I was horrible at this. And after having this realization, I've improved, so with an aim to get better each day. I used to send out request after request to our team without providing any real sense of what was important, how to prioritize, or when I absolutely needed it by. Not an easy environment to operate in.

So, what was to be done? First, a question, and then the deadline. How long do you expect this to take? What is fair? Is there something on your plate keeping you from getting it done faster? Other projects, a lack of resources, a lack of know-how, whatever it might be. Okay, now that we've got that sorted out, here is the deadline: I need it by X.

Now, let's face it, business is hard enough. We don't need to make it hard on ourselves. Yet, when faced with a choice between doing something simple to make it easier, like this, or doing nothing and letting it become harder, we often do nothing. So, my ask of you is give them a deadline, a clearly defined, written, bolded, and highlighted in your favorite color deadline. Make their job in your life easier and allow everyone to get refocused on moving the ball forward instead of getting bogged down in the 'why didn't you' conversations. Thanks again for joining me everyone. Until next month, keep building value.