How To Train Colleagues To Meet Deadlines In Time

Many people have the super ability to forget about deadlines. And yet, they can be called to order. How to get the team to do things on time?

Deadline problem?

There are five signs that you have a deadline problem.

- Your team often misses deadlines.

- Employees are distracted by irrelevant details and tasks of secondary importance.

- You are too indifferent to the achievement of the result.

- You are afraid to set more ambitious goals for yourself.

- Your employees are prone to procrastination.

Positive example.

Having studied the behavior of several hundred effective managers around the world, the author of the book, an expert in organizational psychology, Martin Lanik, discovered that goals are achieved in teams where leaders fulfill three conditions.

1. Set bright, ambitious goals for employees and themselves. They must be achievable, but at the same time demanding from every effort.

2. Set a deadline for each task with regular reminders of the importance of meeting the deadline.

3. Emphasize the importance of completing current tasks in conversations and correspondence with employees.

Your task is to make the right choice. Intuition and emotions will themselves come to your aid as first assistants.

Why is it important?

Creating urgency is an effective way to nudge individuals and groups to achieve results. Without it, it is difficult for you and your teammates to focus on your primary goal: daily distractions switch efforts, and time is wasted on tasks and projects that are not prioritized or even irrelevant.

Working on a reasonable deadline, when people use maximum internal resources, is a direct way to increase the productivity of both the team and the entire company. People with ambitious goals use their full palette of abilities and develop the necessary skills faster, which, in turn, moves them towards new ambitious goals. Such teams achieve excellent business results.

Five Minute Skill Development Exercises.

Compliance with deadlines is a skill that can be developed, not only for yourself but also for colleagues. These simple exercises will help.

1. Set yourself more challenging goals.

If you are used to set small, simple goals, then it will be difficult to go straight to the big and ambitious ones. Start small: Make your daily goals a little harder. Opening your computer or diary in the morning, write down one goal for yourself with a note: “Today I will achieve …” Then rewrite it, making it a little more ambitious.

Let’s say your goal is to respond to all emails within three hours of receipt. Complicate it a little: Reduce the response time to two hours and forty-five minutes. Set an even bolder goal for tomorrow.

2. Make special importance of what is happening.

People work harder when they are convinced of the value of their cause. This exercise will help you learn how to communicate the criticality of performing certain tasks to others.

After discussing with a colleague the work ahead and the schedule for its completion, ask if it is possible to shorten the indicated time and how much, emphasizing that the task is extremely important to the success of the entire project. Write down the reaction of the other person.

3. Use words that create tension.

It is possible to determine a person’s attitude to work not only by actions but also by key phrases. Expressions such as “extremely important”, “critical”, “extremely” create tension and give the discussion a special meaning. Use them in an appropriate context; For example, when discussing an important project, use stress-building words to emphasize its meaning.

End the conversation like this: “This task is extremely important to the fate of the project.”