Nice Guys Finish Last at Work
December 14, 2021 7:27 AM   Subscribe

I have really hard time asking people (who are not my directs) for requests, giving deadlines and following up. When I decide to be more direct, it always goes the wrong way, and I flip to being too much of a hard ass and get accused of being too forward or railroading. Have you been able to improve in this regard? How do you do it? What mantras do you use?

I have no problems asking for the initial request, but I am always worried about their capacity to help and their other deadlines, so rarely even put deadlines in the e-mails. So what happens is someone else ends up having to escalate and I am never able to get answers from people.

I am a consultant, so this issue is doubly with the client than with my own team from my company.
posted by sandmanwv to Work & Money (13 answers total) 11 users marked this as a favorite
 
I hate putting deadlines on things when I ask for them from others, but my boss really wants deadlines on all the things. And putting deadlines on all the things does really help get responses. What I have found makes things more palatable is to provide a reason and an out, like so:

"Hi, Teammate, here is the Thing for your review and comments. More Important Person is expecting to see it by Friday, so if I could get your comments by Thursday mid-day, I would appreciate it. If you won't have time by Thursday, please let me know as soon as possible so I can try to rejig the schedule."
posted by jacquilynne at 7:41 AM on December 14, 2021 [17 favorites]


Instead of presenting it as a hard deadline, you could look at it as a chance to collaboratively set expectations. Instead of saying "Have it to me by (date)" say "Is (date) still a realistic deadline?"

Think about being straightforward / honest as doing everyone a favor! I am still not the best at this but the book Radical Candor helped give me perspective on how being "nice" about these things hurts everyone in the long run.
posted by beyond_pink at 7:45 AM on December 14, 2021 [14 favorites]


I was a consultant (female) and while I've dealt with my share of shit and pushback, naming a deadline was never the reason! In fact, I started giving deadlines because things went a lot smoother when I did.

People want to know when they need to get things done, so they can plan it in. If you don't tell them proactively, you're forcing them to ask, which is more work for them and super annoying.

I just literally write, "to get X done, I'd need your input by Friday 9 am, does that work for you?"

Also, make that a day earlier than you actually need it, so that by Friday 10 am you can ask in a relaxed way, "hi, just wanted to know if you're ready to send me the input in the next hour or so? Thanks!"

I write this to my own boss I write this to my clients. I've never gotten a single complaint.
posted by Omnomnom at 8:28 AM on December 14, 2021 [14 favorites]


If the deadline is for a client, then you’re ultimately helping them by being very clear about it. Explain what the next step is, one that’s meaningful to them. “Hi Client, in order to get you your thing by next month, I need to get your comments on this thing by the end of week. Let me know if you can’t make that work and we can look at the overall schedule together”. That way they have the information to put it in context and when you follow up it will be clear why you need to follow up at that time.
posted by chocotaco at 8:41 AM on December 14, 2021 [2 favorites]


“Are you able to do this by Wednesday?”

This is a simple way to see what other priorities they may have. Not telling them To Do It.

If they can’t do it by Wednesday, then seek to understand why (maybe they need The Thing from someone else, or a priority shuffle / to better understand context why it’s important). Nothing personal. Honour them as intelligent people with their own freedom of choice and schedule, not Cogs or Separate Set of Hands.

Think of yourselves as truly a team with the same overall goals. So, you’re just asking them for their expertise in doing This Thing to achieve Our Goals.
posted by St. Peepsburg at 9:13 AM on December 14, 2021 [5 favorites]


Oh man, I would get very frustrated with someone sent me an email asking for something... with no deadline. Not that you intend it this way, but I would assume its either a) needed immediately, and I'd wonder why you put me in that situation or b) it matters very little so why are you bugging me.

You have to frame it as what you think is a reasonable deadline that is changeable if needed: "Would it be possible for you to send the widget draft on Friday? If not, can you suggest another date you can send it by?"

If it needs to be a hard deadline, you explain that too. "I hope you can send the widgets by Friday - Friday is the last day that our design consultant can work on the widget before the contract runs out" or whatever.

So maybe your mantra is FRAME for CLARITY.
posted by RajahKing at 9:36 AM on December 14, 2021 [8 favorites]


Nthing what everybody else is saying. We just went over this with some of the more junior team members this week.

Deadlines help everybody. They help the recipient understand what the timeline is and either schedule time to do the thing or let you know that they are unable to do so. They allow you to set yourself a reminder in your schedule to follow up if you have to.

What is really important though is that the deadline is reasonable. And that you do not create urgency where there is none because if you do that you lose credibility and goodwill - people who made the time to do your thing will wonder why they bothered if you're not looking at what they send you for another couple of weeks and only raise questions at the last minute causing everybody to have to scramble.

The more short notice the request, the more you have to acknowledge that, especially if you could have asked earlier. In that case it often helps to acknowledge the short notice, ask extra nicely/perhaps call them instead and just follow up in writing. You're basically asking people to help you out.

A more junior person may also have to be careful in communications with much more senior people. Points to consider are: Are they using the right channels (e.g. do they have an assistant that should be approached?), is the request phrased in a way that is consistent with the importance of the request and the urgency of the request? There may be other soft factors such as the recipient's pet peeve about specific aspect of widget report but they are the only person to talk to about that specific aspect. In essence, if you are very junior and the recipient is very senior, it makes sense to stop and ask if you are the right person to make the request, if you are the right person to follow up and if there is anything you have to consider making the request.

The session with my team on how to make requests and how to follow up without making ourselves unpopular and without causing the client to call koahiatamadl to complain was prompted by the junior chasing the client's GCO when there was no need to do so and without having given him a timeline in her original request. She also copied everybody and their neighbor into the email. The guy is fairly chill but she just has no concept of the unspoken rules around hierarchies...my message to my team was that if we needed to chase key client executives I would like to be involved and may decide to do the chasing myself. Figure out with your team if there are any lines here and where they are.
posted by koahiatamadl at 9:39 AM on December 14, 2021 [9 favorites]


A few years ago, the head of my department decided that I would be the project manager for 13 new long-term projects. I had never done anything like that before, so naturally, I asked Metafilter what to do. You might find some good advice in there.

Also you asked about following up with people, so I will tell you the magic words to do that, that work every time, even when someone has been ignoring your emails. "Please let me know when you'll have the TPS report ready, so I can let the team know." So I can let the team know switches the dynamic from you as annoying mosquito to you as point person for the team, the team they're part of too, the team they're letting down. I have never known so I can let the team know to fail.
posted by pH Indicating Socks at 10:04 AM on December 14, 2021 [1 favorite]


Everyone hates deadlines in an impersonal way, kind of like we all hate having to work at all.

And also, nobody can live without deadlines. Workplaces function best when there is direct, unambiguous communication about expectations. You *have* set deadlines for any work or even response you're requesting from someone else.

If it's a significant chunk of work with a deadline that's more than a couple of days away, then you should probably follow up with that person prior to the big deadline, like, if the deadline is two weeks from today, you let them know not only that the deadline is in two weeks but also that you'll check in with them a week from now to see how it's going. And during that check-in you'll aim to address any blockers the person may have, deal with any new developments or changes, and either make sure the work is still on schedule or make a new plan to get back on schedule. Then as the deadline gets closer, check in more frequently to make sure it's all still on track.

This isn't "being a hardass" unless you think "Hey how's the work going?" means "Why isn't it finished yet, you @$#&*?"

And generally, in a professional environment, nobody thinks it means that! Or at least they shouldn't. If someone is routinely taking your words to mean something hostile, it's worth having a conversation with them to clarify to them what you actually mean.
posted by MiraK at 10:07 AM on December 14, 2021 [1 favorite]


“To keep the current schedule on track, we would need your item to be complete by Friday, December 17th.

Please let me know if Friday works, and if not, I will work with you on a) a revised schedule we can communicate to the team or b) clearing your plate so we can make the current schedule work”.

The message obviously needs to be finessed when dealing with execs.

The point is that you simply need to let the schedule be the bad guy. The schedule is the schedule and if it needs to change because they can’t fulfill the date then it gets communicated and updated. You need to be clear that either way, you will be communicating the schedule to the rest of the team and elude to the fact that they will be associated with the schedule change if there is one.
posted by jasondigitized at 1:16 PM on December 14, 2021 [1 favorite]


Best answer: I'm a project manager for a consulting team. I live and die by deadlines. Here are my guidelines:
  1. Provide a deadline
  2. Provide context
  3. Ask - is it doable? Instead of dictating, I suspect this is the one that will make you feel less like a jerk.
  4. If not doable - escalate it to the correct person. In conjunction with #4, individual contributors juggle many tasks and deadlines, and often they are not in control of their priority list. It's important to go to the person who does have that control (project sponsor or project manager on the customer's side) to resolve any prioritization conflicts.
  5. Consequences of missing the deadline.
Example first email:

Hi Customer Dev Lead,

Attached are the prerequisites to start the project. Pls have List A completed by Friday, Dec 17th, EOD. The consulting team on our side starts on Monday, Dec 20th, and they will need access to all those tools/systems to start their work.

Is this turnaround time doable for you?


Example second email:

@Customer Proj Manager - sounds like Customer Dev Lead is not able to deliver the prereqs by Dec 17th. Is there any way you could help Dev Lead with making this happen, or figure out a workaround?

If this date is missed by a week, then the project start and end dates will move forward by one week as well (Jan 4th start due to holidays). We also run the risk of losing the reserved consultants, as they may get reassigned.

posted by tinydancer at 2:29 PM on December 14, 2021 [4 favorites]


This is a little orthogonal but the first thing to do is to get comfortable with yourself as having needs and your needs as having value. The client does have many deadlines! They have also hired you explicitly to perform some sort of work for them, which you can only do if you receive certain things from them. Being clear and honest about that is helping them, and is being a part of their team. But if you think of yourself as a servant rather than a valued part of the team doing important work, if you assume that they know better than you do what you need, you will end up stumbling over yourself and bringing that instability to the relationship.
posted by Lady Li at 3:30 PM on December 14, 2021


The other thing that seems just barely worth mentioning is that some managers and organizations do see the purpose of deadlines as fundamentally coercive, as being about "putting the screws" on someone or being a hardass. If this is your manager, or your org; you may have a different problem. Or if people are so overwhelmed that they react to "when do you think it can be done?" with "it will be done when it is done" because they don't even have the energy to plan or they have learned that any answer they give will be used against them...
posted by Lady Li at 5:38 PM on December 14, 2021 [1 favorite]


« Older Navigating short-term disability requests for...   |   Solo female traveler San Juan, PR Newer »
This thread is closed to new comments.