How to Have Your Deadlines Met...
How are you conditioning people to deal with you? Are you asking people to be up front with you but they are not? If someone meets your request to be up front, but your response to them is defensive – Guess what? Your action, or in this case, reaction, just conditioned them not to be up front with you.
Once you recognize that you have conditioned someone in a behavior that you never intended, take responsibility with that person and begin to recondition him or her.
DEADLINES
A manager was complaining about employees missing deadlines. This problem required him to nag employees until the work was completed. Sometimes the manager would give his employees an early, fake deadline to insure that the real deadline was not missed. Both of these methods were ineffective and the employees continued to miss deadlines.
Why? The manager had conditioned the employees to believe that his deadlines were flexible. As a result, the deadlines meant nothing to the employees.
We all condition people how to deal with us. Often, we fail to recognize the message that is sent by our actions and this results in a response we did not intend.
MEETINGS
How often have you intentionally arrived late to a meeting because you knew that you would not miss anything? The person leading the meeting never starts the meeting until enough people show up. Therefore, every meeting begins later than the designated starting time.
That person has conditioned you and the other attendees that the meeting will not start on time. Ironically, the meeting leader will often complain about the late start to meetings caused by the late arrivals. It is interesting how often the meeting leaders do not realize that their actions are the primary cause of the meetings starting late.
Here’s a way to solve this problem: First, admit to the staff that you are responsible for the meetings starting late. Second, emphasize that meetings will no longer start late and will always start on time – regardless of the amount of attendees. Third, start all meetings at the exact designated time and continue through the agenda without any review for the late arriving attendees. When the late arrivers request a review of the information that they had missed – refuse. This action will condition the entire staff on how to deal with your meetings. Few, if any, will arrive late to one of your meetings from that point forward.
If you want people to take your word seriously, condition them that what you say, you mean…Amazing things will happen.
“Steven Gaffney is a professional speaker and author in the area of communication, motivation and leadership.” Copyright 2004 by Steven Gaffney and the Steven Gaffney Company.
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