#Case3: Deadlines
Maik Neumann
Change Management Supervisor | Podcast-Host 'Change Management Rockstars' | Psychologe | Sprecher
Yes! Yes! Thank you so much! Your are my life saver.
Lucky you! One of your team members has agreed to help out spontaneously. What happened?
The #deadline of a key project was spontaneously pushed forward by 2 weeks. You tried to get a little more time out of it, but without success.
Everything needs to be finalized by Monday noon.
Shit! You're already working late today anyway. The time for the briefing alone leads to a scheduling conflict. You simply cannot add another task to your list today.
So you shared the request with your team and asked for who ever is available to jump in last minute. And you were lucky that someone did. ?In fact, you are a bit relieved that you did not have to appoint anyone.
As part of your debrief, you have just agreed on the necessary tasks to be finalized. That's probably a day's work.
It's great that you're helping out! Just send me your status by Sunday afternoon. Then we can align on the final adjustments on Monday morning.
Deal!
It's Sunday evening now, 9pm. You sit at your computer and check your inbox. No new messages. You check your phone and spot a new voicemail message. Your team member has a stomach bug and has been laid up since Saturday morning, and unfortunately has not been able to work. Welcome to another #leadershipdilemma.
What do you do?
Vorfahrt für Personal
1 年During my active time in service as an officer in the Federal Armed Forces there was a saying: "Der Dienstherr stellt Kr?fte, Mittel, Zeit und Raum!" (roughly translated: "The employer provides forces, means, time and space."). Pushing forward a key project two weeks on short notice without upgrading the factors forces and/or means accordingly is irresponsible not only but especially regarding your employers duty to care. Out of my personal work ethic i'd try to realise a positive outcome by doing a nightshift, considering looking for a new employer the next day! In no way I'd make that uncaring request my team's business - I take my respensibility as a leader and most of all my duty to care for my team serious.
Change Management Expert | Experienced Learning & Development Professional | Driving Digital Transformations
1 年I guess it depends a bit more on the situation for me. Is this for a client? What’s the client relationship like? I’d the expectation that they receive things early? Have we already burned some bridges with them? Based on all these things, and knowing how clients are, I’d likely pull an all-nighter and do it. If it’s internal, I’d likely spend a couple hours on it, but wouldn’t fret about making it perfect, and explain to the internal stakeholders that due to the timeline and a team member’s unforeseen illness, the content is there, but it’s not the most beautiful and can be white gloved this week.
Vice President | Global Head of Talent Development at Infineon Technologies
1 年Though one - given the circumstances hard to fix. If I’m the manager I ask myself: What happens if we miss the deadline? What TRULY happens? Is ?only“ my reputation at risk of is something bigger affected? Does the production stop due to one not submitted PPT? Most of the time, the answer is ?nothing will happen and we can submit on Wednesday“ Honesty to those effected is key. I once had a junior consultant on one of my projects. He worked in social services before. I asked him what is the major difference between consulting and social services. And he said: If we miss to send a PPT chart - what will happen? But if I miss to get a kid out of a family - a lot can happen. This kind of stuck with me. And on a planning note: I‘d expect my colleague to reach out to me as soon as he knows he can not make the deadline. Not 24h later. And I would not expect delivery Sunday mid day when I need to submit it at Monday. Well - and let’s be honest: It sounds like a classic all nighter you‘d need to pull.