Respect other people's time.

It is not uncommon to receive an email asking for an urgent opinion. When you look at the details and the email chain, you see that the issue has been discussed for days, weeks or even months, sitting in someone's mailbox or drawer, and then it arrives in your inbox.

It also happens that your internal messaging application suddenly rings with someone wanting to call you to a meeting you were not invited to, where the others have been discussing the topic for a while, they bring up the background, you are at zero and you have five minutes to give your comments, conclusions, etc. on highly complex or technical topics that require analysis.

I do not doubt that there are real emergencies, but most of the time, in my experience, it is a lack of prevention, preparation, organization by someone, and it is expected that other people will pay for other people's lack of foresight.

I usually do not go with the flow in these situations because it encourages the person not to discipline or educate themselves. I do my weekly planning on the weekends of the following week, I check the calls, when I call I make sure that the people who should be there are there, I do not send the invitation without making sure that there is space in your agenda at a time that is convenient for you, if I know that you need background information I give it to you, I offer it to you or I call you beforehand and tell you what the expectations are. The thing is to avoid putting people in a position that I would not want to be in.

People have to train themselves to work at excellence, the justification of making quick decisions and solving problems on the fly does not in any way justify the lack of preparation. I am against same-day calls, the minimum acceptable in my view is 24 hours, and above all they should make sure that you have the space to deal with them, not that they send them to you and you have to move your other calls, even with other people to deal with.

The criteria apply to truly urgent matters and distinguish genuine emergencies from those that are simply the result of a lack of foresight.

Getting involved in a call when you are in a technical area is extremely dangerous; with no background and limited time to react, your opinion is likely to be wrong, biased, short, uninformed and ultimately useless for practical purposes. I do not ask what I do not give, that is my personal rule. What I give to people, I expect to get back.

In a factory, an operational area, the pace is different, decisions are made all day long because the line cannot be stopped, so you have to apply your criteria depending on where you are. The back office or administrative areas, further away from the business, are different and although I agree that you have to work hard, in my opinion nothing justifies the lack of foresight.

Companies are moving towards open-space policies, where barriers like walls are removed and you can take your laptop to someone else's desk to solve problems immediately and get on with your work. I think it's a good concept, although I think it encourages improvisation and a lack of anticipation. It works against people who need to be able to concentrate and not be interrupted. But at the end of the day, you have to follow the guidelines set by the company. I have worked in both environments and I have always maintained my policy of respecting other people's time.

?Companies have a schedule. If you know they leave at 6pm and you need a 30-minute call, you schedule it for 5pm at the latest and give them 30 minutes to get their things in order before they leave for the day. If they're late, it's their problem. You have to respect their schedule. If it's someone on your team and you need a report that you know will take 2-3 hours or more, don't ask for it just before they leave and force them to stay, get organized and ask for it well in advance so they can finish it on their regular schedule. If you don't respect your own schedule, that's your problem, but you should respect the schedules of others.

Anyone who knows me knows that I don't call on the fly on my mobile or through the app, I always send a message first on WhatsApp or the app saying "can you talk?" and if I call directly, it's because there really is a fire.

The above are my guidelines, I may be wrong, they have worked for me, I have given the results, but I always leave room to make adjustments if I need to, especially to adapt to the working style of whoever my boss is.

As always, your comments are the best.