A Colleague in Need

Most of us already know this, so what I’m about to write isn’t new, but it is worth mentioning:

You can’t depend on people to do anything just because they say they will.

In years past, a person’s word was their bond and it was unthinkable to renege on a verbal commitment. Living up to one’s commitments was seen as a mark of responsibility and respectable behavior. Woe betide the person who did not live up to their word!

I don’t know exactly when it happened or why things changed, but in the 21st century a lot of people don’t do what they say they will do. Sometimes this problem happens in an office environment where colleagues are supposed to help one another. Occasionally I must lump myself into this distasteful category of people who fail to deliver. Perhaps you’ve experience this problem, too.

Excuses, Excuses

So why don’t we do what we say we’ll do? Let’s look at some common reasons:

1. Malicious – your colleague never intended to help you; they saw this agreement as a means to inflict pain and suffering. Hopefully this is the rarest motivation.
2. Appeaser – your colleague said “yes” to you just to get you off their back or because they fear your wrath. Their motivation is more self-preservation than malice. It’s really more like short-term pain avoidance.
3. Well-Intentioned, Seemingly – “Gee, I really meant to do it… but I just never got around to it”. This is the sign of an irresponsible and/or inept colleague.
4. Out-prioritized – someone else screamed louder than you and your colleague fulfilled their request instead of yours – this really, really bites because we all like to think that “first come, first served” is the guiding principle for work requests. Failing that, we can accept that our work requests may be handled in priority sequence, as long as we think it’s been done fairly and openly. Hard feelings erupt when the rules seem arbitrary or else ignored when someone complains more loudly than you.
5. Thwarted – your colleague tried their best, but couldn’t make it happen on time, for whatever reason – many of us are pretty sympathetic in this scenario, if only because we been on both ends of the work request.
6. Forgotten – amongst all of the other demands on their time, your colleague forgot about the commitment they made to you. On the surface, this sure seems like a sign of incompetence or irresponsibility. Is it?

Forgotten, But Not Intentionally

We’ve all experienced information overload. We are stimulated in multiple ways on a regular basis, far more than our ancestors could have imagined. We have telephones, faxes, letters, E-Mails, cell phones, pagers, RSS feeds, instant messaging… not to mention real live people who attempt to get our attention. We can only take so much before we’ll start forgetting things. Things get missed, forgotten, or overlooked regularly because many of us don’t know how to manage the multiple information sources that bombard us with stimuli. Some of us can’t manage them no matter what tools are available to us.

Getting Memory Space

We need ways to get people’s attention, keep it, and ensure follow through when we need to have an important job done. It’s not that people don’t want to help, it’s that they honestly can’t track all of the commitments that they make. In this high tech world, I have a fairly old, established, potentially low tech solution to this problem.

Get it in writing.

In other words, force your colleague to positively acknowledge your work request, including the following criteria:

• Description of work to be done (keep it as simple as possible)
• Date/time due
• Persons to whom the work must be sent to

How To Seal The Deal

You could take this to an extreme by creating a paper contract for all work requests of any size, requiring signatures in triplicate that are notarized by some legal eagle. However, if you ever want your colleagues to actually help you instead of running away when you approach, consider a few more palatable ways to get their agreement:

• Ask for a short written note
• Ask for an E-Mail confirming the work to be done, due date/time, and key stakeholders who must be notified
• Write the E-Mail yourself with the necessary details, then ask them to confirm back by E-Mail that they’ll get the job done

There’s another variation on these practices that you could use, but you need to be sure that it will work. This variation follows the assumption that “silence means acceptance”. You write the aforementioned E-Mail, but you add text that says, “unless I hear otherwise from you, I expect that you will deliver on this commitment by such-and-such a date.” This can work, but you’d better make sure there’s established precedent in your workplace for using this type of confirmation. This may be a written or unwritten rule in your office, which is great. However, I’ve seen numerous situations where people will not consider anything a commitment unless they formally send an acceptance, signifying the commitment. I’m too paranoid to rely upon silent acceptance.

The Benefits of Written Confirmation

Written confirmation is a positive affirmation that the job will be delivered as requested. This in itself is worth its weight in gold, which is becoming more valuable each time I check the markets. However, there are a couple of ways that written confirmations help your colleague as much as they help you:

• Written confirmation establishes the importance of the request and reduces the likelihood that it won’t get done
• Written confirmation also serves to embed the request in your memory in some fashion. Think about note taking for a moment. Yes, notes are helpful as “memory joggers” after an event occurs. However, I think note taking actually helps embed the commitment into your colleague’s brain so it can be recalled later. I’m speaking both from personal and anecdotal experience.

So there you have it. Getting a commitment in writing has so many benefits that it’s a wonder that we ever believe things will get done without them. Some colleagues may feel this practice is insulting and unnecessary. If they persist with this opinion, try the arguments in this article. I think they’ll help you convince them that written commitment is not just for your good, it’s for their benefit as well.