Want a successful team? The case for deadlines and accountability.

Setting of deadlines and holding people to these deadlines is a critical part of ensuring success in an organisation.

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As a coach I work in many different organisations across a variety of industries and have noticed that there is a common element. This common element is the failure to set deadlines and or to honour those deadlines. To me, setting of deadlines and holding people to these deadlines is a critical part of ensuring success in an organisation, and yet, I often see that managers fail to set deadlines for tasks, even critical tasks, and if a deadline is set, often they do not follow-up, or hold the person accountable for the deadline.

I see this practically in management meetings where the same items come up on the agenda for several meetings, and when the responsible person is asked about progress, there is generally an excuse given and then the meeting facilitator moves on with the agenda, instead of immediately asking the person when they would be able to complete the task by, agreeing a deadline and minuting it, and then if the deadline was not met by the next meeting, taking action to ensure that this does not happen again.

I often have the privilege of conducting individual coaching sessions with a full team. I usually start with the manager and then after a couple of sessions begin with the rest of the team. Many managers will tell me that they have a problem with productivity of their team, some will even say that the team is unreliable and that he/she is always having to check up on them and finding that they continuously fail to honour deadlines, both with him and with colleagues.

Generally speaking, I see this process as a type of flaw which adds to the workload because everything keeps getting delayed or stuck due to the inability of the team to keep to deadlines. There are always excuses, but those are never the root cause. Managers need to set deadlines for every task agreed with their subordinates, for bigger project type tasks there should be a project plan with the following:

• Action
• Responsible person
• Quality standard or requirements for the action
• A specific deadline. Deadlines should ideally include a date and a time, for example, Wednesday 3rd November at 16.30.

How to deal with someone who has failed to honour a deadline

A useful technique for dealing with a missed deadline is for the manager to say something like this, ‘John, you have failed to meet the deadline for this task and this is unacceptable. What are you going to do differently to ensure that thus does not happen again?’ and then the manager just stops talking and waits for the subordinate to reply.

This is a strong approach which is generally effective for two reasons:

Number one is that the subordinate has to come up with a solution or action to commit to ensure that they complete the task within deadline, this is effective because it is not someone else’s solution, but his/her own solution and this inspires a greater commitment

Number Two, it puts the monkey, or problem, securely back in the arms of the responsible person and in so doing strengthens the accountability (See Get their Monkeys off your back).

Critical to the success of this approach is that managers cannot afford to tolerate any deviation from deadlines unless it is due to factors outside of the control of the person. Generally, people will take advantage of a manager who does not immediately follow-up on missed deadlines and or who blurs the boundaries with inconsistent follow-up on deadlines. They will tend to wait for the manager to ask, rather than proactively send the completed result to the manager on or before the deadline. A well-disciplined team is testament to a well-disciplined manager who sets clear deadlines, defines clear responsibility and actions with clear requirements for the end-result. He or she then holds the team members accountable for the agreed actions and follows-up on these actions to ensure compliance.

It boils down to mutual respect, failure to deliver a task within deadline shows a measure of disrespect for the manager and the rest of the team and certainly hinders or hampers the productivity of the team.

As a coach I work with managers and their subordinates to change the culture of the team into a deadline driven, task-oriented team who consistently and proactively work together to ensure efficient and effective completion of objectives. There is nothing more satisfying for a manager than to be able to have the confidence and trust that his team are proactive and will respect the responsibility for completing the tasks they are assigned without having to be chased to do so, and without extra effort. Doing it right, first time and on-time.

Get in touch if you need help with getting the most out of your team.

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