The meeting is coming to an end, and you’ve captured your collective decisions and action items. Or maybe you’re having a personal conversation with someone, and they just agreed to do something.
There’s a two-word question that dramatically increases the likelihood that people will follow through on what they committed to do. Here’s that question:
“By when?”
This is a powerful question – to ask others, or to ask yourself whenever you’re making a decision to do something.
When you get to set your own deadline for your action, your brain is prompted to evaluate the importance and urgency of that action. You get to think specifically about how you might fit it into your schedule, and what other activities may need to be set aside to make room for it.
And every once in a while, the best answer to “by when?” is, “I’m not ready to commit to a date or time.”
When you realize that your existing commitments take priority over your new opportunity, you may realize that setting a “by when” date would create an inappropriate and artificial urgency for the task. Declining to set a due date may feel the same as declining to do the task at all. And sometimes that is the very decision you need the courage to make.
But when you ask that two-word question — “by when?” — you get to make the conscious, deliberate choice to determine and communicate the priority of the new action compared to your other obligations and commitments.
If setting and honoring priorities and commitments is one of your leadership challenges, let’s talk. Visit stevedwire.com/talk to start the conversation.
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