Meeting Deadlines

Do you have any team members who seem to miss every deadline?

You've extended them over and over again, hoping for success and still the deadline rolls around and they are not finished.

Why is it that some team members can meet their deadlines and others can not?

The answer may be in the types of assignments that they are taking on -- or it might be in how they perceive those deadlines.

Team members who miss nearly every deadline are saying more than they know.

They may be saying more than you know. As a leader, it's your job to find out.

As a leader, how often do you have coaching conversations with those people who are working on important deadlines? Do they know how important they are? Do they see the big picture of how their deadline connects to the plans of others?

High performance leaders pay attention to deadlines, make certain that they are possible to achieve, help provide the resources needed to achieve them, and lthen insist that those deadlines be met.

If you're not doing all of that, what is YOUR next step in helping your team members meet their deadlines?

-- Douglas Brent Smith

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