waiting for Godot: how to follow someone up in an understanding but task-oriented way?

Your colleagues and others you work with - not least your boss himself - are often just busy. In that hustle and bustle, things are sometimes forgotten, things are occasionally overlooked, there are different priorities or good or less understandable reasons

3-step plan to follow up!

How to deal with this smartly? A 3-step plan to prevent the umbrella system - I have passed it on and I can prove it - because that blocks energy

STEP 1 — follow up!

You've already read or read in the blog waiting for Godot: how to follow up structurally and practically? what are good ways to follow up. Any follow-up system is good if... it works, of course. And it only works if the person being followed also works. But what if - despite all your good organization - results still fail to materialize

1. you send a first email:
   Dear Rudi, in order to submit our Kakafonie project, I would like to receive your technical guidelines. Is this feasible by mid-March, early next week?
;
2. you send a follow-up email:
   Hi Rudi, friendly reminder; by when can you get this to me please?
3. you call once: you address Rudi personally, kindly and neutrally with the same question and its necessity & possible consequences.

Three times, entirely in accordance with the rules of binding and persuasive communication.

STEP 3 — escalate!

Indeed, step 3: step 2 is coming soon, you'll see why...

If you don't get an answer you want, it makes sense to copy both chefs: yours and possibly his.

This technique is called escalation: informing both chefs that it is out of your hands, out of your reach and possibly even that of your interlocutor, e.g. since different priorities apply, you found out from your sales interlocutor Rudi.

The purpose of escalation is that this is addressed at the higher echelon - managers among themselves - and that they take over, look after it from there.

That way, you don't have to put in unnecessary inefficient time and your boss does what he is good at and is more accountable for.

Call the system a parasol: set energy in motion!

STEP 2 - guarantee!

Important for escalation, however, is that you put your interlocutor Rudi out of the way.

Dear Rudi, I understand your personal point of view and position, which, of course, did not solve our problem. I'll report this to my boss in no time. Maybe it's an idea to forward this email to your immediate boss, so that you are at least out of harm's way and have completed your task. Or would you prefer me to speak to him directly

That way, on the one hand, you offer Godot a way out if he is in good faith - which is what we assume - and, on the other hand, you challenge him if this is not the case.

ESCALATING PS1 means informing management constructively upstream from the bottom up. In that regard, it is the reverse downstream movement of cascading: information that goes top down into the organization. Specifically, here you received an assignment from your boss top down but you can't get through it, so escalate return to sender

PS2 off to a good start is half won! You can already catch a lot at the start of the succession and how to lead by example yourself.

And action!

• which of your files, tasks are currently pending?
• do you know the underlying causes of this?
• who should unblock it?
• how can your boss support you here?

Are you a supervisor?

• what are some of the files in your team hanging on?
• what can you do for your team with regard to pending tasks?
• what can your boss do about this?