One terrible working culture that has to STOP is this culture of last minute ad-hoc notifications - i.e. "Can you attend this workshop later today?"; "I need you to submit this morning before 12pm"; "Please make travel arrangements to attend this meeting tomorrow" - and all of its related species.
This week alone I was involved in four meetings/tasks which were informed off less than one day before or on the same day itself.
No, your "sorry for the last minute notification" does not make things any better.
Firstly, we need to respect people's time - they may have prior professional or personal commitments.
Secondly, your ad-hoc interruption might actually promote inefficiency and harm the organization in the big picture - by 'pulling people away' last minute into your poorly planned adhoc activity from others' prior commitments, you disrupt other works which are being planned well ahead of time, and thus you inadvertently 'discourage' others from planning ahead "too much in advance". If this practice becomes the norm - and absorbed as the organizational culture - eventually, one will simply conclude, "Why plan 2 weeks in advance if people are going to cancel last minute anyway?"
Thirdly, these last minute notifications usually end up killing the effectiveness of your meeting - you will not get the right quorum, received rushed/inaccurate information, immature data, and generally poor quality deliverables; in some cases, you have to repeat the entire meeting again which resulted in a waste of manhours, resources and effort. In an era which we are supposedly striving for productivity, effectiveness and quality, it's ironic that our actions are killing these aspirations slowly.
When I give this feedback, this is the typical 'defence' response:
- Last minute requirements are unavoidable
- We have to make do what what limited resources we have, and develop adaptability to change
To which my response is - yes, sometimes last minute notifications are unavoidable and necessary, but when the same problem repeats itself so often - to things which you clearly could have planned or communicated well ahead of time : it's clear that is it reflective of a bad productivity culture and terrible planning, not out of necessity or ‘unavoidable’-ness.
Last minutes should be the EXCEPTION, not the rule - only when absolutely needed and emergency/crisis situations. The RULE should be to plan your works ahead of time and work proactively to ensure the best outcome. Yes, it takes time, but why are we so quick to compromise quality "just to get it over and done with"? Do we accept lousy food just because it's delivered early?
Yes, we have to adapt to changes. But please, adaptability and proactiveness are two separate things altogether, so don't confuse them just to justify our weakness in planning or failure to communicate effectively.
"If you fail to plan, you plan to fail" - this may sound like common sense, but as my ex-boss once said, unfortunately, "common sense is not very common".
Let’s all play our part, improve the way we work, and create an excellent high-performance work culture that respects people’s time.
.. And if unexpected events happen along the way in spite of our planning, we adapt.
