Pet Peeve - Responsiveness!

I'm on a bit of a rant today. I think I have mellowed a lot in recent years, but there is something that still drives me CRAZY.

People who don't respond to emails or phone calls in a timely fashion.

I am not talking about strangers and I am not talking about the general, "Hi, how are your doing?" emails. I am talking about people with whom I am doing business or working with in some capacity.

Here's my stand:

Taking a week or more to respond to an email is not acceptable. It is rude and inefficient. If you can't manage your time better, you need to make changes.

Never responding to an email (again, a legitimate project related email) is unacceptable and irresponsible. Perhaps you should step away from the project if you cannot be more responsive.

Am I off base here?

To me, poor responsiveness is a symptom of much greater problems. Perhaps there's some passive aggressive stuff going on deep in the brain, too. But for many, I think they have learned and GOTTEN AWAY WITH poor habits. We all coddle these folks in the desperate hope to get the information we need to move forward. We don't say what's really on our minds:

What's your problem - get with it or step aside!!!

We say:

No problem, I really appreciate it. Poor, poor, dear, your schedule is so crazy...

So I guess we are part of the problem because we are reinforcing bad behaviors - giving them the love and attention they crave.

I realize I sound cold, but this is a basic expectation I have of everyone. Managers can do a lot to create an environment that reinforces the right behaviors. First and foremost is to be responsive yourself and expect that others will be too.

Rant done.

Comments

[Rob Brooks]

Lisa,

I've worked in places where all you need to do to have no workload is turn things around so there's a simple action that the requester must take.

9 out of 10 times I never heard from them again, no matter how important it was that their "urgent" work be done immediately.

What would be your advice where the culture is so slack that people get away without doing their job? (apart from move to a better company!)

[Lora Adrianse]

Great Rant Lisa!

I too have the same peeve! It absolutely astonishes me at the lack of response that exists today. I know people are overwhelmed in information overload, but since when does information overload trump bad behavior?

I say people use it to make excuses for themselves.

Lora

[Lisa Haneberg]

Rob - that's a tough one if the leaders of this organization have no desire to change. You can try to change the broken processes that allow this kind of laziness - but again, if there is no interest in changing I would not hold my breath.

That said - how can any company survive like this? Natural Selection should take care of this problem (unless they have a 100 year contract with the government :-). Find another place or you might become assimilated and brainwashed (or braindrained).

Lora - Agreed! Poor Excuses!

[Dick Richards]

Lately I have noticed that people who do respond in a timely way are really surprised when I say, "Thanks for responding so quickly." It is as if they are thinking, "Well, isn't that what I am supposed to do." I'm going to try to surround myself with more folks like that!

And...Lisa...you are sooooo good at righteous indignation . Keep at it!

[Lisa Haneberg]

Well, Dick, I don't quite know how to take your compliment. Getting good at righteous indignation has not been a development goal of mine, but it certainly fuels my periodic rants! All's good in moderation, right? :-)

[Dick Richards]

"All's good in moderation, right?"

Right. I do love *intelligent* righteous indignation (like yours). I think that it is vastly under-rated :)

[Matthew Cornell]

I'm in total agreement. One thing I recommend to clients is a "two phase" response if the GTD two minute rule doesn't apply. 1) Tell the sender you got the message, and that you'll get back with an answer (ideally with a time frame). 2) Get back to them.

Drives me nuts, otherwise... Esp. if *I* do it.

I wrote a bit about it here, if you're interested:

What's your maximum response time?
http://ideamatt.blogspot.com/2005/12/whats-your-maximum-response-time.html

[Lisa Haneberg]

Matthew: Thanks for sharing and for the link to your post. Very interesting! Agree with the two-phae approach to manage time and priorities.