When you have a project that’s due in a few days, how do you weigh the importance of getting everything perfect (as you define it) and meeting your deadline? I used to weigh perfection higher than the importance of meeting deadlines.
A professor in a Constitutional law history class in college offered to help me with my time management because he noticed that the last essay questions on my tests showed evidence of rushing. I didn’t take him up on that generous offer. It wasn’t until years later that I discovered the importance of doing a good job, but not such a good job that you run out of steam toward the end of the assignment, complete it but miss the deadline, or never finish it.
On-Time “Perfection”
I know what it looks like in the workforce to let the quest for perfection spin out of control. I had a manager who was tasked with refreshing a Website with new content once a month and couldn’t make that happen. In fact, I was hired for that very reason—to ensure the new content posted on time, every time.
I knew the content had to be good, and I did my best—my best within the constraints of our deadline. Our boss then decided I should start refreshing the site with new content every week. For 15 years, I never missed a deadline, not once. I posted new content on the homepage of that publication even on my last day on the job.
Training a High-Quality, On-Time Culture
Meeting deadlines is important regardless of the industry you’re in. Most of us have had the experience of being promised a service would be completed by a certain time, and then finding it wasn’t. I recently dropped a purse off to be repaired at a local shoe-repair shop and didn’t get it back for nearly two months. They did a great job on it, fortunately, but I wonder if that great job couldn’t have been done a little sooner.
The quality of your work is one half of the story; the other half is whether you get it to customers when they need it. A corporate culture that trains on the importance of being on time and how to do it can ensure customers/clients aren’t left waiting for your masterpiece to be delivered.
The question is: What is the best way to train for the ability to consistently both deliver quality work and meet deadlines?
The first is by making consistent on-time delivery of work a requirement for promotion and letting employees know in their yearly performance review/development conversation with managers that this is a criterion for advancement. The manager then would review with the employee how they are doing in this area of their job, along with the other criteria the company has identified as crucial for promotion.
The manager then could pull for analysis a project that was delivered overdue. “Susan, you did a great job on this, but we couldn’t get it to the client on time. It was sent a month later than we told them it would arrive. As we look through this together, could you point out to me the parts that were the most time-consuming that pushed you over the deadline?”
To make this work, the manager would need the skills to train an employee on how to better manage their time to consistently meet deadlines. That’s where corporate Learning comes into the picture. Learning professionals can provide training to managers so they’re ready to pass on their time management skills to employees who do high-quality work that would hit the mark if it wasn’t late.
Beware of “Quality” Improvements that Only Add Time
I once knew a manager who complained about a lack of quality only to institute a system that resulted in the same, or lower, quality and took more time. She removed an employee who was an editor devoted to one publication and believed the job could be shared among the remaining employees, with herself as curator of content. Spoiler alert—it didn’t work.
It’s easy to complain about quality; it’s much harder to create a system that truly produces higher-quality work without adding time. The best work in the world doesn’t mean anything if the customer doesn’t get it when they can most optimize it.
How important is it to meet deadlines for customers in your organization? How does Learning & Development help ensure employees consistently deliver work to customers on time?