Sticky Notes: Your Time Starts…Now!

Tips to help employees learn to meet deadlines.

When teaching employees to meet deadlines, start with one small goal with a short deadline and all the specifications. If they deliver, then set a little bigger goal and a slightly longer deadline. And so on. Gradually increase the amount and importance of the work you assign, until you reach the employee’s appropriate scope of responsibility…for now.

Once the employee reaches that point, you can continue to empower them by coaching them and by using project planning tools together. Help them develop long-term project plans, complete with clear benchmarks along the way. Focus your regular one-on-one meetings on evaluating their progress toward each benchmark.

Bruce Tulgan
Bruce Tulgan is a best-selling author and CEO of RainmakerThinking, the management research, consulting, and training firm he founded in 1993. All of his work is based on 27 years of intensive workplace interviews and has been featured in thousands of news stories around the world. His newest book, “The Art of Being Indispensable at Work: Win Influence, Beat Overcommitment, and Get the Right Things Done” ( Harvard Business Review Press) is available for purchase from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and all major booksellers. Follow Tulgan on Twitter @BruceTulgan or visit his Website at: rainmakerthinking.com.