Have you sent a “No Progress” report lately?

By Rajesh Setty on Mon 11 Jun 2007, 9:50 PM - 5 Comments

When people owe me things (examples: status of a project, document that they promised to send) but I don’t hear back from them on the due date, I get a bit confused.

Here is my dilemma.

I don’t know if

* They have completed the task but forgot to send me a note OR

* They had a problem completing the task OR

* They forgot about the task OR

* They are waiting for more information from me OR

* They didn’t know that THEY were supposed to do the task OR

* There is something else that I don’t know.

I checked with a few other CEOs to see if they face this problem. Their answer - “Many times”!

Having been in leadership positions for more than a decade, I know that when I don’t get the “progress” report on time, the reason is mostly because there was no “progress” to report. I guess I would like to know even when there is no “progress”. May be a “No Progress” report?

Action Item:

How about taking an inventory of all your projects today. If people are expecting a progress report but you have no progress report, how about sending them a “No Progress” report and remove their stress a bit. They can deal with the situation better if they at least know that there was “no progress”.

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Posted in the Leadership, Main Page category.

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Anonymous on June 14th, 2007

Yes. That’s the decent thing to do, but people just don’t do it. I’m sure there’s some psychological reason for it, but people would rather be asked for it 3 days later than admit on the due date that they didn’t do anything. Maybe they figure in 3 more days they’ll have something done. Maybe you’ll forget about it and they’ll be off the hook. Forget about it two times and you’ll probably never get the report again. We adults are a lot like children in this way.
A good manager/leader/person follows up and does what s/he says s/he’ll do. It’s just the courteous, common sense thing to do. I hope your appeal moves more people to act accordingly.

Anonymous on June 17th, 2007

This is much true I cannot say how uber everything this is named properly. I pretty much try to follow this rule, but I never ealised it and was not able to put it in this naked essence of the problem. So thanks very much!!!!

Anonymous on July 2nd, 2007

this contradicts to my impression, that the ordinary todo list is an ever-growing monster, that means some things must be removed/failed/dropped.
Sometimes the best option for removing a task is to let the hurry get past you. If you say/fail a task: sorry, I am not going to do that, then it usually creates conflicts.
Now, if you are the manager, whom do you like more, the man who says simply: sorry, cant do it; or the man who wiggles out. With very rare exeptions the latter is more pleasant, hence he gets more salary. Salary depends on weather you are liked or not, impressions, less on what you do.
Modification: do this no progress on things that you have no hope of being forgotten.
Juhani

Anonymous on July 2nd, 2007

Honestly I prefer them stepping up and saying “sorry, can’t do it and the reason is…” I’ more likely to decrease salary to “wiggle outers”… than the other way around.

Success News Online | The No Progress Report on December 1st, 2007

[...] Blogger, Rajesh Setty, has a solution to an all to common dilemma… when people owe you things… did they just forget… or is it something else? He gives some insight to the problem and offers a brilliant solution… a No Progress Report. [...]