Waiting to respond doesn’t usually result in a desired outcome.
When you wait to respond, you lose your place in the front of someone’s mind and priority list.
When you wait to respond, you actually deliver a signal that the sender isn’t important to you.
When you wait to respond, you’re sure to get bogged down with more emails, to-dos and requests you need to respond to.
A client of mine has a rule: Every email, phone call or letter gets a response within 24 hours.
The catch is that a response might be “Thanks” or “I’ll follow up on Tuesday” or “Approved.”
Something simple and direct, but a response, nonetheless.
There’s enough happening in this world that will bog us down on our pursuits. The least we can do is try not to be part of the problem for others … or ourselves by responding.
We have to consider what story we can tell about the notebook we use, the lunch we eat, the signage we have on our doors–everything.
We’re more into stories than ever before. Stories we tell each others, stories we tell for one another and stories we tell ourselves about ourselves all day.
It’s the stories that collect that can change a culture and our own posture.
If that’s not enough to get you to become a storyteller then consider this: If we don’t tell a story about something, someone else will … and we might not like it.
Sometimes process keeps you on the hook to see something through. There’s a step system that makes it directionally easy for you to comply and deliver.
Other times, however, process let’s you off the hook because you can avoid doing what you think is right and – when it all goes to shit – you can say “Well, I followed the process and this is what happened. Not my fault.”
But, in a way, it is and we know it because we have the agency to change a process, to adapt around it and to elevate it to newer, better heights.
If we’re on the hook for anything … it’s that; to find a way to improve a process once we begin it and not just to see it to the end