It is a business truism that “Work will expand to meet the time allotted.” I was reminded of the truth in this statement last week.
I recently became member of Veterans of Foreign Wars. I spent some time in Vietnam a lifetime ago so I met the membership requirements (boots on the ground as they say). This organization conducts much good, needed, volunteer work for veterans and active duty military. They also do a great deal of work with the boy scouts, Nellis Air Force Base, the USO and other community organizations.
Their newsletter was not very good so I volunteered to see if I could improve it. Well, that’s when it started. First, the individual responsible for the newsletter took a small degree of offense. This is to be expected, of course. Whenever an outsider comes in to take over something from someone the someone will take offense, especially if not properly presented.
Second, I needed the cooperation of at least four individuals just to find out how it was being done so I could determine what to do to improve it. These people needed time to get the information to me so the commander of the post gave them a reasonable amount of time. Thus the problem: The work expanded to meet the time allowed. Without a sense of urgency, people did not see the need to comply in that reasonable amount of time.
Third, I am a lazy individual, as Ruth is wont to remind me. (Yeah, wont is a real word meaning accustomed to). I took my sweet time as did everyone else.
Result: Late newsletter, hurried newsletter, incomplete newsletter, not my usual great work newsletter.
The above is the reason for good leadership to have good objectives that are SMART. The acronym stands for Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Reasonable and Time bound. A SMART objective ensures that the job gets done to a specified level of quality, by competent people in a timely manner. The next newsletter will be much better.
I also was presented with a new truism: “Pass onto others what you do not feel like doing yourself.” This is not delegating or assigning, this is a pass and run technique. I will incorporate it into my management persona.
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