Fog Delay
It’s only Wednesday afternoon and you’re already thinking about your 8:08 am tee time on Saturday. The forecast is looking great and you can’t wait to play a round with your friends. Friday night rolls around and the forecast still looks great for Saturday. Your alarm goes off at 6:45 am on Saturday and you hop out of bed eager to get to the course. After a quick shower and brush of the teeth, you start to see texts from your friends popping up on your phone. You open the texts and see the worst news you’ve seen in weeks. “Fog delay, tee times have been pushed back one hour!” You have a commitment you can’t miss at 1:00 pm and you must miss the round of golf because of fog!
Fog delays are frustrating when they impact your tee time, but fog delays at the workplace can kill morale, productivity, and profitability. Look around and you’ll probably find some fog at work. While you can’t control Mother Nature, the good news is that you have some control over the fog at work. Here are two ways you can eliminate fog delays at the office:
Clear Deadlines
Deadlines at the office need to be as crystal clear as your tee times. Have you ever seen someone racing through the parking lot and the clubhouse to make it to the 1st tee on time? It’s because they know that if they don’t get to the tee box on time, they are letting everyone else down. The tee time is a clear deadline for them. When you are working on an assignment or you are assigning a project to your team, you need to establish clear milestones and deadlines. These milestones and deadlines eliminate the fog and your team will know how to prioritize other responsibilities to meet the deadline. However, if your team happens to miss a deadline or two, it isn’t going to bring the company down, so try to handle it appropriately.
Provide Feedback in The Moment
Employees at all levels crave feedback. The great thing about golf is that you get instant feedback with every swing of the club. However, providing and asking for feedback at the office is not as easy. As a manager, you need to provide feedback, at the moment when your team members hit or miss the mark. It’s your job as a manager to keep your team clear of hazards, and if you aren’t providing consistent feedback (both good and bad), your team will continue to slice it through the fog.
On the flip side, if your manager isn’t providing you consistent feedback, take it upon yourself to clear the fog and ask your manager how you are doing. Simply ask, “where am I meeting expectations?” and “where can I continue to improve?” Your manager will appreciate this opportunity to provide you feedback.
Everyone has an opportunity to reduce the fog and provide clarity in their work. You’ll set yourself apart if you are constantly challenging yourself or the team to eliminate the fog. An easy way to address the fog is by simply saying, “I’d like to make sure we don’t run into any fog delays and make sure we are crystal clear on X.”
Try it out and see how much more efficient your team becomes when you begin to eliminate the fog.