How Much Time Do You Spend Following Up on Assignments You Gave Others?

This blog is for you if you are a leader who spends time following up with your people asking them for assignments they were supposed to have given you days or sometimes weeks ago. If you wonder, “Why am I spending my time when they knew the date and didn’t come to me before the deadline passed to tell me it would be late?” And furthermore, “Why do I feel like I’m walking on eggshells around them when they should be apologizing to me?”

I started my career staffing up and then running a global organization. I found myself spending too much time pursuing very bright, talented staff members asking for assignments they had promised to deliver to me and noticed other leaders having to take their time to do the same thing. I had just left The Anderson School of Business at UCLA where that behavior would not have been tolerated. 


In staff meetings and global calls, I politely repeated several versions of this message: “When we commit to a due date, it’s like a promise. We keep it, or we renegotiate the due date ahead of time so I or others don’t have to take our time to ask you what happened. That is not the kind of culture we have discussed that we want in our organization.” I naively felt that this message would eventually solve this problem in a month or two. However, nothing changed. 


What I implemented in my organization that helped fix my problem. 

• I described in a global all-hands meeting the lack of accountability my senior staff and I had been experiencing.
  • I emphasized the culture of our organization which we had previously discussed in a workshop. A culture which support staff, my Senior Team, and I all had a hand in shaping our culture. 
  • We then had an outside facilitator guide the remainder of the meeting. She helped us to avoid blame and create buy-in to a new level of accountability. At the end of the meeting we took a poll. Everyone felt heard, respected, and clear on what accountability meant. 
• We added Fairness and Active Mutual Support as additional terms to further describe our organizational culture. 
  • We created 2 sub-teams to work on the specific language for each of these terms and made it available on a shared document with the promise that it would be finished by the next all-hands meeting the following month. 
  • Everyone in the organization promised they would review it prior to that meeting. 
• In addition, we created a new policy within our organization to complement our new commitment of keeping our promises.
  • Before anyone makes a commitment, they examine whether or not they can truly promise to keep the commitment.
  • The requester accepts the promise being made and clarifies who is going to do what by when and why. 
  • These details are to be put in writing and shared with the requester and the promise-maker. 
• Within 2 months, the behavior within my organization changed in several ways:
  • A 70% increase in on-time assignments. 
  • The remaining 30% were received within 5 days of their due date (with explanations).
  • Relationships improved as measured by engagement surveys that were distributed throughout the entire organization. 
  • Our monthly all-hands meetings were noticeably warmer, more collegial, efficient, and more fun. 
    • We got more work done in less time.
    • I could delegate more confidently and comfortably to my team and they in turn could delegate to their direct reports and beyond. 

Today, as a business consultant, what I teach leaders, owners, and their teams is that nobody does anything alone. Accountability is a team sport. Relationships are the foundation of all accomplishments. Research has shown that building accountability also goes a long way towards eliminating unconscious bias, increasing fairness, strengthening the capacity for empathy, and encouraging learning and professional development.


Tom Drucker MA, ABD is a founding partner of Consultants in Corporate Innovation, transforming leaders and teams plus improving processes in companies big and small. Learn more about him at corporate-innovation.com