I can’t believe that, after writing more than 100 blogs, I haven’t written a blog about what I consider to be the most important and fundamental activity that every manager needs to do – follow up! I wrote a little about this topic in one of my early blogs, Effective Leadership, but following up deserves a deeper discussion. To me, following up is an action; one that is respectful, closes the communication loop and helps you make sure you’re aligned with the person with whom you’re following up. After all, alignment helps create an effective team because you’re all pulling in the same direction.
Following up is a key step in the communication process – a step that is often missed, which could cause problems. Following up is usually a simple and quick conversation where you share information or the status of an action assigned to you.
I think it’s important to describe what I mean by a simple and quick conversation. In my experience, the follow-up should be something like: “I closed the action on XXX, done and complete.” This could be a short conversation at the end of a meeting, a text message, a quick drive-by-the-office chat or a mention as we walk by one another out in the shipyard. There’s no need for a larger meeting. We just need to share enough detail to close the communication circle and give our boss or our team awareness of the status of the task we, as individuals, took on.
Following up in this way may still lead to more conversations. Maybe when you carried out the task, things went a little differently than planned. In that case, the follow-up may be along the lines of: “I closed the action on XXX, done and complete. I didn’t do the way we discussed – let’s chat.” You are still giving feedback quickly after completing your assignment, but you are also acknowledging that there needs to be a larger conversation. In this case, you need to make sure your boss knows what went differently than had been previously discussed or planned.
Following up, in my opinion, is the most important aspect of management – whether it is to your boss or to your team. In both cases, you are showing respect for the people you work with. It’s that simple.
The act of giving feedback to the person who assigned you an action or someone who asked you for help (or any other task) is respectful to the other person. How many times have you expected feedback and it didn’t come – how did you feel about it? It makes you think that you are not important. When someone follows up with feedback, it is a sign of respect. Following up includes you and acknowledges that you play an important role in running our company – no matter your job.
There is one other aspect of following up that I want to cover. The act of following up doesn’t conflict with or reduce your empowerment to do things. I talk a lot about empowerment because it’s been important in my career development (you can read about more about that in the blog Do You Own It?). I believe that the “red zone” – where rules define what we cannot do – is very small. There’s a much larger “green” area where we can and should operate and make decisions. If you choose to exercise your empowerment, then having a simple conversation with your boss to let him or her know what you are doing is important. It’s how your boss knows what you are working on. It is respectful.
Of course, when you check in, you might get asked a question. To me, questions or, in some cases, pushback from your boss when you follow up should not be an unwelcome surprise. No two people are always going to agree on a given course of action, and there is often more than one way to accomplish a task. Think of that more in-depth conversation as a sort of quiz, where your boss wants to see whether you’ve thought about a certain situation or is checking to validate your course of action or conclusions. The boss isn’t saying what you did was wrong – he or she may just want to understand some details. Questions are good and help us learn.
Let me share a real-life example of a common occurrence in my role as president and how I use following up to close the loop. Frequently, I hear from a member of our BIW team, usually one of my direct reports, about something major happening in the life of one of our employees. I often call the employee or employee’s spouse when something big happens. After I talk with the employee or spouse, I always call, send an email or text the person who alerted me to the situation. I do this out of courtesy to let that individual know that I talked with the employee. That closes the loop. At that point, the person who informed me understands that I valued their information enough to act on it, and they can move through their day knowing there was a result. They feel respected.
I hope this helps you understand why I think following up is so important.
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