Trigger Question #172:
Have you ever wondered why your boss gives you a deadline for something that is clearly not urgent? Because your boss isn’t stupid, that’s why.
Maybe your boss is a sadist, so let’s explore that first. Sometimes you understand the need for the deadline. Answer: your boss is not a sadist. But most of the time you suspect the many deadlines are fake. Answer: your boss is a sadist.
Or maybe not. Maybe your boss is simply sly as a fox and is putting Parkinson’s Law to practical use. Parkinson’s Law? Here it is:
“Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion.”
Do I need to explain it? The more time you have to complete a task, the more of that time you will use to complete the task. Or the more of that time you will spend elsewhere before you begin the assignment.
Remember your student days? Remember how often you squeezed out an assignment on the day it was due on the professor’s desk? Sorry, inbox. Well, that’s because you shrank the assignment to fit the time you had available. How? You either focused like hell without sleep. Or you handed in an abridged version, in length and in quality.
The point is, you got it done. But in the process you proved the Stock-Sanford corollary to Parkinson’s law: “If you wait until the last minute, it only takes a minute to do.”
Once upon a time, your boss was a student. And she remembers all those last-minute nights. So now she hands out deadlines. Not just any deadlines, but tight ones. Because she knows you will take as much time as she gives you.
What if you think the deadline is fake? You have two options. You negotiate, or you submit. But remember, you can negotiate effectively only if you have credibility. And you will submit if you fear your boss or if you fear the consequences of not meeting the deadline. (Actually, you will also accept the deadline if you don’t fear. If there are never any negative consequences for missing deadlines, why stress yourself? Accept the deadline and move on to whatever tickles your fancy.)
So, what does this tell us? That fake deadlines only work if there is fear? Sort of. But don’t forget that in business the real management skill is working with scarce resources. Time, believe it or not, is a scarce resource. So in giving you a deadline, fake or not, your boss is simply managing a scarce resource, namely your time, by making you more productive in using that scarce resource.
Deadlines, fake or not, give us a sense of urgency so that we get going. But their real purpose is to stop our work dragging on and on as we let it expand to fill time without end.
As I have more time available right now, let me fill it by asking you this. If you are the boss, how can you make your team more productive? Yes, give them a (fake) deadline. And how can you make yourself more productive? Correct again. Set yourself a (fake) deadline.
Welcome to my side of the nonsense divide.
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Quote of the Moment:
“I never missed I deadline I could set again and again.” The Chief Nonsense Officer.
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