If deadlines are the only things that motivate you to get stuff done, then it pays to get better at setting and enforcing your own deadlines.
The alternative is waiting on other people to set deadlines for you. But then you’ll always be dependent on others for you to get your stuff done.
The problem is we hold the deadlines other people set for us as more valuable and important than our own promises to ourselves.
It’s a great opening line of a song.
And also it goes a long way in displaying what kind of culture you have and promote.
When someone shows up to work for the day, what do the others do?
When something goes wrong or gets difficult who takes responsibility?
When someone has a new idea how is it received whether good or bad?
The answers are all unspoken but deeply entrenched in the rhythm of your organization.
Instead of getting a conference room for the business meeting with the people you’re considering working with or the company you’re thinking of signing with…go putt putt golfing.
Not real golfing. Putt putt.
You’ll learn more and notice more and have different questions and responses come to mind.
And both the conference room and the mini golf take about forty five minutes.
Putt putt is suppose to be fun. So some people will have fun with it. The others, who aren’t good at having fun, you’ll get to see how the respond when faced with something they’re not good at.
And you might see someone drop a popsicle, or a grandma get a hole in one, or teenagers sneak their friend onto the course. Those shared experiences are more powerful than a shared experience of walking to the elevator together.
It’s a scary thing to say. Whatever ‘this’ is says a lot about your taste and what you think the other person’s taste is. Taste is tied to values and values to identity.
The exchange is a snapshot of your identity, the other person’s identity and the identity of the relationship.
So it’s scary to give someone something they didn’t ask for because there’s a lot at stake. It’s much easier and safer to stick to something they’ve asked for.
But taking the bigger leap is what grows us together.
For instance…
When you go through heartbreak you write the heartbreak songs and those songs become the big songs…so it’s enticing to keep the heartbreak going…because the problem is the thing paying the bills.
The heartbreak is the gasoline, the tension to push off from, the rally point.
So if the problem goes away or gets resolved, what would be left to go on?
If you want to change what type of fuel you run on…you can. And maybe you should.
If the problem is paying the bills, it might be best to solve the problem even if it means you’ll have a problem paying bills for a while.