I’ll Get Back to You on That…
Not so long ago, a gentleman who had recently joined a civic organization I’m a part of sent an email to several other members of the group inviting them to catch up over lunch or coffee individually with hopes of getting to know each of them better since he was relatively new to the area. After a few weeks had passed and only one responded about how busy he was, the gentleman sent me and one other person in the group a separate message saying that he was a bit disappointed in the lack of response - and I can’t say that I blame him…
For what it’s worth, I had replied to his initial email directly (without copying anyone else he had sent it to) with hopes of helping set his expectations for the responses, or lack thereof, that he would likely get. Interestingly enough, the one response that came through detailing that particular individual’s busy-ness was a surprise to me; not that he shared how busy he was but that he responded at all! In the forty or so years I’ve considered that individual a friend, I had actually grown quite accustomed to not getting a reply from him…
I’m guessing by this point, you’re picturing at least one person in your life that you can always count on to say “I’ll get right back with you” and never hear from until you reach out to them again, and again - if they acknowledge your outreach at all! Let’s face it, we all juggle a ton of tasks on a daily basis. For those of us who have accepted the responsibility for leading a team, the number of tasks are often exponentially more than many of our friends or team members even realize. Responding to each individual ping and ding can be daunting! But make no mistake, when and how we respond - and to whom - always sends a message; a message separate from the words we use!
Here’s a question I want you to consider: What does responsiveness mean? Regardless of the actual words we use in that response, what are we telling someone when we get back with them promptly? And what message do we send when we don’t reply at all? These may seem like rhetorical questions but I assure you they’re not! The time it takes us to follow up with someone in our personal life can have a lasting impact on the relationship we have with them. And when we’re expected to lead, response time to questions and concerns becomes even more critical! If you’re not tracking with me on this, think back to the mess that followed Hurricane Katrina…
As we work through the idea of responsiveness, we’ll take a look at some statistics for average response times to texts, emails, and voicemails. We’ll also sift through why any of that even matters with our friends and family before shifting to the impact it has on the influence we earn (or give up) as leaders. Before that though, let’s circle back to that friend of four decades who I know I can count on - to usually not respond… I’ve always cared about him, and I imagine I always will. When we were younger, I took it with a grain of salt. As we’ve moved forward in our lives and careers, I’ve had a certain level of respect for his professional accomplishments but I have not been able to equate any of that to actual leadership regardless of the positions or titles he’s held…
Just Be Patient!?
If you’ve ever been in a session where Cindy and I teach on communication and behavioral styles, you’ve likely heard me share that my dad has told me for years that I’d get more patient as I got older. So far though, only one of those two things has happened. When I tell that story in person, I ask folks from the groups we’re working with to guess which one and the gray hair seems to be a dead giveaway! In all seriousness though, I’ve just never been a patient person. I have a clear understanding today of how that ties back to my behavioral style but how long we have to wait on things from certain people does send a message as to how much (or how little) value they place on us…
The most common whipping post for excessive wait times seems to be the doctor’s office. I’ll circle back to that shortly. Before that though, consider a recent experience Cindy and I had with an attorney… Cindy’s dad passed away at the end of 2021 and she was named as the executor of his estate. I’ll spare you all the details but we’ve had to work with a few different lawyers through that process, which has only proven the statistic a friend shared with me years ago that 98% of them make the other 2% look bad. (I’ll let you know when I meet one who falls into the 2%!)
Cindy needed a specific expertise for one of the items she had to work through and we were pointed to someone. She contacted the office and waited over a week before following up. After another week passed without even a time being scheduled to talk with this attorney, she called again. We finally got something on the calendar to meet with him in person about a month after her initial outreach. We arrived at his office a few minutes early and were escorted to a conference room. About 15 minutes after our scheduled appointment time, Cindy went to the desk to ask if we were there on the correct day, knowing full well that we were. He finally made his way into the room a few minutes later but was completely unprepared. Knowing he bills by the hour, I asked who we would be able to invoice for the time we had just lost waiting on him. He definitely wasn’t expecting that but I felt like he needed to understand one of my favorite lines from the 80’s metal band Jackyl’s song “I Stand Alone”... (I won’t share that here but I’d love to hear if you know what it is!)
Sounds kinda like the doctor’s office, huh? I actually found a few articles that suggested it was appropriate to ask how much longer the doctor would be if it was at least 20 minutes beyond the appointment time. For anyone to consider that acceptable, they’ve clearly never heard that line in the song I just referred to! For someone to expect me or you to be on time and still be OK with being late themselves, it tells me they just don’t value us; they see their time as more important than our time! And even if that’s not what they really believe, it’s still the message they’re sending…
What about communication since that’s what I started all this with? I found a really interesting article called Response Time In The Internet Age: How Long Is Too Long? that shared all kinds of statistics about emails, text messages, voicemails, and more, then broke each down by the relationship we have with the individual and whether or not it was during business hours. While I found it interesting that they detailed all of those things out, my point here is that the longer we take to respond the more likely it is that the person we’re interacting with doesn’t feel valued. That matters in our personal relationships and it matters with the teams we’re responsible for leading. With that in mind, Let’s look at one simple thing that can help avoid sending a message that we don’t value someone…
Sending Two Messages at Once…
Since we can’t realistically expect others to just be patient indefinitely and maintain any level of leadership with them, or any respect for that matter, let’s look at what we can each do to make sure we’re sending the message we intend to - knowing that failing to reply completely often sends a louder message than any words we could choose!
Before I go too far though, I do have a confession to make… I’ve never replied to any of the dozens of emails I get each week about the donations someone from a faraway land wants to send me, the wonderfully considerate folks who want to help us start a social media marketing campaign, or even the notices that we’ve been selected as one of the top 100 businesses and all we need to do is send them $2,500… Truth be told, I’d have far too much fun replying to each of them but there just aren’t enough hours in the day to do all that and be responsible!
Seriously though, our responses send two messages; one being the actual words we use and the other being the level of value we place on the relationship we have with the individual we’re responding to. And guess what message we send when we don’t respond at all… In fact, the article I referenced before that showed all those stats about expected response times closed with this statement: “It is interesting to note that in no case did more than one person find it acceptable to have any type of message left unanswered for 48 hours.”
So what’s something we can all do, regardless of the words we use, to make sure at least one of the messages we’re sending shows that the person we’re communicating with is indeed important to us?
Over the last ten years or so, I’ve been involved with hiring no less than 1,000 people for various companies. In case you’re wondering, that’s required A LOT more than 1,000 interviews… Whether that was during times of high unemployment or low unemployment, I’ve been able to produce really solid results for each organization I’ve worked with. The one thing I attribute the bulk of that effectiveness to is that I’ve always been very intentional about reaching out to candidates who apply as quickly as I possibly can. One of the first challenges I hear brought up by peers who have responsibility for hiring is that their time is stretched so thin that they struggle to reach out to candidates quickly. While I do understand that, I highly doubt the highest caliber candidates care… If you snooze, you may just lose!
When it comes to sending a message that shows we value the person we’re responding to, be that a personal relationship or a business relationship, the best recommendation I can make is to be assertive in our communication! But don’t misunderstand that to mean aggressive… When we’re assertive with our responsiveness, we’re prompt. If we’re aggressive, we’re just rude!
As we move forward here, we’ll dial the focus in to look at why this matters so much in leadership and we’ll look at why choosing to not respond at all sends a louder message than most would ever do intentionally with words alone. Stay tuned…