Start by assuming the best
When you ask a colleague or someone to execute on a business action, don’t assume that you’re not a priority or that the person you’re dealing with is being obstructive or lazy.
IF YOU LOOK FOR THE BAD IN MANKIND EXPECTING TO FIND IT, YOU SURELY WILL
David “Dave” Swift – American screenwriter, animator, director, and producer.
Some tasks genuinely take longer to execute than others and even the lowliest of employee has a backlog of stuff that they are working on or a degree of complexity in what they need to do to execute against an instruction or request.
I work a lot with software developers, sales people and technical resources. Sales people need to ensure that their customers are the happiest that they can be – that means that they have big demands on those who provide technical support and services.
Technical resources all have slightly different goals, but for the most part completion and completion with quality are the headlines.
Quality takes time. Doing things with quality requires being a little more meticulous. No one wants something that is half baked and if you rush things, that’s what you will get.
Just because you don’t understand why or when something happens or takes so long doesn’t mean that a valid reason doesn’t exist.
Assume that everyone you work with by default, wants to be successful and that they want any job that needs doing, to be done well.