Dealing with unreliable people

When you’re motivated to get lots of stuff done, dealing with unreliable people can be very frustrating — they make promises they don’t deliver on, you can’t depend on them to do what they said they would do, and (worst of all) they don’t communicate well.

People can be unreliable for a variety of reasons — they may be very busy, they may have poor time management skills, or they may have fickle personalities — but whatever the reason is, when their unreliableness holds up your work it makes both of you look bad.

When you have to deal with unreliable people, it’s very important to not try and coerce them by using guilt, shame, or other emotions — these approaches may irreparably damage your relationship. Rather, be unfailingly polite, upbeat, and enthusiastic whilst using assertive behaviours that will provide you with ways of moving forward in your work whether they deliver on their responsibilities or not.

Building “defaults” into your requests

If you’re waiting on feedback, a decision, or information from an unreliable person, build “defaults” into your requests that will allow you to continue your work even if they don’t get back to you in time, and make sure they know what will happen if they don’t respond.

For example, let’s imagine you need your colleague to make a decision that will hold up your work if they don’t send you their answer before the end of the week.

Instead of telling them:

“I need to have your answer before Friday, else I won’t be able to continue with what I’m doing.”

… build in a default for what will happen if they don’t respond in time:

“I need to have your answer before Friday, else I won’t be able to continue with what I’m doing. I know you’re busy, so if I don’t hear from you by Thursday I’ll assume that it’s fine to go ahead with {Option A}.”

If you still haven’t received a response just before the deadline, follow up with them one more time before taking the default action:

“I haven’t heard from you about that important decision yet, so I’m assuming that you’re happy for me to go to go ahead with {Option A} tomorrow as discussed.”

By building a default into your request and explaining to the unreliable person that you’ll assume a non-response is a tacit approval, you’re ensuring that their tardiness can’t impede your work even though you’re still keeping them as involved in the decision-making process as possible.

Make sure that the default option you choose is the one least likely to cause problems, and after you take action, monitor the decision’s outcome closely so you can correct it if anything goes wrong.

Setting consequences

Sometimes unreliability can’t be handled with defaults, such as when you need someone to do something that you can’t.

Explain to the person that their inaction impacting your work is unacceptable and suggest that you set consequences for future missed deadlines:

“I needed you to do {something} by {deadline}, but it wasn’t done. This now affects both of us since it caused delays in my work, and that’s unacceptable. What consequences do you think we should set for this happening again in the future?”

They’ll likely insist that they won’t miss any deadlines again and that you don’t need to set consequences.

Respond as follows:

“I understand that this was probably a one-time thing. However, since it won’t happen again consequences shouldn’t really bother you.”

If they’re still unwilling to suggest consequences, you can recommend some yourself (such as having to buying everyone lunch, or being on kitchen duty for a month), and make it seem fair to them by having it apply to either of you whenever you miss a deadline.

If your colleague remains unwilling to set consequences, propose a proper escalation path:

“I understand that it won’t happen again, but just in case it does, should we set a limit on how many times we’ll allow it before we ask your / our boss for advice? Since we’re both sure it won’t happen again, one time should be enough cause to escalate, right?”

By setting consequences and an escalation path, you’re still allowing your colleague to perform their duties but also making it clear that there will be consequences for their non-actions.

Don’t set defaults or consequences over email or chat

When you set defaults, consequences, or escalation paths, do so in person or on the phone — if you email or send a chat message to the other person they may blame their non-response on the messages getting lost or going to spam. It’s a good idea to confirm what you’ve discuss in a short email after the discussion, though.

Remember to be polite, upbeat, and enthusiastic when discussing the problem with them, and always follow through on your defaults, consequences, and escalation paths so they don’t just end up ignoring your suggestions.

This essay was originally published on my blog. If you have any comments or just want to talk about life, work, happiness or anything else in general, feel free to give me a shout!