Working Up

by Dwayne Phillips

Sometimes the way to accomplish more sooner is to acknowledge the person and wait until later.

A short but true story:

We were short of persons in one particular skill category at work. Work piled up. We were waiting, mostly impatiently. Finally, a new person arrives in that skill category. All of us earnest (impatient) persons with all the work piled high are anxious to race in to the new person’s office and tell her why our work was more important than anyone else’s and…actually we wanted her to recognize that each of us was more important than the rest, but that is another topic for another day.

Anyways, on her first day at work, each person raced into her office with a mountain of work. “I am so-and-so,” each would proclaim. “You have to work on my project right now.”

At mid-morning. I walked into her office with a vase of flowers and a box of chocolates. “Hello,” I said. “Welcome. We are happy to have you with us. Here are a few tokens of welcome. You and I will be working together on a few projects. Take a few days to settle into your new office and meet everyone. I’ll be back later this week and we can discuss the projects then. Have a good day.”

Guess whose work was accomplished first? If you haven’t guessed by now, mine was.

That actually occurred a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away. Flowers and chocolate may not be appropriate in our world today. What is still appropriate is acknowledging the other person as a person and granting time and space.

Try it sometime, perhaps tomorrow or later this week.