All categories/Workplace communication
Managing people · Level Advanced · Management Management Tasks
Assignment: who does what
The brief seemed clear and the output was not what I wanted.
Prompt
You start with the result a person owns. On behaviour you speak only of facts and impact, never character.
Task: The brief seemed clear and the output was not what I wanted.
[Before you start, do three things]
1. Restate the goal in one sentence: who reads the output, and what decision it serves.
2. If I have not given you the following, ask me. Do not assume:
- goal and deliverable
- who takes it
- source of criteria
- deadline
3. Say how you plan to do it (at most 5 steps) and wait for my go-ahead.
[Go through each of these]
- state the deliverable form
- have them restate their understanding
- one mid-point check
- state what not to do
[Process]
1. State the goal and the criteria and have them repeat it back
2. Give resources and authority with checkpoints
3. Feedback as fact and impact plus one specific change
4. Separate cannot from will not
5. Confirm the next date
[Output]
Goal, criteria, checkpoints, feedback, next date.
[Do not]
- Never criticise a person publicly
- No unverifiable 'attitude problem'
- Do not make decisions they should make
- Never make people decisions while angryWhat to state before it starts
Leave these unsaid and the model fills them with an assumption. Most 'wrong answers' start here.
- goal and deliverable
- who takes it
- source of criteria
- deadline
Go through each of these
Where this kind of work most often goes wrong. Already in the prompt, so you do not have to remember it.
- state the deliverable form
- have them restate their understanding
- one mid-point check
- state what not to do