Marwah SalehApplication Analyst| King Abdulaziz hospital , National Guard HealthSaudi Arabia
what to do if the organization culture doe not read email , do not reply if they read. they are not committed to due date. you need to follow up many times by email, phone and personal visits to get things done.
I do not think escalation is right and practical thing. from your experience what are possible solution to deal with this situation.
Paul AzanorProject Consultant| Lagos NigeriaIkoyi, Lagos, Nigeria
@Stephane Parent,:- I have tried pretending to escalate,yes it does work only if manage properly.In one particular instance the concern group of persons felt really threatened to the extent that they wanted to also reach out to the higher authority i pretended to have escalated to.I brought that situation under control and they quickly fell in line to get the project going ever after. Saving Changes...
Ajay Babu PalagiriSenior Project Manager| Infosys Ltd.Hyderabad, Andhra Pradesh, India
In my opinion, first the PM should analyse the team individual attitudes. This behaviour is due to one person in the team or the all the team members have similar attitude. Accordingly, the PM should have a one to one or a team meeting to understand the concerns of the individual or team and emphasize the need for following the instructions and responding to emails Saving Changes...
Building relationships is best, but it is difficult to build relationships with people unwilling to work with you. Escalation or "pretend escalation" sometimes works, but sometimes the leaders may just point the finger back at you and tell you to go figure it out. Reorganization is sometimes warranted in a broken culture, but the PM does not have that authority.
Documenting a work-around plan to the communication issue, like adding a significant amount of flow for responses can help get the attention of leadership. If they are required to review and approve your plans, and you add significant cost and flow to address the issue, then they have a choice of either addressing the root cause, or accepting the plan change. They will usually reject the additional cost and flow in favor of addressing the root cause, which is what you wanted to begin with. You just have to swallow the fact that on the outside it may look like your plan was rejected, but was the actual objective. Saving Changes...
Paul CampbellSenior Project Manager| TEKsystemsHometown, Il, United States
Rely more on conversations than email. Document conversations/meetings. Publish action plans that clearly and simply state actions/decisions, who is responsible and when they are due. If and when people agree to what is documented, it is easier to follow up and hold people accountable. Saving Changes...
Seif AbdelghanyGlobal Category & Portfolio Manager| Electrolux ABCairo, Outside Us Or Canada, Egypt
Jul 10, 2019 3:50 PM
Replying to Kiron Bondale
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Marwah -
Build strong relationships with the key stakeholders and find ways to align their personal objectives with those of the project. That will increase the odds that they support you in delivering successfully.
Kiron
I Agree with Kiron, This kind of behavior occurs with different extent in several organizations and one of the most effective ways to counter it is relationship building. I had a similar problem in my current new role that I immediately resorted to escalation which backfired in my face. Relationships always smoothes and gets the ball rolling faster. Saving Changes...
Maybe projects in general or the projects that you are working on are considered low priority work for your organization.
Some years ago I worked on a technical role in an IT department and my number one priority was operations namely offering application support for the customers. I was also working on a project but I was told that the project comes second.
If this is your case then maybe those employee are also working in operations for example they may struggle to meet the SLAs. Obviously they don't have time for your project.
If a project is very important and takes high priority then senior management would force the functional managers to engage their direct reports and then what you are describing would not happen.
As a general rule there is not much PMs can do in this kind of situations only senior management can really do something and the solution is making the functional manager responsible for the project outcome. Saving Changes...
Dinah YoungProject Manager / Software Asset Manager| Prince William CountySpringfield, Va, United States
We have this issue with emails as well. Management is so inundated with emails that they just do not get to them all. If one form of communication is not working try another, then another. We also use Skype for business to instant message people. I spend time calling the person or walking over to their office if possible. We also tried scheduling quick daily/weekly meetings (similar to stand ups) just to review items that could have been handled via email but were not.
As for not making and meeting deadlines, that needs to be escalated if it is pervasive. It is unacceptable to consistently ignore deadlines.
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1 reply by Adrian Carlogea
Jul 12, 2019 11:49 AM
Adrian Carlogea
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When the staff is too busy working on operations or some major projects that are critical for the organization they don't have time to work on the other projects.
When this happens only Senior Management can do something and that is hire or contract new people.
If Senior Management does not bring new people in or it is impossible to find them there is nothing you can do about it if your project is considered less critical. Is not like they are ignoring you they simply don't have time to work on your project.
We have this issue with emails as well. Management is so inundated with emails that they just do not get to them all. If one form of communication is not working try another, then another. We also use Skype for business to instant message people. I spend time calling the person or walking over to their office if possible. We also tried scheduling quick daily/weekly meetings (similar to stand ups) just to review items that could have been handled via email but were not.
As for not making and meeting deadlines, that needs to be escalated if it is pervasive. It is unacceptable to consistently ignore deadlines.
When the staff is too busy working on operations or some major projects that are critical for the organization they don't have time to work on the other projects.
When this happens only Senior Management can do something and that is hire or contract new people.
If Senior Management does not bring new people in or it is impossible to find them there is nothing you can do about it if your project is considered less critical. Is not like they are ignoring you they simply don't have time to work on your project. Saving Changes...
Mirza Laeeq BaigDirector - Business Excellence| East Consulting Engineering CompanyRiyadh, Saudi Arabia
If the culter of communication does not exist in an organization, the word escalation would rather be treated like a threat or punishment. And there is no point in threatening or penalizing somebody without giving them the basic knowledge.
I'd rather suggest teaching them the benefits of communication by arranging seminars, training sessions or workshops.
Doing a root cause analysis combined with Pareto Analysis to eliminate the major factors that cause "lack of communication", can also prove helpful.
The bottom line is that the Top Management needs to understand the importance of communication and the Organizational Culture needs changes, escalations are definitely not the solution. Saving Changes...
You did not mention the language of email you use. I assumed your email language is English and Organizational culture is same as Native culture which is supposed to be. And based on that I express my opinion as follows.
You might change the language (use Native) of your email and most importantly you change the Greetings pattern (salutation and closing of letter) of your email based on their culture.
I guess, the culture is not to read email but to read email in their own language. Reason might be they are not proficient in English or they love too much their native language and consider their culture is highly rich (so far greetings are concern).
Not to read Email is nothing to do with culture, it needs proficiency in language written the mail, love / fun to read and write in that particular language, pleasure feeling with salutation and closing and top of all appetite of knowledge. You can talk about Ownership / Realization of benefits but those are basic practice of all cultures. They know all those things and practice in their personal and professional life.
However, you can think about trainings on language proficiency, sense of Ownership (Responsibility), Holistic (tangible & intangible) benefits realization, email etiquette, etc. for your stakeholders
Every culture develops based on so much reading and writing in its native language (on paper in past and electronic mode in present), otherwise no culture develops. Therefore, we can not say not to read email is culture.
Just follow the strategy of PMI - started disseminating the project management concept translating PMBOK Guide in different language. It is easy to accept by any hardcore culture.
You can do another thing that is auditory announcement, few cultures they prefer regular / periodic auditory announcement because they are familiar with this kind of system from their childhood. Therefore, you meet with all your stakeholders (top to bottom) and ask them about their preference to languages of email - English / Native and with consensus you implement. You can take help of translator / interpreter if you are not proficient in Native language and culture. There is no question about escalation because where to escalate, it's organizational culture inculcated to all - top to bottom.
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1 reply by Anton Oosthuizen
Jul 15, 2019 1:29 AM
Anton Oosthuizen
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But not reading and not responding are two different things. Yes emails, if long can be confusing when it is not your native language but writing a simple subject line should get people to at least attempt to read the email. If it is unclear then the recipient should respond as such.
