The acronym “ASAP” means “as soon as possible.” Most people probably know the literal translation. But in terms of what people want you to do when they say they want something “ASAP” is a different story. That’s a big ol’ canna worms.
People toss ASAP around all the time in the business world without thinking through what they mean. It’s designed to make you move faster and get projects done yesterday rather than tomorrow. I think people even believe it motivates you because it implies urgency. “We need to get this done right away, McGillicutty, because if we don’t, the company fails.”
This is not true 99.99% of the time. Companies don’t fail based on one deadline or piece of information or a delayed report. They fail because of poor performance, not understanding and responding to their customers or not updating what they are doing to reflect recent technological trends.
None of those failures have anything to do with ASAP. When things get messed up it’s more about poor business sense.
In fact, the term ASAP is likely counterproductive. When you say it to someone, s/he rushes. Employees overlook things, they don’t review materials the way they should, and this ultimately leads to errors. Safety mistakes occur most frequently when we rush. ASAP urges us to rush.
I worked with a guy 15 years ago or so who loved the term, and putting the red exclamation (!) point on his emails to signify importance. In reality, what he was trying to do was signify his own importance. Because he felt all his work was the most important in our unit, he had to make sure we all knew this, too.
What did we do? We ignored him. Almost down to a person, we remarked on the urgent exclamation point and chose to not respond with speed. We put him on the back burner and made him wait.
That’s because his syndrome is so similar to crying wolf. Keep pretending everything is a crisis and after a bit everyone knows what you send out is not a crisis. In fact, it might be useless information. Or, information that needs to be more thoroughly analyzed and dissected before it actually provides value.
That takes time and thought. In those situations, it is better to do the job correctly, with contemplation involved.
When ASAP is thrown your way, do you ask when the report is due? That one question would solve a lot of business problems and reduce stress.
You need a concrete deadline, not ASAP, to do good work. You need to know the deadline, why it is important, where the information/product/service is going and why.
“I need this ASAP,” can be changed to, “We’ve got some important customer deals we need to finish by the end of this week. It would help greatly if you could get that data analyzed by Thursday afternoon, so I have some time to edit it. That will make sure we put our best foot forward.”
That gives you rationale, timing and motivation to give the job the intensity required. So get on it.
We’re on a speed train in business these days, and in many ways it’s about to wreck rational and logical thought. Embracing rapid-fire thinking and decision-making is necessary at times, but when it becomes ASAP all the time, there is something fundamentally wrong.
Next time you get the ASAP chant, pose a questions to figure out its real importance, “When do you need this? Do anyone else need to review this? Is there anything else I need to know?” Everyone will feel much better with the result because the job will get done with the diligence and focus necessary.
People toss ASAP around all the time in the business world without thinking through what they mean. It’s designed to make you move faster and get projects done yesterday rather than tomorrow. I think people even believe it motivates you because it implies urgency. “We need to get this done right away, McGillicutty, because if we don’t, the company fails.”
This is not true 99.99% of the time. Companies don’t fail based on one deadline or piece of information or a delayed report. They fail because of poor performance, not understanding and responding to their customers or not updating what they are doing to reflect recent technological trends.
None of those failures have anything to do with ASAP. When things get messed up it’s more about poor business sense.
In fact, the term ASAP is likely counterproductive. When you say it to someone, s/he rushes. Employees overlook things, they don’t review materials the way they should, and this ultimately leads to errors. Safety mistakes occur most frequently when we rush. ASAP urges us to rush.
I worked with a guy 15 years ago or so who loved the term, and putting the red exclamation (!) point on his emails to signify importance. In reality, what he was trying to do was signify his own importance. Because he felt all his work was the most important in our unit, he had to make sure we all knew this, too.
What did we do? We ignored him. Almost down to a person, we remarked on the urgent exclamation point and chose to not respond with speed. We put him on the back burner and made him wait.
That’s because his syndrome is so similar to crying wolf. Keep pretending everything is a crisis and after a bit everyone knows what you send out is not a crisis. In fact, it might be useless information. Or, information that needs to be more thoroughly analyzed and dissected before it actually provides value.
That takes time and thought. In those situations, it is better to do the job correctly, with contemplation involved.
When ASAP is thrown your way, do you ask when the report is due? That one question would solve a lot of business problems and reduce stress.
You need a concrete deadline, not ASAP, to do good work. You need to know the deadline, why it is important, where the information/product/service is going and why.
“I need this ASAP,” can be changed to, “We’ve got some important customer deals we need to finish by the end of this week. It would help greatly if you could get that data analyzed by Thursday afternoon, so I have some time to edit it. That will make sure we put our best foot forward.”
That gives you rationale, timing and motivation to give the job the intensity required. So get on it.
We’re on a speed train in business these days, and in many ways it’s about to wreck rational and logical thought. Embracing rapid-fire thinking and decision-making is necessary at times, but when it becomes ASAP all the time, there is something fundamentally wrong.
Next time you get the ASAP chant, pose a questions to figure out its real importance, “When do you need this? Do anyone else need to review this? Is there anything else I need to know?” Everyone will feel much better with the result because the job will get done with the diligence and focus necessary.