It’s not just assignments in school that need to be submitted on time, usually before the end of the semester, for the grades. After graduation, there are even more reports that need to be completed on status of a project, accomplishments, financial results, and even minutes of a meeting.
These are expected to be handed in by a certain “deadline.” This word arises from prison usage. It is the line which when crossed indicates that a prisoner intends to escape and thus can be shot dead by the guards. Getting past the deadline invites dire consequences.
Deadlines have been instilled in us from childhood. So, book reports, term papers, theses, and group projects need to be submitted by a certain day up to just before midnight, if e-mailed. Even exams should be finished by a certain time when the paper has to be passed when the bell rings.
Deadline dodging, honed also from childhood has promoted cleverness in coming up with excuses — the dog ate my homework just as I was working on the last paragraph. In the digital age, it is probably the cat to be blame for deleting your file, and running away with your USB. Ok, there’s the cloud to contend with here.
Can a deadline be dodged? Here are some excuses to elude a shot from the prison tower.
There are some new developments. This approach dispenses with deadlines altogether due to uncontrollable factors. Three days before the submission date, some unexpected development (bird flu or nuclear testing in North Korea) is reported to the boss. The new crisis forces the assignee to revise everything. Additional inputs are needed to update the report and make it relevant.
We need to call in more witnesses. This political excuse is merely announced. While full TV coverage of legislative hearings communicate urgency and melodrama on whatever is being investigated, the ensuing report after all this may just transcripts of the whole proceeding (and then you put on your clothes?). Is there even a report expected afterwards? Witnesses recant their earlier bombshells. They go under protective custody. Media and the public get tired of the circus, until a new scandal breaks out.
More details are needed. With the exchange of e-mails and the scheduling of further meetings to clarify or add to the “deliverables” being asked, the deadline becomes a distant blur. (Are you including the cash in the envelopes in the drawers?) The degree of detail and the timelines needed (do we go back five years?) can make the original deadline seem unreasonable.
There’s a change in the procedures. An automation study which is never finished (we are now on parallel run) is a good excuse for pushing back the deadline. We need a new audit trail. Completion of the project is in a never-ending flux, like a road project with stencilled original deadlines stripped away in the dead of night.
Still, the deadline dodger must accept that there are dates that are mercilessly immovable. These include mandated deadlines from regulatory bodies, yearend reports, and fraud investigations covered by media. Ready or not, one needs to pass his paper.
Some bosses believe that missing deadlines is a major character flaw that needs to undergo ethnic cleansing or regime change. These sticklers for rules cannot be reasoned with. If the dog ate your homework, open its entrails and pull out the table of contents.
Anyway, even government sometimes lets the deadlines slide — we’re waiting for more qualified bidders for this project. Expressing exasperation over delays only isolates a bidder as a whiner who doesn’t accept how business is done.
Meeting deadlines too consistently attracts the enmity of procrastinators who easily outnumber the deadline conformists. The prompt and punctual are viewed with contempt as paper-shufflers, and dismissed as having nothing more important to do than submit reports nobody reads — doesn’t he have clients? Sometimes, meeting deadlines can be hazardous to one’s career, especially if the report that is released has some inconvenient conclusions — why didn’t your clear this with me before submitting it to the board?
Those who miss deadlines habitually are notorious blame-passers — I would have finished the report but HR did not give me the statistics on churn. Unfortunately, a cunning talent for avoiding blame (which goes with grabbing undeserved credit) can even push the procrastinator to the top… when he requires reports of others to be submitted on time.
A. R. Samson is chair and CEO of Touch DDB.
