"Managing-Upwards" with Urgency

Mark,

Good morning! After hearing the "Creating a Sense of Urgency" podcast this morning on the way to work, I had to drop you a line.

I am responsible for the progress of a team of 17 individuals that are piloting a new business process root cause method. The process has been previously applied to manufacturing processes; we are now applying it to our Product Development Process. Although the company is very product-centric, the issues we find relate to strategy, finance, and business decisions that caused product issues. As such, most of the team members are mid-level managers with at least 20+ years of experience (and age) on me. As the team facilitator, I am responsible for teaching the process and working through the pilot issues with them.

Needless to say, many individuals are not excited about or remotely interested in reporting to someone half their age. I quickly realized that executive sponsorship of a team is not enough. I had been struggling with how to hold individuals who are 3-4 levels higher than me in the organization accountable, even though they have more work, responsibility, and reports than me.

I decided to try the "When will you get that to me?" and "Date/Time" recommendations from your podcast, and the response was amazing. I realized these normally non-committal, too-busy team members were only reflecting my deferential behavior based on their position in the company. I did have to say "That's nice, and when will you get that to me?" several times, but everyone was extremely responsive and readily signed up to provide completed material by a specific time and date.

I look forward to the drive to and from work to learn more - thank you for such a great resource! Also, do you have any recommended resources for individuals that find themselves responsible for "managing-upwards"?

Thanks again!

Samuel