Responsiveness is the degree in which you get back to colleagues and foster progress.Your colleagues also do not have a lot of time. Their world is as frenetic as yours. When your colleagues do reach you, they need your help in order to keep moving forward.
Have you been labeled as unresponsive? Do your colleagues use the phrases “black hole,” “bottomless pit” or “it’s like pulling teeth” when describing you? Your colleagues are reaching out to you for a reason. Most of the time, your colleagues are contacting you to obtain something from you (i.e., information, an opinion) in order to make progress on whatever is important to them. Some colleagues may be reaching out just to say “hello,” yet even those colleagues are looking for something – opportunities to build a professional relationship with you. If you have been labeled as a black hole, you are injuring your visibility in two ways –
– Your unresponsiveness impacts negatively on the progress of others.
– Your unresponsiveness impacts the desire for others to reach out to you in the future.
These behaviors are visibility decelerators – your unresponsiveness creates frustration and damages relationships. You become an obstructionist of individual and organizational progress.
