In today’s cautious environment, it is rare that anything is actually brought to completion. The average decision today involves 42 people and takes 12 days and 17 hours – up an average of 52,000% since 1990.
On the average, meetings and deadlines are postponed 77 percent of the time – and the people responsible for the postponing are becoming more and more important.
To put things off takes skill and finesse – so much more than just sending out a last-minute e-mail. To be effective, one must strategize, formulate, consult, and often form a task force to examine the most effective means of postponing.
“Most top-tier companies value effective postponement skills on the same level as prioritizing synergies and turning lemons into lemonade,” says Carla Norris, Senior Behaviorist with the Clanster Institute.
“Some who can make the actual act of postponing so memorable that people will forget all about what’s being postponed has a bright future indeed.”
