The Key Discipline for Following Up

Without effective follow-up, the necessary momentum needed to work toward completion of an initiative often sputters and results in a disappointing outcome.

Following up is usually the difference maker for getting others to act. Of the many habits productive leaders and team members master, perhaps none is more important than the discipline of following up.

Yet, many people seem to be missing some or all of the self-discipline that follow-up requires.

Of course, when people perceive a task as intrinsically valuable to them personally, they are more likely to persist and follow up. Conversely, goals that feel imposed, unimportant, or without an immediate payoff make follow-through much less likely.

Disorganization, laziness, and being overwhelmed by tasks can also get in the way.

But that doesn’t explain why so many relatively productive people lack the full urgency and self-discipline to maintain the actions of reinforcement and persistence necessary for completing what’s been started.

Everyone knows the essential ingredients of great follow-up: gathering more information, checking on progress, providing additional support, repeating a previous action, summarizing where things stand, reviewing pending tasks, keeping others informed, scheduling next steps, and thanking others.

None of those are difficult or uncomfortable to perform. But they all require planning, and that’s where people falter.

Some follow-up happens naturally without much thought, but finding the true discipline behind follow-up actions requires a plan. The key to follow-up is to define what further actions are necessary to ensure progress before completing the last step.

For instance, before concluding a current meeting, leaders who clarify what follow-up needs to occur before the next meeting, and include a check-in on those actions on their own task list, are almost guaranteed to see follow-up occur, both on their part and by others.

The most productive people don’t expect to find the memory, time, or bandwidth to follow up naturally. They identify the follow-up steps or actions that must occur before concluding any meeting, sub-task, or interaction.

Leaders sometimes delegate these actions, but the key is to clarify them now before concluding this step in the process. For individuals, this usually means adding follow-up tasks to their to-do list.

Examine the task list of a highly productive leader or team member, and you will see as many follow-up actions as you do new responsibilities to be completed.

Planning for and monitoring follow-up steps on an ongoing assignment are as important as starting any new initiative or task for the most effective people.

Great follow-up transforms initial steps or decisions into lasting results by keeping the pressure on the actions required to make progress.

The most productive people don’t drop the ball and let initiatives languish from a lack of attention to and planning for the follow-up steps. They view follow-up as the holy grail of effectiveness.

Great follow-up doesn’t just communicate excellence. It creates it.