What Do You Do When You Don’t Get a Response?

By Vicki Wrona, PMP:

Have you ever had someone who just wouldn’t respond to your messages, no matter how much you tried to reach them? There are a myriad of reasons why this occurs. Regardless of that, how do you interpret the silence? What do you do about it?

I just read a thought-provoking article with many comments and very good suggestions on this very subject. It’s a common problem that we all experience. What I struggle with is achieving the balance of showing the client or customer that I am diligent and follow-up on commitments and promises vs. appearing desperate or annoying and hounding the person.

Some people are quick to say that the commitment to provide a response or not is generational. When I think back to specific examples, I would have to disagree with that assessment. I have experienced both good and bad follow-up from all age groups. I agree that we are all busy and sometimes overwhelmed with our responsibilities and commitments, but does that mean it’s OK to leave people hanging? People will interpret silence in many ways, most often in a very negative or insecure way, making up reasons for the silence. Rarely is the real reason the scenario they choose to fixate on in their minds.

Not only will people make up the message behind the silence, but, to many people, it also sends a strong signal about the silent person’s professionalism or work mode. That is why I try very hard to keep up with emails and provide a response, even if the response is, ‘I got your message and will address it by Friday’. This gives them an idea of what I am like to work with. Plus I treat people the way I would like them to treat me, hoping that what goes around does come around.

One way to avoid this problem is to set groundrules early in working with a person or team. As soon as possible, determine the best way to communicate from that point forward. Common groundrules include deciding if email or phone call is preferred, how often we will meet, or the definition of a high priority or urgent request and how will that be differentiated from other messages. In addition, determining rules for email subject, to and cc lines can be outlined.

So what do you do when someone stops responding, or ‘goes dark’ as we have sometimes called it? Share your ideas here on what we can do to avoid this in our futures.

Here is the article: http://blogs.hbr.org/bregman/2010/01/when-your-voicemails-and-email.html