Ask Christa! How Can I Ask My Work Friend to Meet Deadlines? (S4E46)

Introduction

Hi everyone and welcome to Ask Christa! the place where you can ask questions about how to work through business challenges and workplace issues. I'm Christa Dhimo and today’s listener question is about one of the most important factors to increased work performance, employee engagement, and higher quality outcomes… and yet, according to Gallup research, which of course I’ll include in the show notes, only 20% of employees take the time to developing this essential aspect to the workplace: 

Having friends at work.

Now hear me out—it’s about connection, camaraderie, support, sharing in the work and the wins, and it’s become even more important since the pandemic.

Those relationships are built on trust and respect, and that of course is necessary in a healthy work environment, but what happens if you’re the project manager on a project and your work bestie isn’t performing up to expectations?

That’s the focus of this episode.

Listener Question

Here’s the listener question: “I work in a great place. We are paid fairly, have leaders who are visible and non-pretentious, and managers who are trained on key management skills every quarter based on the weaknesses listed from our annual employee engagement and satisfaction survey. We have the time to cultivate relationships and regularly practice effective communication, conflict management, and feedback check ins to be sure we’re practicing what we believe in, and that’s working as best as possible together. We are also encouraged to make close friendships without the obligation of required afterwork gatherings. 

I’m lucky enough to have a bestie at work, and when I say bestie, I really mean it. We’ve been working together for three years, and we clicked the first time we worked on a project. We’ve grown up in the ranks together, but we have different interests and skills, so last year I was promoted to a project manager and she was promoted to Lead Analyst. She leads on the system work and I manage the projects. She’s a super star, and her team loves her. She enables everyone to do good work, and people rely on her and her team knowing they’ll get the work done.

Due to a recent resignation, she’s taken on a System Analyst role in her team while they backfill the position. She can do the work easily, but isn’t meeting the deadlines. At first we were casual about it, and I let things slip a few times, but now I regret that. She knows she’s missing deadlines, and I’ve asked her to talk with her manager about it, but for some reason she isn’t. And she just missed another deadline that I have to report because it was a big one.

I’ve been talking with my manager about it, but asking her to let me manage this before it needs escalation because I don’t want it to impact the friendship I have with my work bestie. But at this point, I don’t know what to do. I’m not helping her by ignoring the issue, but this morning she asked me to give her one more chance—that she knows she’s putting some things at risk, but she’ll be talking with her manager about it tomorrow. I don’t feel comfortable continuing this way, though. How do I ask my work bestie to stop missing deadlines?”

Besties at Work 

This is a tough one, and I can see how our listener is regretting the early decisions to address this more immediately, but I also want to point out that it’s perfectly natural to trust people at work to get their work done if they’ve earned the reputation to getting work done. In fact, you SHOULD START by giving people the benefit of the doubt.

My guess is that this isn’t completely about the friendship, though. It sounds like it’s something most of us struggle with, and that’s addressing performance issues early enough to convey your role as supportive but also your role as having to hold others accountable without micro-managing those who you know are competent and experienced.

And the deeper the trust and more loyal you feel, the more we ALL will default to giving someone the benefit of the doubt, even if we have something nagging us deep down that it’s an issue or will likely become an issue, as is the case here where our listener’s bestie is overloaded with work—or that’s how it seems—and not keeping up as expected.

But there’s something else going on here, too. It’s not just the sense of giving someone the benefit of the doubt, but our listener is also forgetting that if this is as good a friendship as it seems to be, chances are the bestie is very aware of how she’s impacting the project, and is hanging on trying to do it all perhaps BECAUSE she doesn’t want to let HER bestie (our listener) down.

Getting to the Heart of the Matter

From an organizational perspective, it sounds like a dream place to work in. Leaders are present, managers stay sharp on their management skills, employees have opportunities to provide feedback for what’s working and where improvements need to be, and the organization focuses on prioritizing the improvements while enabling the company to stay in a strong zone for performance.

That GREATLY simplifies my answer, because our listener has all they need to address this issue within their organization. What makes this challenging is the crisscross of how you feel about someone as a close friend at work and how you feel about someone as a team mate you depend and rely on to get their work done… and how uncomfortable it is when you have to address a performance issue, no matter what it is.

But… this is made all the more uncomfortable not because they are such close friends, but because our listener is being OBJECTIVE in seeing the big picture. The bestie coworker seems to be a very effective manager, never missing a deadline previously, and operates in such a way that her team is reputed as dependable and reliable. And… it also seems that the one time the bestie is struggling to make a deadline happens to be with our listener.

And yes, this needs to be addressed and MAYBE it would have helped to have the discussion about missing deadlines sooner, but we all need to trust ourselves in hindsight and believe we always do the best we can in the moments we’re in. Hindsight is what teaches us what we need to learn.

SO—my first and only advice is it’s time to get to the heart of the matter. 

The bestie needs help, and the longer it takes to get her the help she needs, the quicker the company will have two problems on its hands: a presumably burnt out Lead Analyst missing deadlines AND a protective project manager avoiding to address the missed deadlines, thus putting the project at potential risk when... a big part of a project manager’s job is to manage the project… which is really about managing work pace, outcomes, risks, and workflow of your team. (and that’s just one part of being a project manager)

Addressing the Issue

Here’s what I recommend: 

First, have a direct discussion with your bestie. “Hi there… I know things have been hectic. You’re missing deadlines you never miss, and I’m getting worried—not just about the project and what might be at risk, but whether you’re headed toward burn out. I’d like to work together to put a plan in place for us to talk to our managers collectively and determine a solution to get you quick help and get the project deliverables back on track.”

By the way, I just used the same feedback tool I talked about in the last episode, Episode 45, as well as in Episode 16: The BIC Model. I focused first on observable behavior (that she’s missing deadlines she never misses), the impact it has (that I’m worried not just for the project’s sake but for hers also), and what we’re going to change (that we’ll talk to our managers and put a plan in place to resolve the issues).

BIC. Behavior, Impact, Change or Continue. Use it—especially for the positive “I’d like you to continue” times.

It may feel uncomfortable to talk to your bestie about them missing deadlines, but if you make it about her success and what she deserves to feel good about her work, the medicine goes down easier.

And again, this sounds like a supportive environment. If our listener described a blame-environment or a punishing environment where ANY mistake or deadline miss could end a career, this would have been a more complicated answer… and a … much longer episode.

Additional Resources

For your resources, I’ve included articles that emphasize the importance of having connections and feeling you have a bestie at work. I know it sounds squishy and fluffy—we’re here to do work, not have a best friend at work—but the science supports that employee engagement goes WAY up when people have strong, meaningful, trusting friendships at work. And with higher employee engagement comes higher productivity, fewer mistakes, higher quality of work, and a “hum” in the office that can’t be beat.

I’ve included two articles from Gallup. The first is transcripted from a webcast. You can access the webcast from the page also. It’s called, “Why having a best friend at work is important,” and it was issued in December 2022, and while the concept of having a best friend at work can be controversial—some asking, “Why do people need a best friend when they’re here to work?”—it’s not about social friendships. It’s about work friendships. Same… but… different.

The second article is from Patel and Plowman published in January 2024 called, “The increasing importance of a best friend at work.” It reinforces the impact of having a best friend at work, particularly as it relates to moving out of the pandemic and many companies keeping their remote and hybrid work setups. 

I also provided an article from Harvard Business Review. It is written by Jon Clifton, whose work on strengths is part of Gallup’s overall work studying organizational performance through manager impact and employee engagement. Published in October 2022, the article is called “The power of work friends,” and it’s a great article to persuade those who may not think friends at work should matter.

The last article is from Forbes, written by Aliza Knox and published June 2024. It’s called, “All work and some play—why friends at work matter.”

Again, I’m not providing any resources about how to manage performance issues when your best work friend is missing the deadlines, and that’s because you can always Google ways to manage performance issues at work. For this episode, I think it’s more important to underscore how important it is to feel connected with others in the workplace. I don’t think we talk about that enough, and if you want to learn more about addressing issues with your bestie at work, you really need to start by reading how important it is that you have that kind of friendship at work in the first place.

Wrap Up & Submitting Your Questions

And there it is, Episode 46 of Season 4!  Two more episodes and we’re onto Season 5, focused on questions about career growth.

Submit your question on my show’s site, AskChrista.com, that’s Christa with a C-H, where you will see all my episodes listed based on category and season. While your there—sign up for my More Answers… newsletter, where you will receive additional content on Sunday nights to set you up for the work week.

As always—thank you for your support. And remember, if you have a business challenge or a workplace issue—Ask Christa!