Have You Met NED?

A NED is a “No Excuses Deadline.” They are the “by-when” deadlines that must be accomplished in the journey toward fulfilling Key Expectations. NEDs become invaluable when failure to deliver on a Key Expectation is not an option. To effectively employ NEDs, everyone in your Expectations Chain (i.e., the people above you, below you, and around you who can impact delivery of the result) must see the Key Expectation, believe in it, and share responsibility for making it hap­pen. Once you’re clear and committed to what must be achieved and who should be involved, you can use a NED to make sure milestones and deadlines are met along the way. This means that whenever you develop a key expectation, you must not only carefully weigh the specifics of what you want to have happen and the people who will be required to take accountability to make it happen, you must also establish the NEDs that everyone needs to own in order to achieve results—no excuses.

Throughout your Expectations Chain, you will have what we call “critical links” that you depend upon to ensure things keep moving forward, on time and on budget.  Undoubtedly, associated with each of those critical links will be a NED—a No Excuses Deadline.  For all of us, there comes a time when we need to deliver, no matter what.  Taking accountability for that outcome and asking “what else can I do?” to ensure delivery becomes critical.

Consider the recent example of a large retail chain experiencing serious declines in same-store revenues that threatened the on-going viability of the business.  With the clock ticking, they had implemented ten different initiatives to get things going again.  All had failed, but one.  The one initiative that was working involved our Accountability Training.  Not a surprise to us—when people take accountability for results, things happen and it was happening here in a major way.  The Accountability Training in pilot stores had produced immediate results and added several points to top-line sales, which would mean millions of dollars in additional revenue when the training was adopted company-wide.  Time was of the essence. We had to train management and implement within the stores company-wide to capture the opportunity the holiday season provided.

Several NEDs throughout the Expectations Chain had to be established.  First, the curriculum had to be finalized, people had to be trained, managers needed to be coached, and the company-wide launch needed to happen, all within a matter of days.  Missing anyone of these NEDs meant everything would be delayed and daily revenue targets would be missed.  Everyone knew how important it was to hit their NEDs and they did so with a remarkable degree of accuracy and quality.

Now, the client is seeing the impact in terms of increasing same-store sales and every result they set out to achieve is being delivered.  Establishing NEDs in your own work with the people you depend upon will not only clarify what sorts of deadlines you are working with, but also create greater alignment and clear communication so that expectations are fulfilled.