Three Tips On How To Get Others To Do Your Work

There is a lot of teamwork that takes place in the IT industry. A part of working in teams is spreading the workload - you can’t be expected to handle all of the work yourself. This post isn’t about delegation from a team leader or manager’s situation - it’s more about how to get other team members to do work for you, fairly, without tricks or any sly tactics! Keep reading to find out more!

Why Do I Need Others To Do My Work?

The main reason people do work for each other is that their skills and experience will vary. In a group of IT professionals, there will be commonly a variety of skills and experience - knowledge about technology, systems or people. Team members ask others to do work if they require help with something, if the other person knows more about a certain area of the business, or if they've got the necessary access or capability to do it. This is an important part of teamwork, not just for IT professionals, but for all teams.

Give And You Shall Receive

The easiest method to get other people to do your work is to do something on their behalf in return. What I mean with this, is to be responsive whenever they ask you to do work for them. If you’re doing work for them, when they ask you for it, and it's of a high quality, then they will remember this when you ask them whether they can do something for you. Giving something to them before seeking something from them is a great way to develop teamwork.

However, don’t mention the fact that you just did something for them. Don’t state that “I just did that thing for you, might you do this for me?” It makes it seem like you only did their work to get something in return, which seems insincere, and might annoy the other person. Keep the two tasks separate - they'll make the link in their mind as needed. They could realize you did something for them lately, without you bringing it up.

Be Considerate Of Their Time

Once you ask someone to perform some work for you, whether it be to help you with a task, set up some access for you, review some code or anything else, make sure you’re considerate of their time. You may realize, many of us IT professionals keep busy with our work. We typically don’t enjoy having additional work presented to us, when it doesn’t help us directly.

A good way to help get a “yes” from a team member is to be considerate of their time. Opening with something similar to “I know you’re very busy” or “I understand you have a lot of work to do” demonstrates you are considerate of their time and that you don’t see yourself as the top priority. It will help the chances of you getting them to say yes, and they would be in a better mood for it, as people enjoy consideration.

Explain The Reason or Big Picture

A lot of IT professionals are curious about the reason why they do the work they do. They are curious about the bigger picture - why the system is going to be built, why a new server is being commissioned, why an organization is updating to VoIP services. If you ask them to do a task for you, it helps to tell them why you’re asking them. Not merely because they are the individual to do it, but why it’s even being done in the first place.

A task like, “Could you provide me a report on everyone who has access to this server?” may seem like enough, but consider adding a reason - “John has been asked to evaluate the list to remove expired users and decrease the security risk to the server”. This assists the other person why it’s actually being done - it conveys the main benefit of the task to them, which supports them agree to it.