What To Do When Your Work Isn’t a Priority for Others

This is the final post in a series on better prioritization. We’ve already covered how to get to one priority, how to prioritize when everything is urgent, and how to coach someone to better prioritization. Today, the most stressful situation of all: what do you do when you need something from someone, but your work isn’t a priority for them?

What Not to Do

Before we get into some strategies that might work to move your priorities up someone else’s list, let’s talk about a few that won’t. Don’t:

Continually talk about your priority and emphasize how important it is to you.Offload your stress and anxiety about the consequences of not accomplishing your task on them (or blame them for your predicament)Go around the person or over their head to complain that they aren’t cooperatingCriticize or denigrate the person for their inappropriate priorities and not “getting it”

Essentially, the wrong moves are all the things you feel like doing or saying because “ARE YOU SERIOUS, THIS IS SO IMPORTANT AND I’M TOAST IF YOU DON’T HELP ME!!”

I get it.

Instead, try to find a little calm and forethought, which will greatly increase your chances of getting them to budge.

How To Move Your Priority Up Their List

If your stressed-out brain is sending you all the wrong signals, what are your options for getting your frontal lobe in the game and addressing your colleague more constructively?

State What You Need Clearly and Calmly

What: Start with a simple, clear, objective statement of what you’re looking for. Don’t muddy the waters by getting into the why or the how at this stage, just the facts, ma’am.

“I need you to provide a report on all the leads we’re chasing at General Motors at the moment, including the size of the deal, the timing, and the likelihood we’ll win it.”

Why: After you are clear on what you need, move to why. Describe what’s at stake so the person can gauge how important and urgent your request is.

“I need this report because the head of Europe is walking into a meeting with the EU next week, and there is a possibility of a sizable deal. He wants to know everything else that’s in play so he can factor it into the negotiations.”

When: Explain the urgency and own it if some of that urgency is due to a mistake on your part. A little vulnerability could go a long way here. We’ve all been in a pickle and needed someone to do us a solid to get us out.

“I’m sorry this is coming to you with only two days’ notice. I hit a few dead ends before learning you were the right person to talk to. I’m sorry about that.”

Try to keep the what, the why, and the when as succinct as possible. Adding more words can make you look desperate and like you haven’t collected your thoughts in advance.

Ask Where Your Priority Fits Among Theirs

Next, get them talking. Ask what else is on their plate and where your priority fits among the things they’re already dealing with.

“Could you share where this is landing in your priority list, so I have a sense of where we’re at?”

This is helpful because it will give you the map of other things you need to displace if you’re going to accelerate your priority. More importantly, it will show the other person that you get it and understand they weren’t sitting around twiddling their thumbs waiting for you and your urgent task to drop out of the sky.

Understand What it Would Take for Them to Deliver

Another worthwhile avenue is to probe to understand what it would take for them to deliver what you need. You might think it’s a quick 30-minute toss-off when in reality, it’s multiple hours of work. Alternatively, they might need another person or some other resource to do what you need. Again, you’re empathizing, learning, and setting yourself up to strategize different options.

“I’m not very knowledgeable about your process. Can you give me a sense of what’s involved in pulling this report together?”

Negotiate on Scope and Timing

As you listen and learn more about what’s required to deliver your request, you might learn that there are easier and harder parts, or faster and slower parts. You might be able to sub-divide your request so that they can help you with a smaller component. Or you could get the most urgent piece quickly, but wait for something you don’t need immediately.

“It sounds like the projects going through Detroit are relatively easy to find, but anything happening within the branch plants is harder. Would it be possible for you to get just the Head Office proposals together by end of the day Thursday?”

Source Additional Resources

Your sleuthing might also reveal that other people or other resources might make all the difference. If so, you might be able to access those resources or ask your manager to do so. Those resources might be to help the person do your task or, alternatively, to help move something else off their plate so they can prioritize your activity without letting any of their own balls drop.

“What if I were to find someone who could take your monthly report prep off your hands so you don’t have to worry about that at the same time as the report for the EU meeting?”

Identify the Escalation Process

If none of those approaches is getting traction and you still believe your task deserves to move up their priority list, you could ask about the appropriate escalation process. Don’t go around the person, but do invite them to join you.

“It sounds like you’ve got other important things on your plate, but I’m not getting any relief from my boss. Would it make sense for us to get in the room with our managers to let them decide how to prioritize these things?”

If It Doesn’t Work

All your calm, curious, collaborative efforts might not be enough to move your priority up their list. Your organization’s goals may be highly siloed and misaligned, and your colleague can’t accommodate your needs without risking their own delivery, evaluation, and reputation.

Alternatively, you might have a false sense of the importance and urgency of your task, and it really doesn’t deserve to be moved up in priority order.

In that case, don’t get mad at the person or blame them. That’s only going to make the process more adversarial next time you have to ask for a favor. Give your stakeholders a heads up about the delay and do your best to be in as good a position as possible when they provide what you need.

Additional Resources

Too Many False Alarms

Prioritize Means Deprioritize

The wonderful Dr. Hayley Lewis with What to Do When Your Boss’s Priorities Aren’t the Same as Yours

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