PM: Dealing with Ghosts…

The term “ghosting” typically applies in a personal setting and is defined as: the practice of ending a personal relationship with someone by suddenly and without explanation withdrawing from all communication.

Have you ever been ghosted, in a professional setting?

That is, you were actively involved in an engagement, fluidly communicating with someone, when suddenly you get absolutely NO response. No response from email, phone or text.

To this, we might ask questions such as: Where’d they go? Are they pissed? Did we blow it? Did they evaporate? What happened?

Then, out of the blue, a response materializes as if nothing was off…

In business, ghosting would include the following practices, which occur during an active relationship or engagement when someone doesn’t respond to a(n):

• phone call / voice message seeking information
• email message asking a question
• text message to prompt a quick conversation on an important topic
• meeting request so the facilitator knows who will be attending

Know that if we exhibit these behaviors, our image as a professional may become a bit tainted. That is, we may be viewed as “ineffective.” Essentially, the ghoster has broken the chain of fluid communications which is absolutely necessary to facilitate getting things done in an efficient and effective manner.

As such, the first step is to model the behavior we wish to see. And that is, we absolutely do NOT ghost others – ever!

Said another way, in today’s fast-paced environment, how are we to count on a project sponsor or team member, or work with a client, when we “frequently” experience this gap in communication resulting in an ongoing waste of time and energy?

The first thing we must do, when we are ghosted, is NOT take it personally… Instead, we must realize that we are NOT the center of someone else’s universe.

Second, when we see this behavior exhibited by people who are important to us, or our project, we MUST confront them to ensure they are aware of the impact the practice is having on us, the project and the poor example they are demonstrating to others.

To do so, we might say something like: You are an extremely important member of the team. Your time is valuable, as is mine. When I reach out to you, I’m seeking information or to collaborate with you in an effort to achieve our common goal (completion of this project). When you don’t respond to my inquiries, it causes me to spend extra time following up with you (leading to more interruptions for you) and/or time passes without the input we are seeking which could result in the project going astray. Finally, it gives me and the other team-members the impression you aren’t engaged or don’t care which I know is not the case. As such, it would be GREATLY appreciated if you could respond to ALL my inquiries as I would do for you. And, please let me know if I could do anything differently to more effectively engage with you.

Remember, it is not what we say but how we say it.

And, the most important thing I can say to this topic is: be NOT a ghoster. Let’s leave ghosting to the paranormal. It does NOT belong in a professional setting.

In closing, if you are seeking to up-level PM competencies in yourself, or organization, please reach out to discuss how we can help.

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