Does nagging work?

Does Nagging Work?

I am one of those people who hate to be nagged and so I was quite surprised during a session I recently ran as part of our 6 month programme, when one of the members said “I need to be nagged”. The comment made me stop and think – what is it that makes nagging work?

In today’s busy business world we have so much information flowing around us that important actions can get lost. We only need to log onto the web, get our homepage up to immediately get sidetracked onto a news item. We go into our email and get caught on clicking a link to a video – which yes, possibly useful, but not necessarily at that moment. The pace at which we work is somewhere between fast and go faster and no matter how hard we try, we can lose focus on the actions that take our business forward.

One of the best people I know for nagging is an old colleague, Maureen. She had an amazing work ethic. Any work that came in during the day, if physically possible, was completed that day. This was her way of staying ‘stress free’. It meant that if she needed you to do something for her to complete a piece of work – heaven help you if you didn’t do it immediately. As I so hated receiving the ‘chase up’ phone call  – yep you’ve guessed it, I would do it just to get it out of the way. Did her nagging work – you bet it did!

Of course with nagging it depends on whose’ agenda it is. Sometimes it is for the good of the nagger sometimes for the good of the ‘naggee’. In the case of the person at the start of this blog, it is definitely for the good of the naggee. To be reminded in business to set our objectives, have a 6 month forecast, establish our conversion rates, these are the actions that really take our business forward. Unfortunately they can get lost in the busyness of delivery or networking. I’ll do it tomorrow can often be the thought as a day progresses. Yet, it is this accountability that our clients love when they work with us.

So, in conclusion, whilst I might not nag, there will be firm encouragement for those actions that will help that member to grow their business. Yep, that firm encouragement will get repeated until the action takes place. OK, I guess that does sound a bit like nagging but in my experience as part of BusinessFit Club that encouragement, nagging, accountability, call it what you will, will make all the difference.

Joanne Element