Blockers - How to deal with situations where everything feels like doom and gloom?
How to deal with roadblocks?
Analyze your situation and then decide how to move forward.
What is causing the problem?
Sometimes, it’s extremely clear where and how you are running up against a problem or roadblock. But other times, it might be shadowed by a lot of variables over which we do not have any control. Regardless, before you can move into any other decision-making phase, you must determine what and where you are running up against that wall.
“This is my roadblock. It is being caused by x, y, or z.”
What are My Options?
Write down two to three options that are absolutely right in front of you, then decide which of these is right for you right now.
What’s the First Next Step?
There are likely many next steps to get you from blocked to racing again, but it always helps to look at things one step at a time.
If you know where you want to go, and you can just start slowly but surely stepping around the roadblock that’s keeping you from reaching for your next best life, take it a little bit at a time. Sometimes, all it takes is that first step forward to propel you into a place you never thought was possible.
You should take the situation to your manager. You should indicate your intention to continue getting your job done, and then you should advocate for a different process (or potentially a data set) that frees you from being dependent on this ask and frees them from being interrupted with your requests.
The only real way to affect change for yourself is to have the process modified.
The simplest answer to all examples is the same.
- Proceed as long as you can safely do so
- Notify all concerned (including both superiors, as well as colleges where their work is dependent on your work)
- Have other tasks/projects to work on when you are blocked completely.
Communication, preparedness, and improvisation are the holy trinity of dealing with work blockages.
I have found that when you’re not given enough resources to do the job or there are massive obstacles to completion with no explanation given, that usually means you’re expected to come up with a plan to resolve these deficiencies.
You should see this as an opportunity.
From the point of view of your boss, they don’t want to have to orchestrate and setup every detail for each of their reports so that they can just “do their specific job”.
From your point of view, it may look like you’re being hanged out to dry. But what it really means you have some amount of latitude to deal with the problems in front of you even if they’re “not your job”.
So, yes, go reach out to those backend folks and tell them what you need and why. Get yourself into the meetings of other groups so you can join forces with them and collaborate, communicate with other people’s bosses if you need to. If you go too far, someone will alert you and you can just tell them that you’re proactively trying to unblock some problem. This will be seen in a very positive light in most places even if sometimes they need to rein you in.
This is the kind of behavior that gets called “being a self-starter”, you can remember these incidents and recall them during a behavioral interview as an example. This is perhaps one of the most desirable traits in professional employees. It means you’ll need to deal with some conflict but that’s part of the job.