The recent US Presidential election was a turbulent and defiant campaign by both Donald Trump and Kamala Harris. Trump won to become the 47^th president of the USA.  The election wasn’t a nail-biter like many expected. It was a resounding one-sided victory for Trump and a rejection of Harris

Kamala faring badly can be attributed to the delay in her nomination by the Democrats. She secured the Democratic nomination without receiving a single vote as Democrats quickly rallied around her following Biden’s exit.

Was Harris the right choice to take on Trump? Should they have looked elsewhere? Or should they have stuck with Biden?  Harris unexpectedly joined the presidential race in July after Biden stepped aside. Her delayed entry into the scene was solely because Biden kept pending his decision to withdraw from the presidential race until July 2024.It was a costly procrastination for the Democrats.

The verb to pend means to remain undecided or unsettled, or to hang. It simply implies putting off action that is required to be taken. More often than not there is no justifiable reason to delay action. The old adage says it all, procrastination is the thief of time. Sometimes the action is vitally urgent and the delay could be extremely costly to individuals and organisations. Let me analyse this all pervasive phenomenon which occurs at all levels and describe my approach and attitude to this problem.  

On assuming command of our Regiment, I inherited the office from my predecessor.  My instruction was to leave everything in an As-Is where-is condition with no changes or additions to be made other than placing my computer that had served me for five years, on the Commanding Officer’s table.

Like most military offices, there were three trays on the right-side of the table marked IN, PENDING and OUT. I got these labels removed. For me the entire table was my workstation, and nothing pended on it.  Any file or document that came in had to go out with my decision or remarks ASAP.  I wished to strictly abide by the Observation Post Officers dictum of the Regiment of Artillery – Your first reaction is the best reaction.

During my military service I found that most files or documents sent to the higher-ups found their way out at 1 PM and then began the hectic activity by subordinates to implement action on various tasks.  Why couldn’t they take the decisions earlier in the day?

Whenever I visited a senior officers’ office, I found that most had their Pending Tray full. On inquiry they said that these files need further studies and deliberations before they took a decision.  One officer said slyly that it was to show how busy he was. Once I was called by a General Officer to his office as he wanted to personally brief me on a task. I was horrified by the mountains of files on his table. I could barely see his face between them and felt sorry for the formation that he was commanding. This when he had dozens of very competent staff officers who could crunch any issue into an easy decision-making capsule which he could deal with in minutes.

When you keep a file pending, ask yourself the reason for keeping it pending. Think how much your subordinates suffer due to your delayed decisions.  Many justify pending a job to think and deliberate about it and come out with better decisions.  That may be true for one or two issues in a week and does not call for a filled up Pending Tray. Some pend a decision not because they are unable to decide but simply because others around them, more often than not their bosses, are not going to like the decision. Sometimes we know the right decision but we are afraid to take the decision due to many extraneous reasons. There are still others who find the decision making very problematic and throw the file into the pending tray somehow believing that the problem will resolve itself. It is popularly believed that in India we had a Prime Minister with this tendency

When I look back at my life in the military, I have no doubt that subordinates always loved quick decision making leaders, particularly those that don’t pend difficult and unpleasant decisions. These leaders invariably are much loved and popular and their organisations eminently flourish during their leadership.

Each of us need to squarely face our demons and exorcise them if you don’t want files in your pending tray. In life too as in the workspace we need to keep our tables clean and our pending trays empty if we choose to have one. IDEALLY JUST GET RID OF IT as I did.