What do you do when a colleague cannot provide you the information you need for your report on time?

Situation

Last semester, I was part of a group for our Business Policy class where we were analyzing Petron's market strategy. Our finance sub-group lead, Ray, was responsible for providing the latest profit and loss data by Wednesday, but by Friday afternoon, he still hadn't shared it. Our final report and presentation were due the following Monday.

Task

My task was to compile the full report, and without the financial data, we couldn't properly structure our recommendations. I needed to ensure the report was complete without damaging team relationships.

Action

I first approached Ray privately through a chat message to check if he was encountering any problems. He admitted he was overwhelmed with a family emergency and was struggling to sort the data. I empathized and asked how I could help. I offered to take the raw financial statements from the university library and do the initial number extraction myself, so he could just validate the figures. He gratefully agreed. I spent Saturday morning pulling the numbers, sent them to Ray for review, and he confirmed them by Saturday evening. We then finalized the report together on Sunday.

Result

We submitted a polished report ahead of the deadline and received a grade of 1.25. More importantly, Ray felt supported, and our team cohesion improved. Our professor even commented on the depth of our financial analysis.