“My expectation is …”
“My expectation is …”
Imagine that you are playing a game, but you don’t know the rules; you have to pick it up as you go along by watching others, and then figuring out how to apply their experience to your own performance. You will make many mistakes, you will perform poorly, and you may feel personally embarassed. Now imagine that you are playing this game with people who are supposed to help you, and you know that they know the rules, but for whatever reason, they aren’t telling you the rules. You would likely feel dejected, unvalued, you may feel resentment at your unfair treatment, and would likely not have any desire to stick around and keep playing the game. Now imagine an entire team being treated in this way. How could such a team ever survive, let alone win?
We are playing this game with our employees; it is a high stakes game where our entire shared future is the prize for success, and the cost for failure. We ask the players on the team to give us 100% of their potential - their blood, sweat and tears. And in return, we promise to explain the rules, help guide and develop their performance against those rules, and inspire them to continue giving that 100% when it gets even harder than it already is. We must not neglect the bedrock work of explaining the rules of the business, of our department, of our discipline, of our imposed goals from our own leadership, and of our own personal leadership style. And we, as leaders, have to boil these down into consumable sets of expectations which can be held in the minds of our team members as they go about their daily duties.
One of the first promises I make to any team I’m leading is that I will always strive to set fair, simple, clear expectations for them. And I will communicate clearly when I do it. I tell them that I will always use the same language when I’m doing it, so there is never any possibility for ambiguity. When I speak to my team, and I say, “My expectation is…” - everyone perks up. Because they know that I am not giving an opinion, or an off the cuff remark, or an emotional response to something that just happened. I am articulating a rule of the game we are playing together; I am explaining a strongly held position that represents the shared values of the business we all support, the strategic goals of my own leadership, and the culture of our organization, by which everyone’s future performance (including my own) will be judged.
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