What Did You Expect?

If you want to make a quantum leap as a manager, there is something you should start doing right away. Don’t allow another day go by without making this one management practice a consistent habit. Your stress levels will decrease, and employee productivity is likely to increase. Of course, how much each of those – stress and productivity – is impacted will be dependent upon some other variables, too, but you can address those as well.

In training managers in different sized companies, in different industries, with a variety of experience, and a diversity of backgrounds, I have found that this particular habit is one in which managers grade themselves quite poorly. “The question asked is this: Do your employees know exactly what your performance expectations are for them?” On a scale of 1 to 10, the cumulative average response is 6.68 out of 10. That is 66.8% – barely passing on a traditional grading scale; somewhere around “Sometimes” on the descriptive scale.

Sometimes? Sometimes employees know what your expectations are? No wonder the stress is high and the train wrecks occur more frequently than we would like.

Further discussions generally lead to even worse conclusions. That is, managers generally admit that the reason they scored themselves that well (66.8%) is due to job descriptions and employee manuals – after all, these documents tell employees what is expected of them, don’t they? Hmmm. Not really. The truth is, managers are not consistently communicating their expectations for performance with their employees, and the consequences are more than significant.

When discussing expectations, we are really discussing expectations for results. What RESULTS do you expect? Some results are measurable – sales revenue, for instance. Some are not as readily measurable – customer satisfaction is a good example. Here is another: All employees will treat each other with respect and professionalism at all times. Another: We will do everything in our power to delight our customers, not just satisfy them.
“High achievement always takes place in the framework of high expectation.”

Charles Kettering

The point is that managers are often guilty of criticizing employee performance without clearly establishing their expectations for that performance. Think about it – how many times do you assume that your employees know what you expect? I think you will find that the answer is much more often than you would like. And this is critically important during performance appraisals – do your employees know exactly how they will be graded? Do they know what measures are used to actually grade their performance.

We ask managers that question, too. “Do your employees know what measures are used to grade their performance?” Score: 5.71. Definitely failing. Somewhere around “Occasionally.”

If employees are at all unclear about performance expectations – in any area – and are further unclear about the measures that are used to grade their performance, how effective will they be in their jobs?

If you find yourself asking why your employees seem to fall short more than you think they should, let me ask you: “What did you expect?”