E-Tip 254 - The Key to Managing Your Employees' Expectations

Did you know the power of "managing expectations" cannot be underestimated by a manager?

The Reality Of "Managing Expectations" Revolves Around 3 Simple Principles:

1. Managers communicate their expectations verbally and non-verbally to their staff.
2. People consciously and unconsciously understand their manager's expectations.
3. People perform in ways that are consistent with their manager's expectations.

More times than not, people excel in response to their manager's performance message. Conversely, it can undermine someone's performance when a manager does not articulate their expectations in a clear and concise manner. Although many managers' expectations are often subtle, they are picked-up consciously and unconsciously by their staff. It could be as simple as a manager failing to praise someone's performance as frequently as they praise others. Other times it could be them talking less to a particular person or not sharing ideas or personal items with someone else. Yes, people do pick-up on these little things because to them, it is that obvious.

Less Skilled Managers Will Reduce An Employee's Self-Esteem And Performance Level.

That's right. However, if a manager is skilled and has high expectations for all of his/her employees, their self-confidence grows, their skills get developed faster and their performance moves in a more positive direction.

Imagine For A Moment If You Were Able To Communicate Your Exact Expectations To Everyone You Manage.

If you have high-expectations of the people you manage, and you communicate those expectations to them, you will find your staff will begin to make more positive contributions and live up to your expectations.

Summary: Setting your employees' expectations is a critical element in managing people; however, don't stop there. Follow-up with your employees on a regular basis to ensure they are meeting your expectations. If not, you will find that some may take the path of least resistance in getting things done and that will produce "average" results more times than not.

Case in point: Let us say you are managing a sales team and you have set a "sales quota" for everyone. You also know each sales person needs to make a certain number of "prospect cold-calls" to make their quota. If you are not managing their level of "cold-calls" each week, there is a very good chance some people will not perform to your expectations. On the other hand, if you do manage their phone-time by setting specific dates, times and number of cold-calls they need to do each week, you will soon see their sales increase.

This means that as managers, we need to spend time getting to know our employees and understand how internally or externally they are driven. Then we can adjust our communication and follow up accordingly. Yes, it's that simple.

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