subject: Expectation Management [print this page] Expectation Management Expectation Management
Expectation Management
"If only I had your experience", uttered the youth. "If only I had your age", retorted the one with experience. In every person's career, there are times when earning takes precedence over learning and times when learning takes priority over earning. What satisfies the heart, what leaves it dissatisfied, why it gets transfixed, why it moves on, why it chooses to drop, what it chooses to dropthere are no reasons behind it. After all, human is not a creature of logic, but a creature of emotions.
An organization not being compatible with one's personal needs and necessities does not make the organization wrong. It's an issue of chemistry not working, not a matter of who is right and what is wrong. You cannot stand under a coconut tree and expect mangoes. What even more foolish is blaming the coconut tree for not fulfilling your expectations. So either change your expectation according to the tree or find a tree according to your expectations.
People are what they are. An organization is what it is. Life is what life is. You expect an organization to be other than what it is and get frustrated with it. If you think no organization is giving you the right work environment, then why don't you start an organization of your own and run it on your terms create the environment you want.
The famous management quote for Expectation Management is "Under commit over deliver". One who fixes this in the mind will always lead to the doors of Success. A simple example to know more facts of the above quote, I work in a HR support centre where we started the process with 7 members and the trainings were given from US, the team was well matured and know what they wanted. This team was always successful because we under committed our clients and always over delivered which ideally made the clients happy and they started to transition more processed to us. At one point of time the client decided to transition more than 50% of work to us and we were in a situation to recruit huge number of talent pool. The new team was named as Talent Delivery and the processes started flowing one by one. Since this team was new and many of the Talent had less experience and less management techniques their expectations were not set right.
There were lot of disturbances and confusions initially since the talent always promised the client that whatever task was given will be completed immediately which ideally the team could not complete in the stipulated time. This is the right example of "Over commit under deliver". Then this team was put across various management trainings and then the talent pool realized the real management scenario and techniques. After which this team started "Under committing and over delivering" that really made the clients happy and satisfied, which helped in transitioning other processes as well and today without this team the ENTIRE US offices cannot work even for a single day. BUT if this team would have not realized of what is expected from them and not worked on expectation management framework it would have been a BIG failure to the Indian office. This team today has lot of success stories and keeps rocking in all possible ways that they can.
So the moral is no matter wherever you are, whatever the job you do setting the right expectation is required for everyone. One can set the expectation for themselves in whatever the work they do so that at the end they are happy and satisfied of their work.
If you want a successful progress in your life, here are some simple ways.
Define your expectations (more often we ourselves aren't sure of what we are expecting)
Clarify your expectations explicitly.
Incase, if your expectations aren't fulfilled, check if you are expecting mangoes from coconut tree. If you find you are expecting coconuts from coconut tree, then keep communicating long enough; keep clarifying your expectations patiently.
Sure enough patience and perseverance will eventually bear fruit.
If this is not the case, for instance where you cannot change the tree, learn to accept coconut tree as coconut tree and change your expectations according to the tree.
Know what's going on and tell the people who care. Nobody likes surprises. Involving people earlier versus surprising them later tends to be more effective over time, for both building trust and for managing expectations more effectively.
Above all, the greatest learning in expectation management is turn all the expectations you have of the world onto yourself. When expectations are directed towards the world, your progress is at the mercy of the world. Turn them onto yourself, and you will be in control of your life.
