18

Performance Expectations Management

18.1 Introduction

We live in a brutal world where our stakeholders have all kinds of expectations from us. They grade us and judge us by how well we live up to their expectations. If your performance does not meet or exceed these expectations you will have a huge disconnect between your stakeholders and yourself, leading to unpleasant consequences.

Living up to others’ expectations is nothing new to you. When you are a student, your parents expect you to not only excel in studies but also be a champion chess player, an Olympian and a member of your school cricket team and behave like a model citizen in general. They express disappointment if you came up short on any of these expectations. If you happen to be at the top of your class, your teachers expect you to get a state rank and no less.

It is easy to dismiss your parents’ and teachers’ expectations as normal human behaviour. Even if you do not live up to their expectations, they usually get over their disappointment in you with the passage of time. But unlike your parents and teachers, the real world is very unforgiving. At work, you will always be weighed down by performance expectations. Unless you proactively and cleverly manage those expectations and come out ahead, you will constantly be wondering: ‘What went wrong?’ In Section 18.1, we present the basic principle of performance expectations management and a four-step process to do this effectively. The subsequent sections discuss the four steps in detail. We conclude with a summary in Section 18.7.

18.2 Steps Involved in Managing Performance Expectations

Let us look at the scenario below:

So what could you have done to better manage your boss’s expectations in this example? Here are some possibilities:

• Stayed in touch with the boss frequently
• Taken the trouble to know what exactly he needed in the report and what he did not
• Found out when he needed the report
• Had someone proofread and edit your report
• Asked him beforehand how much detail he wanted
• Anticipated most of his concerns and reactions

In short, you could have been proactive in managing your boss’s expectations.

In the example given above, not only were your boss’s expectations not met but your expectations too were dashed. You thought your boss would be impressed by your report, considering it was your very first report and you put in so much effort into it. Instead, what you got was brickbats and this was a huge disappointment.

We can summarize our discussion so far in just one simple equation:

 

The above equation clearly shows that, if you want highly satisfied stakeholders, not only should your job performance be topnotch but you should also actively manage and temper their expectations. When we say that you should manage expectations, we do not mean that you do a shoddy job and then somehow fool others into believing that you did a great job. Instead, we mean that you subtly let your stakeholders know that their expectations are rooted in reality and not in their wishes and fantasies. They should understand that the task you have taken on is challenging and complex and that it needs plenty of hard work, planning and dedication. Although you want them to lower their expectations, you are, in fact, going to try to pull off your best performance. If this message is not passed on to your stakeholders, they may think your task is too easy and you are an underachiever who cannot even achieve simple targets. The worst thing you can do to yourself is work hard but not let others know that you did.

Of course, you have to do a delicate balancing act. On the one hand, it is normal and natural for your boss to have expectations on your performance (because he is paying your salary and is answerable to someone else to extract a measure of work out of you). But on the other hand, you cannot have him run wild like the boss in the case quoted at the beginning of this section. We will tell you how you can manage your boss’s expectations to more modest levels, and once brought down, how you can score with your performance. The steps are given in Figure18.1.

• Step 1: Identify your stakeholders—Your first task is to identify your stakeholders and rank them from the most important to the least important. Your immediate boss is usually your biggest stakeholder and his expectations need most attention.
• Step 2: Organize their expectations into a list—List your stakeholders’ (primarily, your boss’s) expectations of you, in the order of priority.
• Step 3: Manage their expectations—Manage expectations by negotiating with your stakeholders (especially, some of their unreasonable and unrealistic expectations), by modifying your performance and by opening up communication channels that allow you to get frequent feedback.
• Step 4: Under-promise and over-deliver—Keep their expectation level low. But at the time of delivery, pack the punch and deliver more than you promised. Your positive surprise will awe your boss.

Next, let us discuss each of these steps in detail.

18.3 Step 1—Know Who Your Stakeholders Are

As your immediate boss is your most important stakeholder, he is the man you should aim to please first. Often, he is the only person you need to answer. He might have a long list of what he expects of you; the list might be so long that it probably already includes other stakeholders’ expectations of you. Let us call this list, ‘The boss’s expectations of you’.

The task now is to get hold of this list from him and work on his expectations.

The only problem is that this list is not a real list. Your boss does not walk around carrying a piece of paper outlining a bunch of his expectations. It is all inside his mind, and you will somehow have to get it out of him. This involves communicating with him and probing his mind for clues and answers.

 

Even though your boss is a big stakeholder in what you do, he is not the biggest stakeholder that you have. The biggest stakeholder you have is you yourself. And you probably should also be the toughest stakeholder that there is, in setting more stringent standards for yourself (than what your boss sets for you) and judging your performance critically. This is very useful because now you can prepare a parallel list—a list of expectations you place on yourself. This list can be an extension of your boss’s list, but much more stringent and challenging. Let us call this list, ‘Your expectations of yourself’. A quick look at Table 18.1 tells you what we mean. By setting your expectations much higher than your boss’s expectations, you automatically satisfy his expectations if you manage to satisfy your own expectations.

18.4 Step 2—Organize Their Expectations into a List

The next step in expectations management is to organize the list of your boss’s expectations into various categories for easy reference. We describe these categories below, with examples.

Explicit expectations: These are expectations that are clearly and unambiguously spelt out.

Examples of explicit expectations

• ‘I want the report to cover LAN.’
• ‘Do not include pricing in the report.’
• ‘Keep your uniforms clean and neat.’
• ‘Help the two junior guys in testing.’
• ‘Include that module in the beta version.’
• ‘Install the latest version of the tools.’

Explicit, quantifiable expectations: Here, not only are expectations clearly spelt out, but numerical targets, precise deadlines and limits are also provided.

Examples of explicit, quantifiable expectations

• ‘The report should not be more than 20 pages long.
• ‘Get it done by this Saturday.’
• ‘Test for 200 hours.’
• ‘Keep the cost below INR 200 per person per hour.’
• ‘Keep the number of bugs below five.’
• ‘We are going live on 12th February.’
• ‘Ensure that the top three accounts are never lost and have a growth of 25% each year.’

Implicit/vague expectations: Here, expectations are either not spelt out at all or are unclear and open to interpretation. You should try to convert these into specific expectations that can be evaluated objectively.

Examples of implicit/vague expectations and how to make them more objective

• ‘Your written communication skills must improve. ➔ There should be less than two clarifications sought by your customer on your report.’
• ‘You should be more focused on what you are doing. ➔ You should not miss any of your deadlines.’
• ‘In future, I expect you to be a self-starter. ➔ You will have to do this without being prompted by me.’
• ‘You should write better code. ➔ Your code should have less than 2 bugs per 1000 lines.’

With the explicit items, you may want to negotiate with him on the details. With the vague items, you may ask your boss for clarity and more precise targets. If you think he has some implicit expectations, ask him about them (‘Do you want me to attend the Saturday morning meetings too?’) and get them spelt out. At the end of this step, you should have a clearer picture of what he expects of you. Now, you are in a good position to manage it.

18.5 Step 3—Manage Expectations

Next, we will see how you can manage these expectations.

Negotiate with the boss: It is important that you sit down with your immediate boss as often as needed and find out where you are on the expectations versus performance curve. Negotiate with him on taming some of his expectations. You do not want major divergence later between his expectations and your actual performance.

But this is easier said than done. It can be very nerve-wracking to talk to the boss. Imagine being in an intimidating setting like his office, with him sitting on the other side of a sprawling desk, discussing daunting things like his expectations of your job performance. Unless you are absolutely on top of the situation, you may find yourself slowly losing your grip on the conversation and meekly accepting his view of things and walking away with a long list of what he thinks are your deficiencies.

So how do you negotiate with him on what he should realistically expect of you? What can you do to make this process smooth, pleasant and workable for you? Here are some pointers:

Meet him often: Discuss his expectations and current status in all your (hopefully, weekly) one-on-one meetings. Meet him at least once in a quarter specifically to take stock of where your performance is with respect to his expectations. Meet even more frequently if there are persistent gaps between his expectations and your performance. You will discover that by the second or third meeting, you are actually comfortable discussing this topic with him and such meetings can be productive. Note, however, that these meetings are informal, unlike your annual performance appraisal meetings.

Do a thorough preparation: Before each meeting, make plenty of preparations. If you are meeting him for the first time, take along your latest appraisal and any professional goal setting that you may have done, as the baseline. Provide him enough evidence of your compliance with the goals that you had to achieve. It is a good idea to bring your laptop or hard copies and be able to produce quantitative data as required.

Be in the right frame of mind: Both you and your boss should be in a good frame of mind during each meeting. This is supposed to be a very productive exercise and it should not turn into an unpleasant, meaningless waste of time. Catch him at the right time, when he is likely in a relatively ‘relaxed’ mood, with no disruptive meetings and conference calls. Also remember that this is not a quick ‘in and out’ kind of meeting. You need a chunk of time. So, you may even want to make a formal appointment with him.

Negotiate with the boss—do not just give in: Ask him for his feedback and his list of expectations from you—in as much detail as possible. If he comes up with vague comments like,‘Your English needs improvement’, ask him what exactly he means and press him for details. If he beats you down and asks you to do a huge task next month, tell him patiently and fearlessly that it is a huge challenge and you cannot guarantee completing it on time. Play down his expectations and under-promise. Warn him that your plate is so full that only a partial list of what he wants can be completed. Do not let the fear factor inhibit you from asking him questions or objecting to his comments or allow you to be browbeaten into taking on extra commitments that you cannot possibly handle. In the end, summarize your understanding of what is expected of you in the coming months and document in an email to him so that he too has a copy of the expectations.

If you have any questions, concerns or reservations, talk to your boss about them. Otherwise, you will have to suffer the consequences. Be prepared to defend your position, without coming across as overly aggressive. Try to set the tone for the meeting. Otherwise, there is a chance of him hijacking it and taking you out of the conversation. Keep checking against your agenda and make sure you have covered all topics.

The bottom line is that you want a match between your boss’s expectations and your performance so that he sees no negative surprises. Top performance is what he expects and top performance is what you want to deliver.

Get help from your mentors: Your senior colleagues and mentors are valuable assets in terms of giving you advice on how to manage your boss’s expectations. Consult them and let their experiences and advice benefit you.

Make changes to your job performance: During meetings, your boss can actually come up with a bunch of good suggestions that you can incorporate in your job performance. Besides helping your performance, those suggestions are also his implicit or untold expectations. Let him know that you made those changes based on his inputs.

Communicate: A lot of expectations/performance problems occur because of poor communication. So it is vital that you stay in touch with your boss if you want to manage his expectations better. Besides holding quarterly meetings with him on the topic, meet him otherwise too and get his concurrence. It is not out of character to meet him and ask about his feedback after you complete a major assignment. But do not overdo it and nag him for advice or feedback. Remember that there is a fine line between excessive dependence on the boss and good expectations management. Equally important is that you do not keep him in the dark about what you are doing. Communicate with him frequently, at least through email.

18.6 Step 4—Exceed Expectations

The final step is to over-deliver—put in a solid performance over and above your boss’s expectations—in spite of under-promising him on what is possible.

Here’s how you over-deliver. When you actually execute and perform, you work on the ‘Your expectations of yourself’ list, rather than on ‘The boss’s expectations of you’ list. Remember that your list should be far more stringent than your boss’s list. So when you meet your own internal expectations, you would have automatically exceeded your boss’s expectations. For example, if you told your boss you will finish a report by Friday, your own internal target to finish the job would be sometime sooner, say Wednesday—and when you actually hand over the report to him on Wednesday, you would have delivered a positive surprise or over-delivered.

18.7 In Summary

There are many benefits to performance expectations management. By being in tune with your boss’s expectations, you create trust and consistency in your performance. You will be perceived as highly reliable and will get plum assignments. Because you and your boss are in complete harmony, you may even become the spokesperson for your boss, your group and even for your organization. But more importantly, if you do not manage expectations, you will stay away from your boss and even your organization and this dissonance will greatly affect your career.

Adding up all the points discussed so far:

• Each and every stakeholder has various expectations on your performance.
• You have to actively and proactively manage these expectations placed on you. Otherwise, you will be perceived as incompetent and slow.
• Expectations management consists of identifying your stakeholders, knowing what expectations they have of you, managing them actively and finally giving them a positive surprise by over-delivering on your performance.
• Treat your immediate boss as your ally and align yourself with his plans.
• You are your own tough customer. Therefore, challenge yourself by setting very high expectations on yourself.
• Remember to always under-promise and over-deliver, but do not under-promise to the extent that the stakeholder gets put off.