8

Performance-expectations Management

“Expecting the world to treat you fairly because you are a good person is a little like expecting the bull not to attack you because you are a vegetarian.”

–Dennis Wholey

Snapshot 8.1, albeit exaggerated, illustrates the brutal ‘judgement by expectations’ world we live in. Here, expectations others have of our performance matter as much as the performance itself. And whether we fail or succeed in our environment is determined by how well we live up to the expectations of our stakeholders. Remember that we all perform to satisfy our stakeholders, except that this satisfaction should now be recognized as a function of not only how we perform, but also on what the expectations are set to start with. We can say that the most fundamental tenet of any relationship (professional or otherwise) is

Parties external to us—like the boss in Snapshot 8.1—put us under the scanner, impose their expectations on us and hold us accountable to their expectations. But, before we start blaming the boss in Snapshot 8.1 for being unreasonable, let us try to understand the performance-expectations dynamics and see how we can tame it—and perhaps even come out ahead.

The first thing to realize is that it is normal and natural for your boss (and your organization) to have ‘expectations’ about your job performance. After all, they do pay your salary and they are responsible to someone else for extracting a measure of work out of you. The boss in the story too had certain expectations about your report—expectations about the content, its quality, its schedule, style, etc.—and when he sensed a disconnect between those expectations and the actual report, he felt betrayed. Surely, he could have done things better. He could have had more realistic expectations of you, considering that you are a junior staff and this was your first time working alone. He should have communicated his expectations better, especially if he wanted particular topics covered in greater detail. ‘Do whatever needs to be done,’ is hardly a clear enunciation of his expectations. But then, bosses will always be bosses. And they speak in a language called ‘expectationese’. We are the ones under scrutiny and we need to devise a work-around and build our defences.

In Snapshot 8.1, you should have anticipated most of your boss’s expectations and should have proactively taken steps to manage them—by telling him upfront what you plan to include in the report (and what you don’t). You should have found out when he needed the report, how much detail he wanted, etc. You should have stayed in touch with him several times during the report-writing phase so that you were in tune with his expectations. Instead, you bungled managing your boss’s expectations.

If our repeated highlighting of the ‘you’ in the previous paragraph sounds intimidating, that is not the objective. The objective is to stress that each of us have to be proactive in managing expectations. You must remember that no matter how hard you work and how many times you jump through hoops, in the final analysis, your performance matters only in the eyes of a few beholders. You need to be alert about these beholders—and their eyes. You must develop this art of satisfying them, so that maximum impact of your hard work is felt around your organization. This takes us back to the equation we put forth at the beginning of the section.

8.1 The Basics of Performance-expectations Management

Expectations management basically involves the following steps, as identified by Figure 8.1 below:

 

Fig 8.1 Steps in performance-expectations management

• First, identify the stakeholders are who are interested in your job performance and figure out which ones among them are really important.
• Next, you need to find out what expectations they have of your performance. Your stakeholders don’t walk around wielding a comprehensive list of their expectations. It is up to you to use clever communication techniques and extract or surmise the expectations out of them. Some of the expectations will be nebulous and even implicit and you will have to ask them for explanations.
• Then, you will have to get down to the business of managing those expectations—that is, respond to your stakeholders by modifying your performance, negotiate with them on some of the unrealistic and unreasonable expectations, open up channels of communication to get frequent feedback from them, use any other sources to help you in this process—so that in course of time, your job performance totally resonates with your stakeholders’ expectations.
• Then you go one step further. You start delivering more than your stakeholders expect. At this point, managing expectations is not just a defensive manoeuvre to play it safe, but a potent soft skill known as ‘under-promising and over-delivering’.

You will find that this four-step process is an iterative cycle. As you meet or beat the expectations of some of the stakeholders, newer stakeholders may emerge or the expectations of the stakeholders will change repeatedly, thus needing to be managed and delivered upon, ad infinitum. Something interesting happens when your job performance and your stakeholders’ expectations are in line. You notice a complete transparency in your work environment. You are perfectly clear about the expectations they have of you and they in turn, find your performance to be totally consistent. In fact, your performance will be so boringly predictable that they will even count on it. Predictably solid performance, that is.

Exceeding expectations and delivering some real, positive surprises is the closest one comes to achieving workplace nirvana. Just imagine, in the example of PQ Inc. In Snapshot 8.1, if you told your boss that the report would be ready in one week, but actually delivered it in five days. Or, had a section in your report on end user computing or something that is an extra even for him. Or got it ‘proofed’ by one of your senior colleagues, so that it read well. By ‘exceeding expectations’, you are delivering much more than consistent performance—you are delivering consistently better and better performance with every passing day.

Of course, if you beat expectations, it is highly likely that your boss will have even higher expectation of your job performance the next time. But then, that is okay. Once you have figured out how to exceed expectations, you can always do it again. And again.

Managing expectations is as much about competency as it is about managing hype, relationships and risks. It is certainly not about putting up a shoddy job performance and somehow hoodwinking your bosses into thinking you did a fantastic job. It is not about window-dressing and smooth-talking. Quite the opposite—it is about working hard and toward clear goals and conveying this sense unambiguously and accurately to whoever it matters.

8.2 Find Out Who Your Stakeholders Are

Like it or not, you have several stakeholders who watch over your job performance and act as judges and arbiters. Your manager, your customers (if you interface directly with end customers), individual project managers, suppliers, colleagues and even the administrative assistants—they all have a stake in what you do and how you do it. Even your organization may have some expectations of you—that you put on a tie and a suit when you travel on business, for example. But, it is usually a trivial exercise to figure out that among the many masters you serve, the supremo is your immediate supervisor and his judgement carries the most weight. Usually, his list of expectations about your job performance will be so broad and exhaustive that it will include the main points of other stakeholders. So, your task is now made simple. Just get his list and follow his directions and this may be sufficient to satisfy other stakeholders. This list we are talking about, may be a general-purpose list, covering your performance for the entire year, or could be a list specific to individual assignments like writing a feasibility report. However, for the purposes of our discussion, the list can be any list of expectations. Please remember that the list referred to is usually an ethereal one. You have to surmise and infer this list from what your supervisor says or implies. It is also in your interest to convert this ethereal list into a real list, document it and run it by your supervisor to ensure you have not missed anything. But don’t hold your breath in assuming that your supervisor will read your list, much less comment on it.

Your boss may also appear to be a very subjective and partial person. While he may expect you to finish your report in ten days, he may expect a more senior person to complete an even bigger report in just five days. And he may be very forgiving of a new employee and give him twelve days to do it. Although everyone in your team may do similar assignments, organizations realize that there are differences in experience level, training and abilities among employees. Therefore, bosses throw a different list of expectations at different workers. Even if some items in your list may be common with your items in your co-worker’s list, you may have an entirely different passing grade set for you. This is not surprising if you consider the equation we saw earlier in this chapter. As your boss’s expectations of you are higher, it is obvious that your performance should also be correspondingly higher to give him the same level of satisfaction. Your boss’s evaluation of your performance, vis-à-vis his expectations, will also be unique to you. So, make sure that what you get from your boss is your list of expectations.

Lastly, there is an even bigger stakeholder than your boss or anyone else—a stakeholder who should be even more demanding of you—namely yourself ! Your expectations of your own performance should always be far more stringent and tougher than anything your boss can come up with. Your boss may expect the report in one week, but in your own mind, you will want to get it done within five days, by firing on all cylinders.

The winning recipe then is very clear. Once you get your boss’s list of expectations, use that as a guideline and generate a parallel list of your own expectations of your performance. (of course, you don’t have to show this list to anyone, much less your boss.) Your list will be so stringent that in comparison, your boss’s list may look watered-down. You then operate according to your list. And if you meet your own very high expectations, then you have automatically exceeded your boss’s expectations. You win!

Given below is a sample table (Table 8.1) comparing your boss’s list of expectations with your own. You may notice that on the whole, your internal standards are much higher. On some parameters (such as the due date of the report, in Table 8.1 below) your boss’s expectations may seem more aggressive. But, we would like to give you the benefit of the doubt and presume that this is a simple case of his being unrealistic or being more aware of market demands.

Table 8.1 Boss’s expectations and set your own bar higher

8.3 Explicit and Implicit Performance Expectations

Expectations come in several flavours. Explicit expectations (see Box 8.1) are those which spell out the details clearly and unmistakably. Company norms, standard practices and formal instructions are examples of this category. Within the explicit variety, some expectations are also quantifiable, where precise numerical targets can be assigned to them. Expectations regarding cost, budget, time, output, some resources, etc. Are examples. When expectations are quantified, it is a little easier to judge the performance objectively. Examples of Explicit as well as explicit and quantifiable expectations are given in Box 8.1.

The next category of expectations is implicit expectations, where a stakeholder is silent about some of his expectations, but springs them on you and eventually holds you accountable to them. For example, after you get back from a business trip, your boss’s implicit expectation is that you will brief him about your trip the day after you are back to your office. It is your responsibility to use your judgment and infer these implicit expectations and document as much of these as possible and make them explicit expectations.

The last category of vague expectations is the one that is generic and fuzzy and you almost never get the hang of it. There can be any number of reasons why your boss keeps some expectations vague and some other expectation under wraps. Maybe, in his mind these expectations are quite clear-cut and obvious. Or maybe he is unable to articulate his views very well. But quite often, it is because both you and he never had a chance to sit down together and discuss them.

Unless you understand your boss’s implicit and vague expectations of you, they can come back and haunt you. It is important to realize that implicit and vague expectations are subject to interpretations (See Figure 8.2). Hence, you must gather as many such expectations from him as you can and with his help, translate them into explicit expectations. For example, if your boss says something as vague as ‘I expect you to improve your work-quality,’ you must corner him several times and ask him what exactly he means—can he suggest some metrics of quality along which you can improve? Can he suggest some specific targets to achieve?

Some examples of vague expectations and how you can convert them to explicit (and sometimes even quantitative) expectations are given in Box 8.2.

 

Fig 8.2 Implicit and vague expectations are subject to interpretation

8.4 Managing Your Boss’s Expectations of Your Performance

It is not always easy to control or manage the boss’s expectations – they have their birthright to have expectations But some of the things that you could do proactively to temper his expectations are:

Negotiate expectations: As soon as you compile a list of your boss’s expectations of your job performance, sit down with him to negotiate on specific items on the list. While discussing with him, err on the side of under-promising and over-delivering. Point out those expectations that may be too difficult to meet because of various reasons. Maybe you don’t have the time to do everything the way he wants. Maybe there are crucial dependencies and the other person will not finish things in time for you to get going. Perhaps you don’t have the technical expertise in some areas and maybe your boss’s expectation of a hundred-page report in two days is just too unrealistic. Hold your ground and don’t let him sweet-talk you or intimidate you into impossible situations. On the other hand, don’t be unreasonable yourself. Don’t give him the impression that your enthusiasm-level is low. Instead, appear hungry for work. For comparison, find out what expectation levels he has set for the others in your group. Find out the industry benchmarks.

You should have follow-up sessions as often as needed. You might have to review your list in light of any new developments. Maybe your initial performance targets were too optimistic. Perhaps, too pessimistic. Or maybe you just uncovered a new implicit expectation your boss had been harbouring all along and need to discuss it with him. If he has difficulty verbalizing his implicit expectations, help him with words. Usually, after two or three such sessions, your list should be pretty much ‘frozen’.

Remember the parallel list of your expectations you had compiled, for your eyes only, based on your boss’s list? Take care to update it every time you make changes to the official list.

Adjust your job performance: You have to modify your job performance based on your boss’s list and get it in line with his expectations. You just cannot keep doing what you always did and hope that one day, your boss will finally accept your way of doing things. When you do modify your performance, make sure your boss notices it and approves it. This modification process may involve learning new things or going through some sort of training, but most importantly, it involves a change in your mindset and giving up old ways of doing things.

Communicate often with your stakeholders about your performance: The cardinal rule is to be in constant touch with your stakeholders and get regular feedback on your performance. Do this as often as necessary and through as many channels as possible. Instead of Your boss intimidating you with his expectations about your job performance, you must be the one beating down on him for feedback and encouragement.

With his help, set short-term, intermediate-term and long-term goals for your performance. Take the initiative to schedule quarterly and perhaps even monthly meetings with him to review your most recent performance. Ask for his comments on your report soon after he reads it. Once-a-year annual review alone is not enough to get his complete feedback on your performance. Ask him to compare you with some of the more successful employees he has had. This can be a nice baseline to have. Ask him about how he himself improved his performance and came up to his level. We will discuss this more in Chapter 28 on Performance Appraisals.

Communicate through e-mail and document that you have met or exceeded some of his expectations that he had laid out for you. An informal lunch break conversation can suddenly shed light on what your boss expects your work quality to be for the next year. Talk to third parties about your performance and pick up some pointers.

Exceed expectations, but don’t overstep your authority: Eventually, your job performance will reach equilibrium with your boss’s expectations and you will reach a plateau called meeting the expectations. From there, you will proceed toward the final destination—meeting your own internal list of expectations—also known as exceeding your stakeholder’s expectations. Quite often, your internal list of expectations will be simple extensions of your boss’s list and reaching there would only involve incremental hard work and cleverness.

However, in your quest to overachieve, do not take matters in your own hands. Don’t look for tricks and short cuts to get there. Don’t undermine your organization or overstep your position in the organization. Exceeding expectations is important, but the means are as important as the end.

8.5 When Your Performance Always Exceeds Expectations

When you consistently exceed your stakeholders’ expectations, you will be tagged as a special employee by the management. Most organizations reward their expectation exceeders handsomely. By the same token, failing to meet expectations is often the reason for demotion or lower bonuses. The corporate world is full of workers who are every bit hardworking as any but who did not follow the organization’s script and ended up with directionless careers.

When you keep exceeding expectations, your stakeholders will identify you as that special someone whose job performance is always on the upswing. This will do wonders for your confidence and self-esteem. Like we mentioned earlier, your organization will no longer look like an Amazonian jungle, but instead its vision and practices will become very transparent and clear to you.

This brings us to the other thing that happens when you consistently exceed expectations—you are no longer just a consistent performer, but you are also an embodiment of the vision and philosophy of your organization. You now represent it. You become the trusted lieutenant of your organization—and your boss. Your boss feels so confident about you that you become his double and substitute him in crucial meetings. Perhaps, after you write that superb feasibility report, your boss includes you too in the contingent that goes to France—you win the bid and say hello to a nice quarterly bonus.

Just like personal accountability is done by people for its intrinsic reward of satisfaction, so also, exceeding expectations is done by people for its own sake, without any consideration for extrinsic rewards. A person consistently exceeding expectations invariably steps up to the plate, as discussed in Chapter 10.

8.6 In Summary

As we had said at the beginning of the chapter, performance-expectations management starts with setting the right expectations. Even before that, you should know whose expectation you should set right. Thus,

Once you know who the stakeholders are, not all their expectations will be explicitly stated by them. So,

Once you know the explicit expectations and have made a guess of the implicit expectations, you should document the expectations, then review and negotiate this list with the stakeholders. This becomes the living document for you. Make sure you

As you review your performance and expectations often with the stakeholders, you will find that both their expectations and your performance will change with time.

Finally, you can always come out a winner by working towards expectations that are much higher than what your stakeholders expect of you.