Set & Manage Expectations
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Click here to view and download the Discussion Guide to utilize with your Group and/or Team over the next 12 months. The Guide and questions will be updated each month to reflect the TOTM concept.
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“The reality remains that teamwork ultimately comes down to practicing
a small set of principles over a long period of time.”
Patrick Lencioni
The 5 Dysfunctions of a Team
Being part of a team and working together is very much like teaming up with a group of individuals and agreeing to hike a mountain. Everyone admires the beautiful mountain from a distance, commits to meeting at a time and place to take the hike, and subsequently makes their individual preparations, packs up, laces up, and starts the hike.
As the party begins the trek, some have packed light, some pack food and water, some overpack, and one or two of the hikers even bring an extra pair of shoes. The most experienced hikers bring cooking utensils, a safety kit, rain gear and emergency rations. Around mid-morning, the guide calls for a break and discovers more than half the hikers eagerly waiting for water and food rations to be distributed. Grumbling and discontentment spreads among the team as the hikers who did not bring supplies realize the gap in expectations. The likelihood of the entire team successfully reaching the summit disappears before the guide’s eyes.
The opening question in Going Hiking? Don’t Forget These Safety Tips., a July 2022 New York Times article published by Derrick Bryson Taylor, was, “What should I do before the hike?” His answer? “Have a plan.” It is the role and responsibility of the leader to set each and every member of a team up for success and to do everything in their power to create an environment where each individual can be and become the most effective version of themselves. This month we are exploring the topic of setting and managing expectations as we focus on developing a leadership mindset throughout 2022. If we want to set others up for success, it is crucial leaders create, communicate, and implement a plan through every step of the team member experience path.
Just as you would develop a plan before a hike, a leader’s ability to create a high performing team focused on results begins with a plan. Gaps in setting and managing expectations occur in everyday settings; relationships, meetings, appointments, commitments as well as larger assignments and environments such as real estate moves, team member recruiting and hiring, geographic expansion, mergers and acquisitions, technology migration/software implementation, product launch, brand updates/refresh, etc., etc., etc.!
In our reading this quarter, Patrick Lencioni states, “An unrelenting focus on specific objectives and clearly defined outcomes is a requirement for any team that judges itself on performance.” I completely agree with Patrick Lencioni. The practice of an unrelenting focus on specific objectives would ensure we could minimize tremendous dysfunction if we focused on the collective goals of a team in any organization. It begins by setting and managing expectations in every conversation, with every task, with every request, with every goal, and with every objective.
Setting and managing expectations can be challenging for leaders who have moved, or are moving from, player/coach to coach/player. As leaders we tend to ground our leadership behavior in our subject matter expertise and experience and we may be unaware or under-aware in how we are create barriers to the effective setting and managing of expectations with and for others. The health of the team, the ability level of the team members, the culture of the organization all impact the setting and managing expectations process. So, how can you tell if you and or members of your leadership team are not as effective as possible in setting and managing expectations? Here are a few red flags:
Project deadlines are not met
Desired results are not delivered
Processes are not followed
Customer complaints have a higher than acceptable level of frequency
Morale is low and anxiety is high
Team members may be suffering from change fatigue
My late stepmother used to say, “Laura, disappointment occurs when expectations are not met!” If you are a disappointed leader, leading an apprehensive or responsive (versus proactive) team, it may be a clear indication of your lack of effectiveness in setting and managing expectations. If we begin each task, each request, each road map with clear expectations, we minimize the need to reverse engineer actions taken by a colleague as well as the time needed to seek and provide clarity, ultimately setting others up for success by giving them the “answers to the test.” Setting and managing expectations effectively minimizes guesswork and increases the power of focus and intentionality.
Leaders have the ability to minimize the anxiety others experience therefore significantly positively impacting the quality of life and quality of work in organizations, a truly rewarding role in this world. Demonstrating the willingness to share information is powerful. However, a leader may unconsciously diminish their own power as a leader if they fail to recognize how much information and clarity around a process others need.
I am not suggesting team members are not capable of creating or navigating processes or intelligent enough to make decisions. I am suggesting leaders are the source of expectations and as such have a tremendous responsibility to clearly communicate those expectations with others to the degree and extent others need clarity. Setting and managing expectations is the grandparent of seeking and providing clarity.
The larger the team or geographic region, the number of locations or constituency groups, (including committee or board members involved or affected), the greater the need to set and manage expectations. To be effective at setting and managing expectations it takes a shift in a leader’s mindset:
1. Think LIKE a Team Member not FOR a Team Member. Consider their paradigms and perspectives. Are they waiting for you to provide guidance, clarity, information, or grant permission?
Wages / Benefits / Incentives
Scope of their Role and Responsibilities
The Authority/Permission Continuum
Behavioral Norms for the Team Member versus the Leader
Performance and Results Expectations
Feedback, Affirmation, Validation Needs and Expectations
2. AVOID projecting. If you hear yourself saying, either out loud or to yourself, the following phrases:
"If that were me…”
“Here's how I like to be managed…”
“Here's what I would do…”
“Here's how I decide…”
…that's a sure sign you are thinking FOR other people, not LIKE other people. It is perfectly normal and natural to think FOR other people, it's just not HHA (Healthy, Helpful or Appropriate)!
3. Spend the prerequisite amount of time uncovering expectations and learn to anticipate needs.
Needs analysis
Questioning
Listening
Ask the Question behind the Question
Leaders who set and manage expectations effectively engage in disciplined and institutionalized planning processes at the individual, team, and organization-wide level. Robust planning processes provide the vehicle and mechanism for setting, managing, and cascading expectations continuously throughout the organization and team by minimizing ambiguity and providing extreme clarity. Certainly, not all things can be planned for or anticipated as planning is certainly fluid and it must also be consistent and intentional. It is both an art and a science.
When leaders invest the time in providing extreme clarity around expectations an environment of clarity is created, trust finds deep roots, and team members are empowered to focus on navigating the processes step by step that lead to desired outcomes and results. To paraphrase Patrick Lencioni’s observation from the 5 Dysfunctions of a Team at the beginning of this article, setting and managing expectations is a small principle that when practiced consistently results in an ordinary group of people creating extraordinary results.
In his article, Going Hiking? Don’t Forget These Safety Tips., Mr. Taylor provides advice for two scenarios hikers may encounter. First, “What if I get lost?” and second, “Severe weather has interrupted my hike. Now what?” His advice centers around, “don’t panic” and “be willing to adapt your plans.” The most effective leaders are those who clearly set and manage expectations at the beginning of the trail with the knowledge that when folks are lost and bad weather hits, we have the highest performing team in place to reach the summit. So, set and manage expectations before the hike begins, lace up your boots, and get hiking up that mountain, together!
-LS
Group Discussion
Guide
Click here to view and download the Discussion Guide to utilize with your Group and/or Team over the next 12 months. The Guide and questions will be updated each month.
Recommended Quarterly Reading
The Five Dysfunctions of a Team
By Patrick Lencioni
2022
Managing From The Inside Out
Winter 2022
February 2, 9, 16, 23
March 2, 9, 16
AM Classes: 8:30-11:30 A.M.
Spring 2022
May 4, 11, 18, 25
June 1, 8, 15
AM Classes: 8:30-11:30 A.M.
PM Classes: 1:30-4:30 P.M.
Fall 2022
October 5, 12, 19, 26
November 2, 9, 16
AM Classes: 8:30-11:30 A.M.
PM Classes: 1:30-4:30 P.M.
Register today to engage in professional growth and development as a Leader Manager and join us for Managing From The Inside Out! Simply email Erin Higgins at erin@lauraschanz.com to reserve a seat for yourself or a Team Member. The 2022 Registration Fee is $1,195.