Managing Expectations
Mike Ferguson, Fresh Ground Consulting
One of the most difficult responsibilities of a leader at any level is managing expectations, sometimes our own more than others. While expectations of success are good and necessary for maintaining forward momentum, false and/or unrealistic expectations can misdirect resources and prolong feelings of defeat and disappointment when they are not met. If this false hope occurs repeatedly in an organization, goals and planning among the leadership will be put in a “boy who cried wolf” box by those most responsible for execution.
Maybe you’ve met a company founder who has great ideas about what her company should be and is capable of generating great enthusiasm for these ideas, but her vision is not connected to any realistic analysis or planning and her staff becomes burnt out from chasing windmills.
Though she schedules strategic planning sessions, it is clear to everyone (including her consultant) that she is not prepared to truly incorporate the views of her staff, the true experts when it comes to the realities of operational detail and the company’s marketplace. She feels strongly that the company should be guided by her expectations.
The fundamental problem? She expects zebras.
When you hear hoof beats in the distance and you’re in the middle of Wyoming, what do you expect to see? Horses. But all of us can develop expectations that are not really aligned with our circumstances, expect zebras instead of horses. When horses appear, we’re disappointed, even angry, that they are not zebras.
When we begin dismissing the most likely outcome of a situation or initiative in favor of what we wish for as an outcome, we are attempting to move the company forward by sheer force of will. It might have worked when the company was just you and your laptop on the coffee table in your living room, but unless you want to remain in start-up mode indefinitely (and some founders do), you need to ensure someone is effectively bridging the gap between aspiration and execution, someone with “permission to speak freely,” whether they come from inside the organization or outside.
"A vision without a task is but a dream, a task without a vision is drudgery, a vision and a task is the hope of the world." ---From a church in Sussex, England, ca. 1730