Setting Expectations

Hi, I’m David and my mission in life is to prepare people for the future of work.?

In this week’s edition of the newsletter the theme revolves around setting expectations. Our achievements, thoughts, actions, and perception of our capabilities can all be influenced by the expectations of those around us and the expectations that we set for ourselves. Although these expectations may be the result of biassed or irrational thinking, they have the power to affect us in multiple ways. For instance, having overly high expectations of a person can often lead to disappointment, since if we set the bar too high the other person can get discouraged and not even bother trying. Stretch goals and high expectations are beneficial, up to the point of diminishing returns. However, as we’ll discover in the newsletter, if we raise our standards and see others in the best possible light, we can nudge them towards success. Below are some insights and thoughts that will help you understand how expectations can influence someone's performance.

Timeless Insight

“Unspoken expectations are premeditated resentments.” – Neil Strauss

When I think about the various conflict situations I’ve come across over the past few years, they almost always stem from unspoken or ineffectively communicated expectations. This is true whether it’s a manager who lets someone go who has accomplished everything in their job description and even hit their goals for the year, due to an unmet expectation that the employee in question wasn't aware of. Or whether it’s two colleagues who seem to persistently rub each other the wrong way, because they each have unrealistic expectations of the other’s behaviour, expecting them to behave and think in the same way they do. When expectations aren’t met (either at work or in our personal life), disappointment follows, and the more significant the expectations, the more significant the disappointment. Thus, to better communicate our expectations, here are three steps I discovered on Crucial Learning : start with the facts and what you expect from the other person/people you work with; describe why it’s an expectation or concern; invite them to a dialogue to get their feedback. It’s especially this last step, inviting others to a dialogue, that is frequently skipped. Sometimes that’s the most appropriate thing to do to avoid delays and be more efficient. However, in most cases, we need to double-check our expectations to make sure they align with reality. For this, we need to be open to receiving feedback from others.

Food for Thought

If you are working to become better, live healthier and longer, or hoping to make a change, then phrases like “go big or go home” or “stretch yourself” often get tossed around by well-meaning friends, family members, and co-workers. But when is it a good idea to set high expectations for yourself? And when can overly ambitious goals shoot you in the foot??

The expectations people have of us affect us in countless subtle ways every single day. Although we rarely notice it, the expectations others have of us dictate the opportunities we are offered, how we are spoken to, and the praise and criticism we receive. In the long run, they might dictate whether we succeed or fail or fall somewhere on the spectrum in between.

As Carl Sagan said, “The visions we offer our children shape the future. It matters what those visions are. Often they become self-fulfilling prophecies. Dreams are maps.”?

NPR ran a story that explained how the expectations of teachers can dramatically alter the performance of their students. When a teacher treated a student as if they were destined to become smart, even if they were average to start with, the student became smart. That’s because when we expect someone to perform well in any capacity, we treat them differently.?

Teachers tend to act differently with students they expect to be gifted. They may teach them more challenging material, offer them more chances to ask questions, and provide them with personalised feedback. This in turn leads the students who were treated differently by their teachers (i.e. in a supportive way), to score significantly higher on IQ tests than their peers.

As Goethe said, “When we treat man as he is, we make him worse than he is; when we treat him as if he already were what he potentially could be, we make him what he should be.”

The school study that NPR covered revealed the power that high expectations can have on our lives. However, the study had two other interesting findings. The first is that all of the students in the classroom improved, the favoured group just improved more. So, while the support of others helps propel you towards success, you can still make it on your own.

The second finding of note coming out of the study is that the high expectations of the teacher made a big difference for young students, but not for their older peers, who were barely affected. That’s because as we age, the expectations that others have for us become less important and the expectations that we have for ourselves become more important.

What are you expecting for yourself? Are you choosing to reach your full potential or to play it safe? If it’s the former, to be all you can be, then you must remember that reaching your full potential is not something that happens by mere chance, but rather it’s the result of marching towards a destination that is beyond what you would typically try to accomplish.

Most people settle for very average goals because it’s the most reasonable and easy thing to do. The problem with this is that it creates a lot of competition for things that aren’t really worth fighting over. In other words, everyone is battling to achieve mediocre results. However, if you shoot for something out of the ordinary, you’ll have very little competition.??

As a result, there is a certain magic to choosing very difficult goals for yourself. If you can break them down to smaller, more manageable goals and get the ball rolling on them, then they are often quite easy to achieve. Not every expectation you set should be unreasonable. You should aim to balance the ambition to become better with the goal of remaining happy.

Article of the Week?

The Pygmalion Effect: Proving Them Right

Caricature of the Week

Source: Condé Nast

Thank you for reading and keep on growing!

David

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