Sometimes, Your Best is All You Can Do

Many of us have high, sometimes unrealistic expectations, or someone expects too much from you. I find it interesting, and wonder if, since the beginning of time, there was flaw in human DNA; the desire to want the best, want more, and want it as fast as possible at all costs.

There's nothing wrong in striving and pushing hard to maximize your impact. Whether it's generating more website sales, helping raise funds for your local church, or training to compete in your next tennis match (not sure why I picked tennis, but I did), or whatever else you are doing.

But there's a line, when crossed, can be unhealthy for you, your team, or your company. It's when expectations become the poison pill; toxicity will find its way into the veins of teams and eventually the illness will spread and consume everyone; and takes the excitement out of everything.

The ironic thing is, anyone who is infected will stick around until either they become a victim, or realize and break away while there's time.

No One Likes Bad News, or Poor Results; But It Happens

Reality of business is, there will be days, months, or years in some cases of lackluster performance. This is nothing new to any business owner, company executives, or employees. But the way companies react to poor results come in all shapes and flavors - sometimes even depending on the hour of the day.

Surely, everyone understands the need to set a strategy, objectives and targets - whether weekly, monthly, quarterly, and annually; and if your company is setting unrealistic as opposed to challenging targets, then you're setting up everyone to fail.

Nothing magically happens just because you want it to. There's no secret sauce, there's no magic pill, there is only hard work and doing it the right way over time - hence executing a sound strategy and giving it a chance.

Your Strategy Needs Time

When the strategy isn't cohesive, decisions are made based on knee-jerk reactions. When the level of stress becomes insurmountable, there will be casualties. Leaders must understand that a solid strategy is useless if it's not executed. And the execution doesn't matter if it is not given enough time to yield data and analyze results.

Let's take this example:

You met with your boss yesterday afternoon about executing a strategy for your new lead generation campaign. Together, you set the objectives and expectations. Both of you agreed that it'll take a week before you get from A to Z. You go home excited for the next day! You feel accomplished!

The next day, you go into work, launch your new campaigns and watch the leads flow in. As a matter of fact, you did it so well that you are getting 20% more leads now. But your CPA increased by 10%.

Your boss approaches you, and tells you that he can't have CPA increase at all because it cuts into the margins. But you explained that this possibility was discussed yesterday. He's unhappy and tells you to roll everything back. You insist that you needed one week of data to optimize the lead cost. But he doesn't have the patience to wait...he wants the results NOW or nothing.

The above scenario happens more frequently that you'd think. Expectations are frequently out of whack when it comes to strategy. What your boss says, is not necessarily what your boss has in mind.

Summing It Up

Expectation is a ghastly beast. It can destroy relationships, friendships, and business partnerships.

Sometimes, even after doing all you can, your best, and giving it your all - there will still be unreasonable expectations that will never be met.

If there one thing I hope you can take away with you is this...

You have done your best and gone above and beyond; you are OK! Others' expectations is their problem to deal with.

Here are two quotes to think about:

“Strategy is thinking about a choice and choosing to stick with your thinking”

“You cannot be everything to everyone. If you decide to go north, you cannot go south at the same time.”