Setting expectations

Hindsight is so humbling. It took me 45 years of professional life to arrive at the following conclusion:

Setting expectations correctly is far more important than the actual work that you do.

I have been on many projects where we accomplished miracles, only to incur heavy management censure for our disappointing performance.

I have even been fired while producing the output of several design engineers. I realized much later this was because I was disappointing more people than I was satisfying. It was small comfort that I was replaced by four engineers.

It took me years to learn how to set expectations properly and I continued to work harder and harder instead of working smarter. I kept trying to work more efficiently, while ignoring the fact that some of the least capable engineers I knew were being promoted above me.

I used to sneer privately at these suck-ups, as I thought of them, instead of recognizing that they excelled in one of the most important skills of corporate life. They understood people better than they understood technology. They found out what management wanted to hear and tailored their commitments to confirm to management expectations.

The fact they had no clue how to deliver on these commitments does not lessen the critical importance of what they were doing. They focused on setting expectations that made management feel comfortable. As a result, they got put in charge of the project while I did the work and took the heat if expectations weren't met.

It took many repeats of this process before I understood that working smarter did not mean working more efficiently. It meant setting expectations that could be met and were satisfactory to the customer/client/manager/whatever.

I might say in my defense, that in 45 years I rarely did the same task twice. The hardware development and software development projects I worked on were almost all ground-breaking events for companies in their startup phases of corporate life. When I managed projects in large corporations, these projects were intended to change the way the company did business.

The end result was that almost every project had a deadline, but no realistic yardstick to estimate the time required to accomplish the task in that particular company. We would give management our best (often optimistic) estimate and then work ourselves into a frenzy trying to meet our self-imposed deadlines.

Setting management expectations takes more courage than it does to come up with a revolutionary new design. Perhaps that's why technical people often go out on a limb and agree to unrealistic deadlines. What happens as a result is they get shot later instead of immediately.

If you have read this far, take a look at your current work situation and see how you might adjust expectations to a more realistic level. If you can't, at least you will know what is likely to happen to you when the project ends. Update your resume and network like crazy. You will need those contacts.

If there is enough interest, I will write about strategies for setting expectations.

Comments

[Marie]

I'd be interested in hearing what you have to say about strageties for setting expectations.
Also, what do you have to say about employees who constantly exceed expectations?

[David]

They should be highly commended! In my experience, they were, when management had any sense at all.

On the other hand, some managers would take the position that these people were only doing what was expected. so what's the big deal?

This is a situation where setting expectations is vital. If management refuses to entertain a dialog on expectations, employees are being set up for a loss.

[Ana]

Sigh. That touches a nerve. After several years, I've realized the importance of setting expectations and managing my managers, but the execution of this is still an elusive goal.

[David]

It may be becuse they manage by exploiting you, rather than empowering you. If they can keep you off-balance, and have you thinking you are the problem, you will not threaten them with embarrassing questions.

Thanks for your feedback. I will continue this discussion in future posts, starting with, "Is your manager afraid of you?"

[VC]

People should post good advice like this more often - I was wondering why I never got anywhere at work... and Ana's comment about exploitation rather than empowerment also rings true for some of my employers. May I add "divide and conquer" tactics to the list of things employees should be wary of?

[oldcatman]

I guess the older I get, the more I can relate to situations that "people'' write about--''war stories'', I guess. While in hospital management, my second
such job had an adminstrator who wrote a book
dealing with "Management by Objectives"--so every year we had our financial budgets to deal with, PLUS
we had written goals/objectives to improve our departments and the hospital over all. The first year of this process, you kind of go overboard to impress and
subsequent years the goals & objectives become more realistic. Of course, the boss would set some for you that seemed impossible to attain..but as always, in the process of trying to attain the impossible you do accomplish a lot for the good of the company.

[Tanya]

there's enough interest!!

[Carrie]

When I first read this, it was a brain fog day and I had trouble understanding it. Today I'm functioning better and I just wrote a post which I now realize is somewhat like what you're saying here, though not as good :-)

Excellent advice!!! From a former over-achiever, I so wish I'd known about this AND the triangulation effect years ago. It might have helped a lot. Keep writing on this, its' perfect.