[MUSIC]
Hello again.
In this segment we're going to talk about how to draft and
clarify your expectations, and then how to share your expectations with your team.
There are a lot of considerations here, so let's begin.
So when you're identifying your expectations, the first thing I want to
invite you to do is make sure that you focus on what it is that you want,
the behaviors that you want to see from people, not what you don't want.
Now I know, previously I said sometimes it can help by thinking about what you don't
want, but you don't want to phrase your expectations when you communicate those to
people in that terminology.
We want it to be positive, right?
So for example we want to say communicate with respect instead of don't be rude.
We want to always consider our intent.
What is it that you are really hoping will happen as a result of this expectation?
We want to make sure that the expectation serves an organizational purpose that this
isn't just about you again trying to manage people in your personal preference
because you don't like something that people do.
And an example of that would be,
that a lot times managers put on their expectations list, be positive.
But the reason that they say that is because they don't like to deal with
people who have negative attitudes and that raise conflict or disagree.
And that may or may not be valuable, right.
So I think it's important to look at.
You're telling people to be positive just because you don't want to deal with
the fact that sometimes people don't agree with you or
are you telling people to be positive because it really drives the kind of
organizational culture that you want to have?
Keep in mind,
what is it that you're actually trying to achieve with this expectation?
Now once you've clarified your expectations and you've written them down,
then you have to figure out what to do with them, right?
So, what we want to do with expectations is we want to communicate
those to our team.
But I think there's a lot of power in inviting everybody on your team to go
through this exercise as well.
So I think it's very valuable to invite all your employees
to write down their expectations of people that they work with, and give them some
of the insights that you have learned through going through this course.
Help them understand the difference between an expectation and a standard but
invite them to really think about what do they expect of people that they work with
and then, we want to have a meeting where we talk about our expectations, mutually.
So everybody has an opportunity to talk through what their expectations are.
And a thing that's very important to keep in mind is that we
have to make sure we really understand what people mean.
And that goes for you as well.
Because a lot of times we say things like, be professional, for example.
I don't know about you, but professional has certainly gotten to,
[LAUGH] mean a lot of things lately, so we want to make sure that when we say,
be professional we know what that means to everyone, and especially for you.
So if I say, be professional,
that might mean something different in my mind than it does in yours.
So we need to, as I like to say, we need to color our expectation with detail so
people really know what that means.
So professional to you, might mean a suit, a tie for men, business suit for everyone.
It can mean different things to different people.
It could also be about behavior, and if I'm saying that I want
professional behavior, what does that mean to folks that I work with.
So make sure that you're prepared to really illustrate
What the expectations mean with examples.
So we invite your team to do the same exercise.
We have a team meeting where everybody gets a opportunity to share
what their expectations are with one another, and then as a team,
we come up with those three to five key expectations that we hold of each other.
Now because you're the leader, the good news is that you get to keep yours.
You don't have to get rid of yours for everybody else but
I think you'll find that most people have very similar expectations of one another
when we really get to the work of discussing it.
And then the next step, the final step, the key step is not that you just have
this meeting and this discussion but that you write down these expectations.
And you give them to people and put them where they are visible.
Put them in people's cubes, hang them on the wall, put them in your office.
But we want these expectations to become living, breathing
parts of who your team is, not just something you did last week in a meeting.
And then the way that you can really keep this alive even more is recognizing people
as they do great compared to these expectations.
So if we have one about being honest with one another.
Then recognize someone who was really helpful and
thoughtful about some feedback that they provided.
If we have an expectation about being professional then recognize someone for
something that they did that really exemplify that expectations.
So keeping your mind that expectations are really,
really powerful when, first of all, you're clear about what yours are.
Then you invite your team to think about theirs and
you have a conversation as a team and then you culminate that feedback into
team expectations that you document, you write down, you share with everyone.
And then, you recognize and appreciate people
as they demonstrate the behaviors that really reinforce those expectations.
So I'm really excited for you to try this exercise.
I think you're going to find that people will really, really enjoy it.
it's a very powerful work to do as a team.
And we'll continue to have to discussions about that throughout the course.
Kris PlachyCEO and Founder & Instructor, Leadership Coach, LLC &
