Setting Clear Expectations

In my last post, I made the comment that I don’t like how most leader's lead. I don’t think it’s right to make a comment like that and then never address is completely. I have a few issues that really drive me crazy, and it’s been on my mind lately because I heard someone address one of them in a way that I loved. I’ll start with the one that wasn’t addressed. It drives me crazy when we talk about number one priorities and then we list off five things. I’m sure I’ve said this before, but by definition, you can only have one number one priority. It sounds simple and maybe a little weird, but when you talk about number one priorities and then you list multiple items, it gives a conflicting message. People walk away unsure of what to do next. If you walk into work and you have no idea what you should focus on, then you have a very big communication issue. I think another thing that goes with that is that no one feels any urgency. In the back of your mind, you are waiting for someone to come around and tell you that you are doing it wrong and you need to start over or switch to a different task. It’s hard to go full speed ahead when you think at any moment someone is going to pull the plug. This leads me to the second issue, this is the one that was addressed. Every single year there is a conference that happens called the Global Leadership Summit. I think for the last seven years or so, they have had the same speaker lead off the conference. His name is Craig Groeschel, he might be the exact opposite of Gary Vee, who I mentioned last week. Different audiences, different ways of doing things, but both people are great leaders. On Craig Groeschel’s leadership podcast they played his opening speech from the 2023 Global Leadership Summit. It was amazing and it talked about expectations. Here was his list of three statements on expectations:

1.    Be clear on what you expect

2.    Reward when you see it

3.    Correct it when you don’t

Of course, I was driving when he said these things, so I decided to stop the podcast until I could look and see where I was at in the podcast. I noticed I had a little under twelve minutes left in the podcast and then I finished listening. As soon as I could, I took out a note card and wrote down those three things so I wouldn’t forget them. Two things hit me right away, First, just how simple it was. Two, how those things are never followed. We live in a world where we spend most of our time unsure about our expectations. The part that confuses us the most is that when we think we have a clear understanding of what expectations are, they aren’t enforced. Most of us daily see people clearly going against expectations and nothing is said. So, what does that mean? It could mean a few things; it could mean that right now the company isn’t in a time of urgency. That sounds like a big negative, but I don’t think it is. Another one of my frustrations is when people act like something is urgent when it’s not. I will save that conversation for another day, but my point is that you shouldn’t always be in a state of urgency. If you are, you have way bigger issues. So, when you aren’t in a time of urgency, certain expectations aren’t as important. The big negative when expectations aren’t being enforced is that leadership doesn’t know how to handle it. I think this is what happens a lot of times. The first issue is that we sometimes don’t know how to reward it. Most people don’t know how to reward people just for following the rules. If I tell you that you must be at work by midnight and every single day you show up before midnight, it would be weird to give you a bonus for coming to work every day. But can I do something different and compliment you in front of people for always being prepared and ready to go? I think it’s an option, people want compliments, especially in front of people. If someone isn’t performing, it’s a little easier to address an issue of not hitting expectations. You can always fall back on numbers. But what if they are performing? I think that is one of the toughest things to address, someone who is a top performer, but they aren’t following expectations. I think the only way to address this is to tell them that they need to be an example to others. If they want to truly be a top performer and get paid like one, they need to be the example.

Focus for the Week

Let’s see if we can follow the three statements about expectations. Make sure we are clear on what the expectations are. After that, let’s see this week if we can find a few ways to reward someone for doing the right thing, and if we need to, let’s be bold and correct someone!