One of the biggest possible disconnects between you and your clients, customers, employees, volunteers, family members, etc. is when expectations are not met. This can leave one or both parties disappointed.
We’ve all experienced things or people not living up to expectations. One personal example was when I went to see a “blockbuster movie” in 3D a while back. I expected a great visual experience. What I got was a 2D version that had a distortion on half of the screen through the whole movie. It wrecked the experience for me. It did not meet my expectations.
How about an employee that, when you ask them why they didn’t complete their assigned project on time, they reply that they thought the due date was later. Their expectation of when it was due was different then when you believed it was.
Or the independent contractor that you hired for a job that wasn’t clear on what and how you wanted things done. They end up not meeting your expectations or theirs in satisfying you.
Nobody is happy when expectations are not met. We can fail to meet expectations, meet them, or exceed them. Obviously, the best case scenario is to exceed expectations, but we must at least meet them if we want to keep a good relationship with whomever we are dealing with.
Why don’t we always meet expectations then? Sometimes something may happen that’s beyond our control that prevents it. More often than not, however, not meeting expectations is because we didn’t properly set those expectations.
Back to the employee and the independent contractor. For both of these the best case scenario is to have all responsibilities spelled out in writing up front. Give them a copy. Walk them through them. Discuss them and answer any questions to clarify. Potentially you may even have them sign the written job description or work order as further proof that they received, read, and understood them.
For less formal agreements (which could include meeting and doing something with friends), you still want to set expectations, such as time to meet, where to meet, what you’re going to be doing, etc. When everyone knows the plan, it’s easy to meet expectations.
A quick note on exceeding expectations… when expectations are set ahead of time, you have a pretty good idea of what meeting them means and by doing just a little bit more to exceed them becomes a simple measure.