Expectation Management & Feedback Looping

Unlock organizational success with the latest podcast episode on Expectation Management and Constructive Feedback. Learn powerful strategies to foster growth, empowerment, and ownership in your team. Tune in for insights that drive positive change and elevate your organization to new heights. #Leadership #FeedbackCulture #OrganizationalGrowth

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Hello, everybody, hello to you the individual that's tuned in right now giving me some of your time of your day, your night, your evening, I appreciate you sitting down. In this little conversation that we're going to do today, we're going to talk about expectation management, mostly because in the past couple months, it's something that has been at the forefront of a lot of my struggles as a self proclaimed leader, both in my mind and positionally in life. So I'm going to explore that. And I'm going to kind of just talk out loud about the struggles of expectation management, what it looks like, when you maybe don't do it, right. The fallout from not doing it right. And then of course, with every negative, there's a positive if you choose to let there be one, we're just going to framework kind of taking expectation management, if it starts to get ugly and nitty gritty, how do you turn that in your favor, and then provide effective feedback either to yourself or to an individual that maybe you're encountering that is causing this point of stress for you? Right? Okay. So anyway, take a breath. And take a little time, get comfortable, adjust the volume, right? I've been out of practice with this. So I'm hoping all these levels are coming in good. Taking my verbal pauses, so I don't feel like I'm talking a mile a minute. And we're gonna jump in. Okay, so little, little bat context, right? Whether you've got to kind of catch on to who I am and what I am as a person in prior conversations, I don't know. But I'll give you context now, to get you up to speed. So then the picture that we paint moving forward, just stays clear, and we all stay on the same page. So I look at myself as a very push forward, lead with passion, and not be afraid to get a little aggressive, sometimes leader. And when I say aggressive, I mean in the sense of like, if I see that you have capacity, that you're not leveraging to benefit yourself, which would then in turn benefit somebody else, I'm gonna get on your ass. Like, I'm not afraid of that kind of positive confrontation. Right? But not everybody feels like that. And that's okay. Different styles, different strokes for different folks, I've just decided to choose mine. Understanding that the way you do business and the way I do business, we're not going to appeal to everybody. And that's why we benefit from having so many different styles. Because honestly, there's something for everybody, there's a style for everybody, there's a leader for everybody under the sun that we all get to be under. And that's what's important. So find your tribe, find your leader, find your beacon of hope, and like go there, right? Unless it's like a cold, then maybe don't do that. Okay, so let's get back on track. So my leadership style has afforded me I would say opportunities that if my style were different, maybe these opportunities wouldn't have been put on put on my plate in front of me to like take advantage of in the long run, I've been given the opportunity to get in front of different like high tier teams, talk to them about how they do their business, how they take care of their people, you know, the construct that they kind of follow within their organization, and kind of help them identify the goods and the bads of it to see okay, now we know the facts. Now we got it all lined out? How do we move forward? With that, I've also been given the opportunity to attend and partake in different group settings of again, different minds, different levels of experience, different years in different levels of like self awareness, and kind of where they are in their leadership journey in with that when I enter a environment of individuals that have chosen to be somewhere, expectation management, subconsciously kind of kicks on and goes, Man, this is probably going to be like a high value thing, right? Like, there's going to be a lot to take from this. And personally, I depending on the topic, can talk until like I'm blue in the face. So I challenge myself to kind of try to be the last one to talk about topics like, you know, let's say, Hey, what is your definition of leadership? And let's say there's like 20 people in the room, right? And they only want like six opinions. I try not to put my opinion out there. Just to kind of get a vibe check of like where the room is. And it's not because I think my definition is better or more important or anything like that. But I'm never hesitant to be the first one to talk. And sometimes, depending on the environment and the setting, and the people that are in attendance that can be let's call it intimidating to where they don't want to speak up anymore, or they don't want to share, maybe hesitation due to potential judgment or whatever, whatever the case may be. So I've been really trying to keep myself accountable to this. To this, like, if given the opportunity, unless specifically saying, Hey, John, what's your thoughts on this? I just tried to sit back, right? Or maybe ask an expansion, close question to somebody else to help them you know, better create a clear thought share, right? Okay. So boom, we got that. Now, expectation management, you, my friend that's listening to this right now, I'm sure you've spent money at some point in your life, whether it be a lot or a little, at the end of the day, when you spend your money, you expect some type of level of product out of what you're spending your money on, right. So if you go to a high tear restaurant, let's say Michelin star restaurant, right? I don't know what the going rate of their plates are. But it's not going to be an $8 play as if you were going to go to like Cracker Barrel, you're not going to get like an $8 plate of food at a Michelin star restaurant. So you would expect, like you've never had medium well, like at a Michelin star restaurant, you know, maybe the cook at Cracker Barrel gets medium well done, because you don't know his background or their background, right. But when you go to Michelin star, you expect no mistakes, you expect hot food from the kitchen, you expect, the piece got a little snap to it, the meat is perfect, the water is the coldest, most still water you've ever had. Like, there's just an expectation, especially if you're paying like 70 $89 a plate, right, you get a glass of wine, it's like $25, you expect that that wine doesn't taste like the wine that you could go to CVS and buy for six bucks, there's just expectations. So that's kind of my definition of expectations. If I put something in naturally, I value my time and my effort and my energy and my intellect. So I would expect a certain outcome to my investment on my part. And when that doesn't occur, the instinctive reaction is kind of like this. For me, right? I'm keeping this self accountable to me, how you react is obviously a for you to define. And then however you define it, you can use that as I feel like this is acceptable given the circumstance, or you make a note of it, and you create this reflective point for yourself to go back and go, I probably need to work on that. And whether it's body language face, you know, not regulating your emotions, as you're speaking to somebody, it's where you get that like wavering tone in your voice, like somebody could tell you're kind of emotional, whether it be due to anger or the level of upset. It's sensible, right? So we're creating our picture now, expectation management, how do I wade through a situation where the outcome or product doesn't match the expectation that I have? Well, to the logical person that's giving me their time, right now, you're probably like, easy, bro. Just don't have expectations of anything can be let down. If you don't have expectations, and like, yes, I would agree with you. Logically speaking, that would be the easiest route to do. However, let's assume. And let's address the wide spectrum of levels of self awareness and emotional intelligence that people may or may not have in their current place of life, right? So how do we help those individuals go through a situation that doesn't match expectation, whether it's a team leader, or a teammate, whether you're the boss, or you're the person under the boss, everybody has expectations of something. And it would almost seem that if you're the worker, under a boss, your level of expectations is that much higher. And whether it's because of position, or because of pay, or maybe the years in whatever it is, you're going to look to this person in charge and be like, anything that comes up, you should pretty much be able to have the answer to because you're the boss. And if you didn't know stuff, why do they have you here. So this is where the idea of feedback comes in not only feedback, because you can do feedback in a very ineffective way. So our goal is to talk through how to provide effective feedback. When product doesn't match expectation, because you're human, so you're allowed to have expectations, as well as you should have expectations. Especially if you find yourself, either manager, leader, neutral, whatever you call yourself, if you don't look at yourself as a leader, I mean, maybe just take a step back and really look at who you who you influence and who you will receive and what you will receive and what your decisions ripple into like, at some point, you could probably be like, oh, you know what, in this facet, I am a leader, and you should own that space. And once you identify that space, you should try to do your best to grow into that space. If you don't feel like you're already at that operational level where it's like, I feel I have have the tools to operate. And that's cool. But most leaders and most people that are on their growth journey, don't aim to hit the ceiling and then just stop. They go, okay, cool. I made it here, and I'm efficient. So what does it feel like if I take that next step to uncomfortability, to maybe adapt and get some new skills, so that next level, once, it's my time, it doesn't feel uncomfortable when I get there, right. And hopefully, you have a leader in your corner, or a mentor or a guidance counselor, or a life coach, or a best friend or a well educated parent, whatever, whoever you got on your team. Hopefully, they're helping you stay consistent. As far as like we talked about before, way, way back, probably like when I first did like my first three episodes of this podcast. Uncomfortable is cool. But you don't need to live in uncomfortable. Yes, you grow. When you go experience something that's not the norm for you. But the growth comes to where you go back to your comfort zone, you spill out your bag of uncomfortable experience, whether it's public speaking, or new leadership opportunity, you put all that stuff on the table in your comfort zone, and you look at it and you go, okay, so what can I take from what I learned in what I just experienced, to apply it and adapt it to how I currently do business. So then the next time I go out to uncomfortable land, I'm not as uncomfortable and I'm a little bit more prepared, that would be the ultimate goal. Okay. So we have all these tools are painting the framework, creating this foundation. And now it's your time to sit down and give somebody some feedback in an effective manner, you choose your role. And maybe you're experiencing something in life right now, where you need to give somebody feedback. Feedback isn't just like tied to the professional environment. You give your kids feedback, your significant other feedback, your friend feedback, your parents feed, like everybody gets feedback, the chef, they get feedback. So feedback is not just tied to you finally going and talking to that person that you work with that you've been kind of avoiding for a while. So what do we do? Okay, first and foremost, if you want to set a good tone, when giving effective feedback, the first thing I need you to do before you go just like reactively, go talk to this person is don't go reactively go talk to this person, once you've identified a behavior that is not conducive to the environment that you're trying to set. So let's say you're the leader in charge of a section or a team. So now you're ultimately in charge for driving that organizational culture and where it goes and what it feels like. Right. And unless that's clearly set, people are going to naturally want to push the boundaries and see what's tolerated here. You get a new person, and nobody has sat them down to be like, hey, just so you know, this is kind of how we go this is, this is how we communicate. This is how we value teamwork. This is how we empower innovation, we have open communication for these types of things. If you don't tell them the playbook, they may just show it with bad habits from their last job and see, I got away with it there. Let's see very good, we'll get away with it here. Right. So to avoid that, we're focusing on behavior, not the personality. It doesn't matter if personality wise, you don't get along with this person. That's irrelevant. You're focusing on the behavior of either your direct subordinates, or a teammate or a peer or whatever. Once you have identified the behavior that is not conducive to your overall goal of organizational culture, that is your that's like your first flag. We don't have to call it a red flag, but it's a flag and it's waving in the wind to go, Hey, this may be worth having a conversation with this person to maybe address it before it steamrolls into something else, right? Where they say, one bad apple ruins the whole batch or whatever the whole basket or something like that. tisket a tasket, you know, so we're looking at behavior. Now personality, because let's be honest, you probably work with a bunch of people that you don't get along with. So if you focus on, I don't like them, so I'm going to be hypercritical of everything they do, you're probably dropping the ball, and you need to reflect on that a little bit. Next, we have identified a behavior that has given us the flag of I need to probably have a conversation with this person. Cool. Obviously, you're going to treat this conversation no different than how you would want somebody to come address you. You don't want to come get verbally attacked and beat down by somebody coming to you and tell you how bad you sucked at a task or how bad you messed up the job or how bad you messed up the project or how bad you you know manage the team. And then they just walk off they go hey, I just want to come let you know like subpar performance. Definitely not what we were expecting from you, and then you just walk off and you leave that person there. And to some people that will destroy them. Like it'll take forever. For them to bounce back from that to get any type of sense of like, pride or ownership. And then when you do that to somebody you have to understand if you go over verbally beat down somebody and only provide negative feedback, you are instilling so much hesitation in defensive walls that go up in that person, they're going to be so hesitant to give input to share an idea to say, Hey, I think this might work better, hey, I think I did this, because in their brain, they are now known as the screw up. So you have to balance that positive with that negative, you can address and identify, hey, I appreciate your timeliness on this, I really, I really, really enjoyed the way that you communicated, how the process was going as you were going. However, in the future, I need you to focus on the quality that you're ultimately producing at the end. So if you have questions on like, quality, as you're getting to that point, please don't hesitate to speak up and come ask, you know, ask your team lead, ask your manager, whoever's over you. In that case, if you're the one in charge, there's still going to be somebody that's overseeing you ultimately, like, don't hesitate to reach out to them. Otherwise, fantastic job, you managed your teammates. Well, you did a great job. We can't wait to keep working with you and watching you grow in the future. What is that it's nothing more than a strategic compliment sandwich to let that person know, not only did we see you do a great job, we saw the capacity and the potential in you to do a consistent, high level Great job, the only thing we need you to do now is give a little bit more attention to your final product into that person. They don't hear, Oh, I suck. They hear in they see and they feel, man, I got a leader, a boss or whatever, that actually took the time to come tell me where I can grow as a teammate. And I don't feel beat down after that. And then like we said, right, so provide actionable suggestions to this person. actionable steps, hey, if you feel like you got all this tied down squared away, but you feel like you struggle on this end, come let us know we'll have somebody step in that's done before may be more experienced. And they're not going to come in and take over. But you can have a guide with you to make sure that you get to where you're ultimately trying to go. You're giving them something actionable, because the worst thing that you can do is go give not only just critical, negative feedback, but give them no actionable tangible takeaways of how to course correct for the future, or what options are open to them in the future. So they don't do repeat, bad delivery on final product. Okay, so you've identified the behavior, you gave them a strategic compliment sandwich, because it is as important to identify the good as it is, the less favorable because you know, you don't know what you don't know. So it's not, they're not inherently doing it on purpose to be bad. They may just not know, you've given them tangible, actionable options on how to move forward POCs or points of contact to go talk to or ask their questions to, and then your next step needs to be you have to ensure that they get the platform to talk, whether it's to clarify why there may have been some miscommunication, whether it's to ask clarifying questions on their part, maybe you talk fast, and you're nervous, because it's the first time you had to address this with somebody. So you kind of get lost in the sauce and you created this, like, you put paint in your hand and just do it at the wall. And it's like up to perception on what it's supposed to be. So you allow them the space to go, Hey, like, one, I appreciate you coming to me and addressing this to me, you know, face to face, because that means a lot to people. I appreciate you giving me the feedback. However, could you elaborate on this or clarify that. And then you do so and if in that moment, you can't, then you take your notes, and you have a point of reference. And you go get that clarifying information and you follow up. Great, boom, we're doing it, we're almost to the end here. The next big thing is I joke a lot about this in my workplace that I'm a really big fan of like public public, not public shaming, because that's, you know, that's too extreme, let's say like public addressing to where like everybody learns from the one person that had to learn. But obviously, we can all agree that that's not a productive way to address somebody. So respect their privacy when you're when you're having this conversation. Don't do it in the break room. Don't do it in front of other people, like set up in a in a way that it's it's private. It's a one on one conversation. It's not easy for somebody to like ease drop. Don't do it in like a glass bowl office where like no matter who walks by, they're just gonna assume that this person is getting like counseled in a bad way. Like, create a space where the door can be closed. You guys can have the privacy to have the conversation. Don't set it to where like a meeting is gonna walk in the room in five minutes and start at like, time, place, platform all these things matter and Then finally, the conversation ends, they have their space to talk and ask questions, you close, you guys leave on the same page, you have an understanding for each other and what the other one expects or needs from the other one. And then you let them go out into the wild, and just go back to doing business. And that's usually where most people stop, but you're awesome. So what do you do that's different from others, you create a follow up loop, you create a timeline of follow up, you say, hey, in a week, I'll come by and make sure everything is good check in on you, whatever, whatever. So Furthermore, you're instilling in this person that this isn't a risk smack activity for you, like you're not here to get in trouble. I'm not here to yell at you. I'm here to give you tangible feedback, constructive feedback that you can use. So you can become more effective or more aware, or a better leader, or more intentional in your work. And then I want to come follow up on you to make sure that you continue to have the tools you need to be successful. And that is what will set you apart from anybody else that just did this whole process, but did not create a follow up loop. That's where you start getting the big buy in. So let's round the corner. expectation management, you should have it because you're a human. But you have to be aware that there's a couple of traps in that the expectation management usually comes from some type of internal standard that you have for yourself. And if you find yourself holding others, to the standard that you hold yourself for, you're setting yourself up to eventually run into a wall and get upset, or get frustrated. And if you're not willing to maybe step back and look at it holistically and go, Ooh, you know what, I'm the drama in this equation, I haven't clearly got to know my people or their areas of strength to leverage them appropriately to set them up for success. I've just blindly been expecting them to match my level of performance or critical thinking or proactiveness, or whatever. But we're not clones, right. And that's the whole element of teamwork. And to me, personally, that's the mark of a good leader, somebody that goes I got 1234 1415 27 different personalities that compose this team that compose this organization, into the best of my ability, I need to get to know them enough. That number one, they never hesitate to come clearly communicate to me whether its needs or concerns, I need to get them to a level that we have rapport enough where I know what their strengths are, where their areas of growth are. So then I can align as the time goes, I can align them with somebody that fills their growth area with their strength, so they can team up. And they can learn from the person that's good at it already. Or I align them in a strength zone for them. So they can flourish, and they can feel empowered. And they can move forward and make decisions without looking around every two seconds. Like I'm so out of my depth. Now, when you find that that flow is a leader where like you feel like you're just clicking your team is clicking, the communication is clear. Nobody's pride is in the way, people are speaking up if they need something. It's a beautiful, harmonious thing. And then you always have to remember, you want to get everybody on board, make it clear on how we need and why we need to move in this direction as an organization as a whole. And why it's important, and what each member of the team is willing to do, and what each member of the team what their role is, and making the big picture happen. Because then you create little like linchpin stakeholders that don't want to see the organization run any other way than how you have envisioned because everybody has been taken into consideration where everybody's benefit, if the overall is good. And of course, the second or I guess, like the second corner that gets us towards the finish line is like anything else, once you have a process in place, eventually people leave, or you leave, or somebody more senior than you comes in and your position drops a little bit where you're not driving the organizational culture anymore. It's their decisions. And you have to be willing to adapt. You have to be humble, you can't get caught up in pride. Because pride is just a self serving thing that may sabotage the things that are around you. If somebody comes in and they want to slightly change how the organization works, as long as they're not doing it in a malice way, where now they're willing to sacrifice somebody's like, overall well being or they're just trying to undercut everybody for the sake of numbers or productivity. Give them an opportunity. You don't have to be that one that's like oh, there's no going work we don't we don't do that like that round here. Like nobody wants to hear that as the new person. Nobody wants to be told on like their first week like, yeah, the decisions you made, they're not going to work. But whatever man good luck, like give them an opportunity, give them a chance, just like you wanted a chance to fix stuff, give them a chance to maybe do something through their eyes that maybe you don't see. In make sure you keep those teammates rallied. If you start letting these little edges fray off, and everybody starts going their own direction, people start getting lost in pride where they're not reaching out, you know, asking for help, or asking for clarification or asking for some teamwork or some collaboration or something. Something is a missed, and you got to identify it. But you can't force people to swallow the pill of pride and ask for help. It will always come back to you know, you can lead the horse to water but you can't force it to drink it. When you deal with people that don't want to swallow the pill of pride for the sake of really their own betterment, right? Like, they're too caught up in wanting to be the self Problem Solver or the self identifier or the one who fixed it without asking for help. Like in their world, that's where their cash is made. So you can't blame them for that. If they're a critical thinker, like you could leverage that ultimately. But if they're only trying to be a critical thinker for themselves and their problems, well, then again, we talk about effective feedback, good constructive feedback. That's an easy conversation that can have that can maybe make that person aware of something that they haven't been made aware of yet. Okay. Do you ever notice like, you know, you'll be struggling, but you won't come like lean on us as your team or something like you don't ever really ever reach out or ask for anything. Until stuff boils over. And then it's like, Oh, yeah. Oh, all four of my tires went flat on the way to work. I spilled my scrambled egg sandwich on my lap, had to go back home had to walk there 17 miles to change, and then had to walk back because all four of my tires were still flat. But yeah, man, I really could use some help to make it do that. And he's like, why didn't you just ask all this? Because I was too. I was too in it. I was to hyper focus and just trying to make it through to the other side. Okay, well, boom, now, you know, that's an area of growth for them, and you helped identify it. And then what do you do? You give them the tangibles? Hey, you're aware of it. Now, ultimately, the decision is you're either going to work on it or you're not, I can't force you to, I can't control where you put your time and energy. But I'm letting you know, these are your avenues in the future, to make sure that you don't repeat this process of like self thinning and self sabotaging because you're so caught up in, I just got to figure it out on my own, I don't want to I don't want to ask for help. I don't want people to look at me, like I don't know what I'm doing. Because the realistic nature is, all of us don't know what we're doing in some facet of something. And if that's all we're ever wrapped up and worried about, we are missing a very large opportunity to make something great happen collectively as a team, and size of the team is irrelevant. So no matter what you do every day, it's based off of a choice. And that small little impact of choice ripples into something else. You know if it's good or bad, that's ultimately on you and your responsibility to decide. But you have to be aware that sometimes these ripples affect bigger things than just you and your immediate decision of I don't want to ask for help. Think about the ripple effect of how that affects the team, or the organization, or team cohesion, or organizational trust, that one decision for you to ultimately be selfish in that moment and not reach out, it ripples out and it starts touching and affecting other things. And if other people go, Oh, that's how we do things here, then they start doing it. So now one decision has started to affect other people's decision, which then affects the big picture. And then if you're the leader, looking down all the on this, trying to figure out what happened in your system to make these little like, sticking marks in these little clumps and chunks happen in a used to be harmonious system. Sometimes it's the people, it's, we got to make these people aware of what they're good at, and give them the opportunity to grow in their growth in their areas of growth that they need to pay attention to. And then give them the space to do it without making them feel forced to do it. Right. So you're kind of their silent supporter. So that's what we did. today. We talked about expectation management, what it means in John's world, different marks of the leader, according to John, and we summed it up with cruisin through effective, constructive feedback, how to do it, how to not lose a teammate while you do it. And how to set this person out to where after they leave that that office, that conference room that whatever they know that ultimately you're in their corner and you got their best interest in mind. So make your notes do some self reflection adaptive To change where you need to grow, where you need to seek out opportunities to facilitate that growth. And if all else fails, lean on a teammate, have a conversation, ask for some open ended feedback, but swallow that pill of pride and humility before you go in that room to be prepared to maybe hear some stuff that you didn't want to hear, but you need to hear. There's no other way to get better. So until next time, I'll catch you then. Take care of yourself so you can take care of everybody else. Because everybody else can't be taken care of. If you don't take care of you first. 

Transcribed by https://otter.ai