Working with clients, bosses, co-workers and spouses in an increasingly time-crunched world requires time management and managing expectations. This article deals with the latter.
I am probably the least qualified person to write about managing expectations. I’ve been late, interfered with plans, and generally been an open communication disaster for more times then I could count during my college years.
Fortunately, for everyone around me, I have seen how this behavior is selfish, as I would tend to force my will by forcing the situation. For example, when going to a store which is near a friends house who I needed to pick up something from, I wouldn’t inform the people I was with that I needed to go to that friends house until we were leaving the store, then I would get caught up in conversation, not wanting to leave abruptly, at the friends house and cause bad feelings and waiting all around.
Or, another example, I like playing piano at night, and I would just leave my partner to do that when whimsy dictated. However, this led to no small amount of fights and discomfort, negating the emotional benefits of playing piano. Now, I have a block of time that is set aside for playing piano, I can take that, negate it, or, optionally, move it earlier.
I was avoiding the structure because I wanted to maintain the flexibility, but, curiously, adding the structure not only added the desired flexibility, but made the expectation of practice part of my life.
I’ve discovered that sharing my plans does not hinder me, instead it enables others to see what I desire, and assist me in achieving this goal.
What was hindering my communication? Identifying this is an important part of any sort of development, asking where are the restrictions coming into the system. Only you know what you are thinking, and noticing your own thought process is another article entirely.
I was electing the path of least resistance, neglecting to be forthcoming in favor of maintaining social harmony. Of course, as a long term strategy, this is a poor one for achieving interpersonal peace, as the truth always comes to light as a matter of necessity.
In the interest of an easy-to-digest bullet list:
* Managing expectations is a communication failure
* Negative situations are often a trigger for not being open
* By avoiding these situations, we often make them worse
* Building a temporal structure creates habits that form expectations, of yourself and by others.
Of course, when you’re dealing with clients, or bosses, the stakes are much higher, so you’re that much more unwilling to talk about anything which would put you in a negative light.
For example, you could be working on a project which is taking much longer then anticipated and planned for. You could either keep your client in the loop about the delay, work nights and weekends, or miss a deadline. Which do you think will generate the most good in the world?
Note that working nights generates the expectation that you will ALWAYS do this.
However, exactly as I mentioned above, by protecting yourself in professional situations for the short term, you open yourself to possible long-term consequences which are much greater than making your friends wait.
Note: This was originally published on awesome business networking site, biznik.
