#10 - Expectations and the Workplace with "Mike and Sam"

Hello everybody, and it's my turn to start, Mike. You know, we said it is during the week.

Let's follow the expectations.

Don't be stepping on my feet. I mean, come on now. Um, it's Mike and Sam, and today rather than being at 1 o'clock Central Time as we told you yesterday, it's 3 o'clock Central Time. And had a few things that we needed to take care of, but we want to make sure that we're here for you. Had an interesting thing happen yesterday, and Mike Zubrin, do you want to tell the story, Mike?

Absolutely. So yesterday I had just, uh, I was in the middle of finishing up some details on an event I had done, a virtual event, and I was running like crazy in my mind. And Sam said, what are we going to discuss today? This is yesterday's show. And I said, oh, I've got this great thing on patience. And he went, oh, I had this great thing on expectations. I said, we're doing your thing. Well, we'll go with yours. So he's like, all right, expectations it is. And I said, now I just need it quiet for 2 minutes while I finish this. And after 2 minutes, we start the show and I go, today we're talking about patience. After Sam was all ready to talk about expectations and the look on Sam's face was like, what? And it was a great example of me not listening to ex— the expectations and delivering based on the expectations we discussed. And so today we're talking about expectations.

Yeah. I think expectations are powerful. And they're powerful in several ways. The question I would ask you is, how do expectations impact you? And what are the expectations that impact you on a daily basis? Who's putting these expectations on you? Because we have expectations that we place on ourselves. We have expectations that maybe our boss places on us. We have expectations from family members. We have expectations from people that report to us. We have expectations in the community. All around, people are setting expectations. And then, we either go about trying to respond or not respond. And it, we can be overwhelmed with expectations.

We can. And a lot of times, we can, it's what we put on ourselves, right? We can either put too low of expectations Or put a lot of stress with super high expectations that might be great goals, but not reasonable necessarily. And by the way, hi, Holly, we love that. So anybody watching, write down where you've made expectations, or what are the expectations, expectations you're feeling in this world today that you, maybe we all want a little help with.

Yeah, so I see expectations in 2 ways. There's outbound and there's inbound. And on the outbound expectations that we set expectations for the people around us. I might set an expectation that with you that we're going to show up at a certain time. We're going to do a certain thing, whatever that expectation is in the relationship. If you're the one that's setting expectations, it's really critical to make sure that you communicate them and make sure that the person that you're working with hears them, understands them, and then they can live them. But if you're not communicating clearly and you haven't confirmed that, Then they struggle. The second thing is, is when we set expectations to others, these outbound expectations, it becomes about empathy. Are we setting expectations with empathy for them, where they are, what's going on in their life, their needs?

Or is it just about us?

Is it just me, me, me? And so, those outbound expectations, we really need to take stock and be thoughtful and communicate them well.

Absolutely. This is a term I talked about yesterday in the program I was doing, the corporate program, and that is the phrase mutuality. And when it comes to expectations, they need to be mutually understood. If I come in and say, here's my expectation to you, and it's a talk-down moment, well, that's a dictation. That's a demand and a deadline. It doesn't even sound like I have anything to do with this expectation. So that puts a lot of stress on me because I'm not bought in, versus drawing me into that conversation, bringing me into that. And now you can ask, hey, is that reasonable, Mike? What do you think? And now I'm buying into that because we, we compromise and work together on it. And it's so important, so important in the workforce where people can get caught up in, I got a deadline, I gotta— now I gotta tell this person I'm running to get this done, versus how am I going to team up with them?

Yeah. And so, to build on that, if we're setting expectations with others, maybe it's not just the way that we want it. We need to ask them, does this sound reasonable? Is this possible? Is this doable? Are you comfortable with this? Can you— is this going to work for you along with everything else that you have going on in your life, in your job, in whatever the arena is that you're working? And that really It creates a mutuality in that relationship.

Yes. And, and we all have to understand that there will be days and times that we have to do things because it needs to be done. And so, not everything's going to be something we're excited to do. And so, we have to understand that part of the expectation is understanding every now and then they might walk in with that urgent matter and I might have to make it a fire and I might have to do it. The key is that's not the norm. That's not— the expectation should be that's an exceptional situation. And that's a great example of expectation, right? That should be the exceptional situation. The norm of the expectation should be, we're doing this as a team, as a, in unison together in that mutual experience.

You know, expectations can be around jobs and specific duties and things that we need to get done. But expectations can also attach to values, a way of thinking and a way of acting. Leaders set expectations in an organization that this is how we do it here, that we act with integrity, that we we communicate in an open manner, we provide feedback, that we participate in the community, whatever their values are. And that leader should also be in that environment setting expectations, because that's going to shape the behavior of everyone in that culture.

Well, yeah, and it's a great example of role modeling. Role modeling is the ultimate example of expectations. Because what you role model is what people will expect of you in the future, by the way, and of other leadership, if you're a leader. They're going to expect that to come around. I'll give you a great example of this. Yesterday, somebody reached out to me after that program yesterday and said, we have somebody in our C-suite, uh, who is constantly yelling and screaming at people and nobody ever takes them on, and it's not the CEO. What do I do? And then they explained, we have a new CEO. And I said, that new CEO is the key here because if they allow it, no matter what you say, Right. If the new CEO allows it, you got trouble.

Exactly.

So, you got to team up with that new CEO and set the expectation that this ain't the way it works here anymore because this never should have been the way it worked. But the expectation needs to be set early. It's why coaches can always come in and be really hard and tough to start and then lay back a little bit because otherwise, you set an expectation of, I don't work that hard. And you want to set the expectation High, reasonable and high.

What do you do, Mike, when someone sets expectations on you that are unrealistic and you feel that they're just unrealistic? How do you react in that sort of situation?

It's a great question. I know there are times in my life I didn't react the way I hoped. And that is, I stayed quiet and thought, well, I don't want to rock the boat, or I'll just get through this. And I think that's what a lot of us do. But I know that I have felt most free and expressive and creative and productive when I actually had the courage to say, that's not going to work. Like, that's just not like— I just had to be honest and say, that's not—

You are defined by what you say no to. Yeah.

And then they're like, what?

Why?

And then when you tell why, they're like, oh, I didn't realize that. And you were afraid they were going to be cruel or mean. Look, if they're that cruel or mean, you probably, if you can, are looking for a different job, if you can. But if they're not, they're probably going to understand on some level. Doesn't mean it's always going to work, but it's certainly freeing to know you declared your boundaries.

Right. And those expectations that are unreasonable, you know, they could, if you're the CEO, those expectations could be coming back onto you or at any level could be coming back from someone that reports to you or someone that you report to either way. And having this open, frank conversation is just really powerful because otherwise, you're going to disappoint someone. Whatever the expectations are set to, you won't be able to deliver on them. And then there's going to be animosity.

You know, Sam, that this is true, that there are large corporations and organizations that they bring people like you and myself in to do a program so they can all walk out and go, new expectation, and they don't have to be the bad cop. Right? Because everybody came into that room and agreed, yes, we love what you're giving us. We love accountability. We love mutual relationships in the workplace. We love it. We're all out here together. And now there's a new expectation. And they bring us in to help create that. And then they get to live it.

And the leader has to be on board to make that work.

Yeah, that only works when we're being brought in usually, or the leader's part of that process by the leader. Yeah, 100%.

One last thing on expectations. One opportunity we always have to impress someone: exceed the expectations.

I love that. And speaking of expectations, we expect to be here with you every Monday through Friday at 1 PM Central Standard Time. There's a few exceptions where that won't be the case, but we'll tell you about that the day before. Remember, you can catch us on iTunes, you can catch us on YouTube/Center for Respect, YouTube/Sam Silverstein. We're out. Have an awesome weekend, everyone.