How to manage expectations
How to manage expectations
- You're probably juggling multiple projects already. And if you're like, most of us, your boss keeps throwing new ones at you. How can you keep up and do a good job and manage your supervisor's expectations? As with many things in life, the majority of problems can be avoided with a detailed conversation upstream, Well before any actual deadlines. The first step is making a comprehensive list of the projects you're working on, and rank ordering them, based on your understanding of priorities. You then want to set up a meeting with your boss, where you can confer and ask if your understanding of their relative importance matches hers. The last thing you want to do is waste time, pushing hard on the 10th priority when number one is languishing. You have limited time and energy, and you want to expend it on the right things, so ask. Next, for each project, come up with a time estimate. How long do you realistically think it'll take you to complete it? For instance, creating a pitch deck might take 90 minutes, writing the client report might be three hours, and pulling together your department's annual budget might take 10 hours of work. Then talk with your boss and match up those expectations. See if he thinks those are realistic estimates. And if you're wildly off, that can surface misaligned expectations early on. You might envision the departmental budget project is taking 10 hours and being hugely laborious, but maybe he just meant you should email everyone, ask them for some numbers and pull together a spreadsheet, which would take an hour, not 10. Knowing that enables you to triage much more effectively, and also push back where necessary. If you agree that writing a certain memo will take three hours, but he wants you to do 30 hours worth of other projects first, he's certainly not going to get that memo on his desk tomorrow. Finally, make sure you know what the deadline is for every project. We may think we know or have an implicit understanding, but it pays to be explicit and know exactly what others are envisioning. You can't prioritize effectively if you don't grasp the real urgency or lack thereof behind a given task. Understanding deadlines gives you the power to shift and adjust your schedule, based on what's actually most important. Expectations are tricky, and they're often unstated and often unrealistic. Having detailed conversations upfront can help spare you confusion and dissatisfaction down the road because you know where you stand.
Ask your boss the right questions
- You're probably juggling multiple projects already. And if you're like, most of us, your boss keeps throwing new ones at you. How can you keep up and do a good job and manage your supervisor's expectations? As with many things in life, the majority of problems can be avoided with a detailed conversation upstream, Well before any actual deadlines. The first step is making a comprehensive list of the projects you're working on, and rank ordering them, based on your understanding of priorities. You then want to set up a meeting with your boss, where you can confer and ask if your understanding of their relative importance matches hers. The last thing you want to do is waste time, pushing hard on the 10th priority when number one is languishing. You have limited time and energy, and you want to expend it on the right things, so ask. Next, for each project, come up with a time estimate. How long do you realistically think it'll take you to complete it? For instance, creating a pitch deck might take 90 minutes, writing the client report might be three hours, and pulling together your department's annual budget might take 10 hours of work. Then talk with your boss and match up those expectations. See if he thinks those are realistic estimates. And if you're wildly off, that can surface misaligned expectations early on. You might envision the departmental budget project is taking 10 hours and being hugely laborious, but maybe he just meant you should email everyone, ask them for some numbers and pull together a spreadsheet, which would take an hour, not 10. Knowing that enables you to triage much more effectively, and also push back where necessary. If you agree that writing a certain memo will take three hours, but he wants you to do 30 hours worth of other projects first, he's certainly not going to get that memo on his desk tomorrow. Finally, make sure you know what the deadline is for every project. We may think we know or have an implicit understanding, but it pays to be explicit and know exactly what others are envisioning. You can't prioritize effectively if you don't grasp the real urgency or lack thereof behind a given task. Understanding deadlines gives you the power to shift and adjust your schedule, based on what's actually most important. Expectations are tricky, and they're often unstated and often unrealistic. Having detailed conversations upfront can help spare you confusion and dissatisfaction down the road because you know where you stand.
Ask your boss the right questions
- One of the great underappreciated skills in the workplace is the ability to ask the right questions. Here's one of them. When I was working as the New Hampshire communications director on a presidential campaign, I had a staffer named Kumar, who is the best person who ever worked for me. Part of the reason was a question he asked. "What can I be doing that's most helpful to you right now?" Now, I had been an employee before, and I'd never asked my boss that question. I had a clear idea in my head about what my job was, and I was going to do that. What I didn't realize, and Kumar did, was that you can make yourself uniquely valuable and appreciated if you show that you're not just willing to do the tasks you think you were hired to do. Instead, if you're willing to do anything to be helpful to your boss, they will love you. 99 times out of 100, they're not going to exploit you and say, "Go get my laundry." But knowing that your priority is taking things off their plate and helping them gives them existential peace that will keep them loyal. Another great question to ask is "How should I prioritize that?" We talked a little bit about this in another video on managing expectations, but it bears repeating. If you don't know how your boss is ranking different projects, you're flying blind. You have no idea if you're working on the most important task or the 20th most important task. Even if you're working hard, your effectiveness could be nil if you're not working on the right things. So be sure to ask up front and often to see what your boss cares about, then do that. Another killer question to ask is "Do you see anything I'm missing?" Here's why, most bosses, except for the pathological micromanagers, don't want you bothering them all the time asking them how to do something. They want you to figure it out. They want to give high-level instructions, and then you go develop a plan and execute it. They simply don't have time to plan it all out for you, so asking them to do so is counterproductive. However, it's always a good idea to get your boss's feedback and input before you're too far down the road. A great compromise then is to come up with a written plan, or a PowerPoint deck if that's a relevant option, explaining how you plan to approach a given problem or project you're working on. Then you can run it by them early on and ask, "Do you see anything I'm missing?" You're not making them do your job for you, you've come up with a plan. But you're also being inclusive and benefiting from their wisdom because they may indeed see some gaps that hadn't occurred to you. You get their buy-in and the idea improves too. Often in the workplace, we think the key is having the right answers and looking smart, but the truth is, we can often get further by asking the right questions in the first place.
- One of the great underappreciated skills in the workplace is the ability to ask the right questions. Here's one of them. When I was working as the New Hampshire communications director on a presidential campaign, I had a staffer named Kumar, who is the best person who ever worked for me. Part of the reason was a question he asked. "What can I be doing that's most helpful to you right now?" Now, I had been an employee before, and I'd never asked my boss that question. I had a clear idea in my head about what my job was, and I was going to do that. What I didn't realize, and Kumar did, was that you can make yourself uniquely valuable and appreciated if you show that you're not just willing to do the tasks you think you were hired to do. Instead, if you're willing to do anything to be helpful to your boss, they will love you. 99 times out of 100, they're not going to exploit you and say, "Go get my laundry." But knowing that your priority is taking things off their plate and helping them gives them existential peace that will keep them loyal. Another great question to ask is "How should I prioritize that?" We talked a little bit about this in another video on managing expectations, but it bears repeating. If you don't know how your boss is ranking different projects, you're flying blind. You have no idea if you're working on the most important task or the 20th most important task. Even if you're working hard, your effectiveness could be nil if you're not working on the right things. So be sure to ask up front and often to see what your boss cares about, then do that. Another killer question to ask is "Do you see anything I'm missing?" Here's why, most bosses, except for the pathological micromanagers, don't want you bothering them all the time asking them how to do something. They want you to figure it out. They want to give high-level instructions, and then you go develop a plan and execute it. They simply don't have time to plan it all out for you, so asking them to do so is counterproductive. However, it's always a good idea to get your boss's feedback and input before you're too far down the road. A great compromise then is to come up with a written plan, or a PowerPoint deck if that's a relevant option, explaining how you plan to approach a given problem or project you're working on. Then you can run it by them early on and ask, "Do you see anything I'm missing?" You're not making them do your job for you, you've come up with a plan. But you're also being inclusive and benefiting from their wisdom because they may indeed see some gaps that hadn't occurred to you. You get their buy-in and the idea improves too. Often in the workplace, we think the key is having the right answers and looking smart, but the truth is, we can often get further by asking the right questions in the first place.
Get the guidance you need
- In one of my first jobs out of grad school, I worked for a boss who was never in the office. He was constantly networking, meeting people, attending conferences. That was great. Everybody knew him and liked him and wanted to do business with him, but it wasn't great for me because as his new employee, I didn't really know how things worked and couldn't seem to ever catch his attention long enough to find out. I'd save up detailed lists of questions and would try to get them in rapid-fire when he called to check in once every day or two. It was a stressful way to learn my job. And I'm not the only one. Most bosses these days are incredibly busy, oftentimes too busy to provide regular guidance and feedback. Here are strategies to get the guidance you need from an elusive boss. First, even though it may be uncomfortable, it's important to sit down and have a meta-conversation, meaning a conversation about how you have conversations. You can keep trying to get the information you need to do your job in five-minute increments before your boss hops in a taxi or boards a plane, but it's a better idea to request a sit-down meeting where you're both able to be fully present. Bring up the fact that you have normal questions that arise in the course of doing your job and because your boss is busy, it can sometimes be hard to get answers in a timely fashion. What does she suggest is the best course of action? That's not accusatory. That's just reality, and any reasonable boss will understand that. See what she suggests and if it sounds feasible to you. Maybe it's weekly meetings on Fridays, the day she's actually in the office. Maybe it's a daily check-in call or frequent emails she can answer from her cell phone. You can experiment and see what works, but it's essential to start the conversation. In addition to talking about how to address the regular questions that come up, it's important to develop an emergency plan. What happens if an irate client calls up when he's on a plane overseas and offline for the next 10 hours? What if there's a pressing media inquiry and he can't be reached? Brainstorm likely scenarios, or if not likely, at least plausible and determine together what your strategy should be. Finally, think about creating an operating manual for your job. This will become a helpful reference guide for you over time as it can remind you about how to handle certain scenarios. You can also give it to your boss to read and edit, so you know if you're on the same page about how to approach things. The guide will also be useful to whomever your successor is. And don't worry that creating it is going to put you out of a job. If they want to get rid of you, trust me, they'll do it anyway. Instead, creating a manual like this shows your initiative and actually makes it easier for them to promote you accordingly because they know that there'll be less of an adjustment period for the new hire thanks to your onboarding guide. In a busy world, it's not always easy to get the guidance we need, but with these steps, you can get proactive, take control, and show your initiative.
- In one of my first jobs out of grad school, I worked for a boss who was never in the office. He was constantly networking, meeting people, attending conferences. That was great. Everybody knew him and liked him and wanted to do business with him, but it wasn't great for me because as his new employee, I didn't really know how things worked and couldn't seem to ever catch his attention long enough to find out. I'd save up detailed lists of questions and would try to get them in rapid-fire when he called to check in once every day or two. It was a stressful way to learn my job. And I'm not the only one. Most bosses these days are incredibly busy, oftentimes too busy to provide regular guidance and feedback. Here are strategies to get the guidance you need from an elusive boss. First, even though it may be uncomfortable, it's important to sit down and have a meta-conversation, meaning a conversation about how you have conversations. You can keep trying to get the information you need to do your job in five-minute increments before your boss hops in a taxi or boards a plane, but it's a better idea to request a sit-down meeting where you're both able to be fully present. Bring up the fact that you have normal questions that arise in the course of doing your job and because your boss is busy, it can sometimes be hard to get answers in a timely fashion. What does she suggest is the best course of action? That's not accusatory. That's just reality, and any reasonable boss will understand that. See what she suggests and if it sounds feasible to you. Maybe it's weekly meetings on Fridays, the day she's actually in the office. Maybe it's a daily check-in call or frequent emails she can answer from her cell phone. You can experiment and see what works, but it's essential to start the conversation. In addition to talking about how to address the regular questions that come up, it's important to develop an emergency plan. What happens if an irate client calls up when he's on a plane overseas and offline for the next 10 hours? What if there's a pressing media inquiry and he can't be reached? Brainstorm likely scenarios, or if not likely, at least plausible and determine together what your strategy should be. Finally, think about creating an operating manual for your job. This will become a helpful reference guide for you over time as it can remind you about how to handle certain scenarios. You can also give it to your boss to read and edit, so you know if you're on the same page about how to approach things. The guide will also be useful to whomever your successor is. And don't worry that creating it is going to put you out of a job. If they want to get rid of you, trust me, they'll do it anyway. Instead, creating a manual like this shows your initiative and actually makes it easier for them to promote you accordingly because they know that there'll be less of an adjustment period for the new hire thanks to your onboarding guide. In a busy world, it's not always easy to get the guidance we need, but with these steps, you can get proactive, take control, and show your initiative.
Know when to listen and when to speak
- It can be hard to get the balance right of when to listen and when to speak at work. You don't want to be the office blowhard, commenting on anything and everything just to hear yourself talk, but you also don't want to be the wallflower, so quiet no one's even sure what you do or why you're there. So how can you tell what's the right move when? Here are some ways to think about it. A great time to listen is when you don't know the context of a situation. Let's say you're new at your job or you've just joined a project team that's been together for a while. They have a shared history, and they know what's been tried before, and what worked and what didn't. There are also likely complex dynamics you're not aware of between people on the team or between different departments. If you come in with all the answers, you're likely to get knocked down fast because you don't understand the background. In that situation, sit back and listen, so you can have the knowledge to speak authoritatively later on. Another good time to listen is when you don't have a strong opinion. If half the team is passionate about option one, and the other believes that it should definitely be option two, don't take up airspace if you don't have something to contribute. If you happen to see holes or virtues in one of their arguments, by all means, dive in. But if you could go either way, let the advocates debate and you can learn. On the other hand, you should definitely speak up when you have germane experience to offer. You may have just joined a new project team, but if you worked on a similar project in the Asia Pacific region, for instance, you're doing a disservice to everyone if you don't share that. That's not to say that the new team will or should adopt everything you did before wholesale, but it's useful for you to talk about what you did, so your team members have more data at their disposal. Even if you don't have relevant personal experience, you should speak up if you have useful resources to share. Maybe you read an article in the Harvard Business Review that applies perfectly to your team's situation. Now would be the time to mention it. Another good time to speak up, and this is the flip side of a point I mentioned earlier, is when you do have a strong opinion. If you believe your company or your team is heading in the wrong direction, you have an obligation to let others know, even if they don't want to hear it. After all, why are you there? It's not to be a yes man. It's because someone hired you because they believed you had an important perspective to share. So even if it's not popular, do it. If you think the merger will fail, say it. If you think the change in accounting policy will get you in trouble with the SEC, say it. People may disagree or you may be overruled, but you'll feel better about yourself, and you'll have done your duty to your company if you say your piece openly and honestly. Finally, another good time to speak up is if you can ask an incisive question. Speaking doesn't always have to be about pontificating or sharing your view. It can be about eliciting others' ideas and perspectives, and that can add to everyone's experience. It's an art learning when to talk and when to listen, but if you master it, you'll win the respect of everyone around you.
- It can be hard to get the balance right of when to listen and when to speak at work. You don't want to be the office blowhard, commenting on anything and everything just to hear yourself talk, but you also don't want to be the wallflower, so quiet no one's even sure what you do or why you're there. So how can you tell what's the right move when? Here are some ways to think about it. A great time to listen is when you don't know the context of a situation. Let's say you're new at your job or you've just joined a project team that's been together for a while. They have a shared history, and they know what's been tried before, and what worked and what didn't. There are also likely complex dynamics you're not aware of between people on the team or between different departments. If you come in with all the answers, you're likely to get knocked down fast because you don't understand the background. In that situation, sit back and listen, so you can have the knowledge to speak authoritatively later on. Another good time to listen is when you don't have a strong opinion. If half the team is passionate about option one, and the other believes that it should definitely be option two, don't take up airspace if you don't have something to contribute. If you happen to see holes or virtues in one of their arguments, by all means, dive in. But if you could go either way, let the advocates debate and you can learn. On the other hand, you should definitely speak up when you have germane experience to offer. You may have just joined a new project team, but if you worked on a similar project in the Asia Pacific region, for instance, you're doing a disservice to everyone if you don't share that. That's not to say that the new team will or should adopt everything you did before wholesale, but it's useful for you to talk about what you did, so your team members have more data at their disposal. Even if you don't have relevant personal experience, you should speak up if you have useful resources to share. Maybe you read an article in the Harvard Business Review that applies perfectly to your team's situation. Now would be the time to mention it. Another good time to speak up, and this is the flip side of a point I mentioned earlier, is when you do have a strong opinion. If you believe your company or your team is heading in the wrong direction, you have an obligation to let others know, even if they don't want to hear it. After all, why are you there? It's not to be a yes man. It's because someone hired you because they believed you had an important perspective to share. So even if it's not popular, do it. If you think the merger will fail, say it. If you think the change in accounting policy will get you in trouble with the SEC, say it. People may disagree or you may be overruled, but you'll feel better about yourself, and you'll have done your duty to your company if you say your piece openly and honestly. Finally, another good time to speak up is if you can ask an incisive question. Speaking doesn't always have to be about pontificating or sharing your view. It can be about eliciting others' ideas and perspectives, and that can add to everyone's experience. It's an art learning when to talk and when to listen, but if you master it, you'll win the respect of everyone around you.
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