One of the most frustrating calls I get is the one from the manager that says “I need to fire X. He/She is not doing Y and I can’t take it anymore.” Usually, this is the first I am hearing of any performance problem with that employee.
Often, my next question is something along the lines of “Well, have you talked to them about what’s going on before now?”. The answer is usually something along the lines of “No”, or “Not really”, or “It’s common sense”.
These calls are frustrating because they typically indicate that clear expectations have not been set with the employee.
Where it starts
Expectations are first set during the onboarding stage. This may be when a new employee comes to the organization, when an employee changes roles, or when they change groups. The first 90 days pave the way for how the rest of the journey is going to go.
Expectations are like the lines on a road, we need them to understand how to communicate with each other. Expectations are the boundaries of culture. Often, they are implicit- things like how late people stay on Fridays, or how casual is business casual... These are typically things we learn through observation.
However, not everyone picks up or knows to watch for these implicit cues. Despite their presence, as managers we cannot rely on someone else picking up on these silent expectations. If they are important to performance, we have to explicitly communicate them.
I’m not saying this is easy, but I do think it is one of the most important aspects of management. Setting expectations early and often helps people stay in between the lines and ultimately understand what direction they are going.
Imagine asking someone to navigate an unfamiliar road blindfolded and with earplugs. They can’t see the lines on the road, they can’t hear cars passing, they have no idea if they’re going the right direction or if they’re even on the road.
This is a world without expectations.
We can hardly be surprised then that when our expectations aren’t clearly communicated that our people don’t meet them.
How could they possibly?
I believe this is one of the most important and, arguably, most difficult, aspects of management.
Why do we struggle with this?
1) We often don’t realize what we expect until that expectation is not being met
We tend to not think this through on the front end. We may not think to communicate that our work day begins at 8 am until someone new starts coming in at 9. Or that employees are expected to adhere to a certain dress code, until they don’t.
This is true of conflict too. I once had an employee that loved to play music while she worked. She played it without headphones and while it wasn’t against “the rules” it was incredibly distracting for the rest of the office. Up until she came onboard, this hadn’t been an issue simply because the rest of the office didn’t have this habit. There was no reason to explicitly ask her to not do this until it became a problem. Often, this is how we discover expectations. In this case, our department had an implicit expectation that we maintained a quiet atmosphere.
This could have gone two ways...1) No one says anything, and quiet resentment/frustration builds until it erupted into the “I need to fire X” phone call or 2) Proactive expectation setting, asking her to bring in headphones to listen to music.
Obviously, the second option is highly preferable to the first.
2) We don’t communicate our expectations explicitly
I had a manager that was frustrated because his employee did not put his work email on his phone. He went completely dark on weekends and after 5. Now this could be a case for pro work-life balance, but in this case, he needed to be available during those times. This employee was new to our industry and was not familiar with the implications of 24/7 production cycles. The manager felt it went without saying that this employee should make himself available, but in speaking with him discovered that it was not an expectation at his old company, in fact, any after hours emailing had been strongly discouraged.
3) We assume people understand
Assumption is the enemy of clarity. We may assume that someone else has had a conversation with someone. Or that the 3 minute run through of the handbook on day 1 was completely absorbed. Or maybe we assume that because someone has been here for a long time that they know the lay of the land in a new situation.
The truth is, we need to regularly and swiftly clarify expectations. As managers, our role is to recalibrate as soon as an expectation is not being met.
4) We don’t realize our own role in modeling behavior.
Another trap we fall into is that aren’t aware of how our day to day behavior shapes expectations. This can happen in two ways:
1. We expect people to be willing to do what we do without realizing it. The manager that takes phone calls at 6 am may in turn anticipate that her employee is willing to do the same.
2. We may not expect people to do what we do, but never clarify. For example, I had a manager who would work on things late at night. When I first started working for her, I felt pressure to respond immediately. One morning she came into my office and clarified that just because she sent something late did not mean she expected an immediate reply. She explained that she like to catch up on emails after her kids went to sleep to prepare for the next day. Her clarification set an important expectation for me and our team and helped avoid collective stress. A manager who emails at all hours of the day/night/weekends and does not make this clarification may not realize that he/she is implicitly putting pressure on his/her people to do the same.
The headline here is, we have to watch our individual behavior and determine how, and if it should, drive our expectations and the perceived expectations of our teams.
So what can we do differently?
The first step in bringing in a new employee (or new to role/group employee) should be to reflect on some of the most important expectations for strong performance in the role or group. These should be explicitly communicated on the front end.
The second step is setting the expectation that whenever an expectation is not being met, you as the manager will address it as it happens or as quickly as possible afterwards. Imagine giving a presentation with spinach in your teeth, and no one telling you until two months afterwards. It’s embarrassing and you can’t do anything about it. That said, if you never address issues, the day you do it will feel like a slap on the wrist to whoever you are redirecting. If redirection is constant, it becomes less of a personal reprimand and more and element of culture. This is what you want to shoot for.
The third step is encouraging the new employee to ask questions. This may be to you, or to a peer that can serve as a “buddy” while they get acclimated.
If you do these three things, you will be setting up your employee and your team for a successful onboarding as well as laying the groundwork for strong performance throughout their tenure.
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