I am one of
those people who will pretty much google anything and everything (Yes, I use ‘google’
as a verb). I had yet another dismal day at work today and it had a lot to do
with “managing expectations” at work. So I got back home, googled this phrase
and read the top few articles that showed up. Most articles spoke about
communicating well with your boss to manage his/her expectations; to ensure that
we performed exactly the way we are expected to...... Now all these are
certainly important and some of those articles I did read with interest, but
that is not what I was looking for. Today at the end of work, I was left
wondering how to manage one’s own expectations from others – the team, the
wider community, people you deal with during work etc.
I’ll tell you
what triggered this post. We are about
to launch a new branch in a new rural/ semi-urban location and it is a very
exciting time for my organisation and me. I booked a few pieces of furniture
last week and today its delivery was due. When I inspected the piece of
furniture I was about to buy, I noticed it had a few scratches on the top
surface... I forced myself to look away. The shop owner read my mind and said
that these things happen during transportation....Again I forced myself to
agree with him. I looked in another direction but then noticed another scratch
on the side. I diverted my gaze to ignore it. I looked in the downwards
direction and noticed that the ply had chipped off on one of the doors. I
couldn’t handle it anymore and I requested a replacement. I was told not to
expect 100%. I agreed and thought to myself, probably 95% wasn’t too bad an
expectation to keep. The shop owner was non-chalant. He knew he was the only furniture
shop owner in a 10 km. radius and I would have to agree with him. I still stood
my ground and refused to accept it. He refused to offer a replacement and the
deal was off. I left with really mixed feelings. I was glad I refused to
purchase the item, but somewhere I felt, what now? Where would I get the furniture
and how would I set up the office? Two senior colleagues at work also inspected
the table and while they agreed it was not perfect they did gently tell me to
purchase it..... I held on to my stubborn demand to have a non-scratched,
non-chipped office table. Later when I sat on the bus, I kept wondering if I
had done the right thing. Probably.
Probably not.
Now that I am
writing this post, I decided that I’d go back and well..... purchase it L . I fought hard with myself and accused myself of lowering my
expectations. Then I weighed the options. If I didn’t get that table, I’d have
to order one from Udaipur, 70 kms away and in all likelihood that would be
scratched too, not to mention the additional costs involved in getting it transported
here to Salumbar. That would mean no table for a week – a disorganised office
for a week – a complete mess. I was given this feedback quite subtly earlier
that given the context we operate in and its limitations one needs to set
expectations accordingly and work around that. That doesn’t mean lowering one’s
expectations, right? It probably means learning to manage them better. Managing
expectations is TOUGH and I wouldn’t say I’ve done a very good job ..... but
now I’m comfortable admitting it to myself, which for me is a big step, a
difficult step. Hopefully I will ease into it over time. It will hopefully do a
lot of good to my team management skills as well.
I wish there
were an easy way to learn this. Having grown up in a big city and then having
moved to work in a small semi-urban/rural town is not an easy transition. I
thought I had made the transition 3 years ago, but apparently not. I’m still
learning to. None of this stops me from dreaming though.....that how wonderful
it would be if furniture shop owners cared for what they sold, that painters
would give you a perfect finish, that the cleaner would dust a little better,
that plumbers would fix your pipe on time and that someday expectations wouldn’t
make you feel super-guilty. Some day.....
