Walt Hampton, J.D.

Creating the Work & Life You LOVE

Why Expectations Don’t Work
November 3, 2016

He was so frustrated. “She should have known that I needed her here at noon.”

My client, a very successful attorney, was baffled by the fact her paralegal hadn’t shown up with the file she’d been sent out to get from another lawyer’s office.

“Did she agree to be here by noon?” I asked.

“What do you mean? She knows how important this case is.”

The classic trap that business leaders and professionals fall into.

You can manage by expectation. Or you can manage by agreement.

Agreement is better.

If my client had sent her para out on this mission, told her that he needed the file by noon, and then said, “So, can we agree that you’ll get it back here by noon?” then the paralegal’s lack of timeliness is on her. But there was no such conversation. My client’s exasperation was based purely on my client’s expectation of what someone else “should” know. expectations

(The para had stopped for lunch. She had no clue.)

We make this error often in our personal lives too.

If I come home after a long day at an event, and go straight to my office to return calls without stopping to connect with my wife, and she seethes because I should have stopped to have a conversation, that’s on her.

If, instead, she says, “Honey, you know, when you come in at the end of a day, I would so love to connect with you before you start returning your calls. Would that be ok? Could we agree to that?” and I do, then the next time I blow by forgetting about her is on me. I didn’t live up to the agreement.

People – paralegals, partners, teenagers – aren’t mind readers.

Expectations are the stories we create ourselves. And they’re unreliable.

Use agreements instead.

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When you’re ready to change up your leadership game, let’s talk. Email me: walt@walthampton.com

 

 

 

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