Expectations

Hey guys, welcome back to another episode of HR Sucks. My name is George and HR Sucks. But actually it doesn't suck. I mean it does suck.

It depends on your perception of the suck. I'm not going to say suck too much more. I'm going to move on to what it is that we want to talk about. But I wanted to just give a quick introduction to HR Sucks.

Let you know I'm a guy. I'm an HR guy at a manufacturing firm and we build stuff. And we've got upwards of 700 folks that build 700 folks that are on the team that are building and designing and putting into production and selling even product in North America, in the United States of America. So that's a little background as far as who is this guy?

What is this voice? What is going on? So I am George and that is me. George is also dabbles in lots of other things, likes to call himself a bit of an entrepreneur.

Got a couple of side hustles going on. Who doesn't? Right. And why not?

What better time to toss some information out to the podcast world than now? right the uh the best time to send out a podcast is right now uh or maybe the best time to send out a podcast was 10 years ago when it first started the second time second best time to send out your podcast is right now uh what are you waiting for we forgot the pot let's go so enough psychobabble from george to get started with um you know if you uh if you caught my last uh episode we were talking about all kinds of different things, whether or not we're talking about leadership or the leadership aspect of work or from the worker side of work.

We talked a lot about the different things that are required that the employer is requesting or requiring from the employee. We talked a lot about from a leadership and a development aspect, what are the things that that we need to know as we develop as leaders, grow as leaders, to be able to make sure that we continue growing and not dying. And so I wanted to toss out a topic and to talk about it a bit, to share some of my understanding around the topic, to share some of my insight potentially, or at least what it means to me.

But then I'd also like to invite you guys to share back with me, send that voicemail message, send that voice message that's available through Anchor or a different button on the podcast. There's somewhere to send me back a message. Let me know a little bit about your perspective as it pertains to the topic that we are talking about today. And without further ado, the topic that I'm talking about today, and it's a little bit on the topic.

So without further ado, we are talking about expectations. expectations. How many of you have found yourself either in a leadership role or as an employee reporting to a leader manager, so in a subordinate role, and becoming frustrated with your boss or becoming frustrated with your subordinate because of their behavior They are behaving in a way that is frustrating to you You get pissed off for lack of a better word and you find yourself frustrated maybe depending on at that point, how you were going to lash out.

Are you the one that's going to be the person that's going to immediately build conflict and to have a conversation and share that you are frustrated? Or are you going to be the one that might let some of that come out as a passive aggressive little remarks, little yips, little like, you know, different things that you say that send the message, really that send the message of maybe I don't like you or what it really is, is I don't like what you're doing. But the problem in most of those situations, either direction, whether or not you're talking about your leader or a subordinate of yours, is to set a really clear expectation of what we want out of that relationship.

And you hear like, you know, what are you talking about? Like the work and work relationship, right? Like the boss tells me to jump and I say how high or whatever that cliche is. But really It's a matter of saying, like, you know, having a conversation with the person that you're interacting with in that relationship and saying, this is what I expect out of that.

So let's let's dive into what seems like the most realistic part of it. And the part I think that would probably be the responsibility of us as leaders is to set an expectation with every member of our team exactly what you expect. So the same way that if I walked up to you and I told you, hey, good job, or if I told you, man, you're working hard, that might feel good, but it's not going to carry as much weight as if I shared, hey, I saw what you did there. You really went above and beyond, and you took care of this person in a way that was out of the ordinary, and I appreciate what you did.

So calling it out and being specific about it, being specific about it and making sure that your expectations are crystal clear. All right. This is what I need from you, whether or not it's in a production aspect or if it's a project management aspect. But if you're a leader of leaders and you want to make sure that you set an expectation with your subordinate leaders of how often you need to get updates about different things, right?

So all those things are very clear expectations, crystal clear expectations, so that later on you can't say, well, you always leave me in the dark. Well, did you tell me that you needed updates every 45 minutes? No. And so is it likely that someone is going to give updates every 45 minutes?

Maybe not. But if they don't expect it. In this funky break right here, what we got to do is be able to set clear expectations. I need to set notifications or find whatever setting it is inside this Anchor app so that I don't keep getting interrupted.

So phone calls on the way. Inside 20 minutes, you get a couple phone calls. and I gotta be better being able to manage that. Being able to answer phone calls talk to folks as we need it There a sneeze recorded for posterity So if you my great grandchild in 50 years and you like, you know, you hear me sneeze, that's what it was.

Anyway, hey, so expectations, let's talk more about them. I think as far as expectations go, it's really going to help with a source of frustration, right? So if I know exactly what to expect as a leader in an organization, I'm sharing with my team members exactly what I expect from them, that I expect this much productivity. I expect that you're going to put your cell phone away.

I expect that you're only going to use tobacco in designated areas, right? I expect that you're going to follow policies and procedures, show up, work hard, have a good attitude, be willing to learn. I expect all those things to happen. And then it's just a matter of being able to observe behavior and manage the gap.

And we'll talk more about observing behavior and managing the gap. I don't want to make these too long just to make a more bite-sized type episodes that you guys can listen to and share feedback on. But that's sort of the idea behind expectations. To take that one step further, all of us are in leadership roles.

All of us are in subordinate roles. We all have a subordinate. We all have a leader. If we don't have a subordinate actually on paper, then we've got people that are watching the actions that we are taking and that the actions that we are taking are having an impact.

Someone is paying attention to what it is that we are doing. And if it doesn't feel like that or if you don't see it, don't think for a second that the actions that you take are not visible to someone somewhere. All that said, as it pertains to being in a position where you are in a subordinate relationship or trying to coach up to a leader, you want to make sure that you are still setting a clear expectation of your leader of what it is that you need to be most successful. So if you need those expectations, of course, right?

We need expectations. I need feedback on this type of interval. I need feedback this often. I need, there's some times where I just need you to like, get off my back and let me do my work.

Now granted, sharing feedback with a leader and setting expectations with a leader like that, you wanna make sure that you're being respectful at all times, right? But at the same time, if the leader is worth their salt, They're going to appreciate the fact that you care enough about the relationship that you're clarifying expectations of what you need to be most productive and benefit you the most in that situation. So what I mean to say there is that if you're able to share with your leader in a respectful way of the way that you need to be managed and led to be most successful, that's going to be respected and welcomed by any leader that's worth their salt.

I'm not sure what that analogy means, but by any leader that's worth a darn, they are going to appreciate the fact that you have set that expectation with them and that you're opening the conversation. Communication is a giant deal. All the expectation conversation, the talk about expectations, it's all about communication, right? I'm communicating with my leader.

I'm communicating with my subordinates. Maintaining to keep that communication that line of communication open All those things supremely important as it pertains to any productive relationship that you going to have with your teams and being able to get anything done. So that's essentially my take on or expectations as I see them from a leadership aspect, crystal clear expectations, no surprises, guys. So if you've got people on your team and you come at them and you're trying to issue a corrective action or you're trying to tell them they're not doing something right, you know, because all of those things are perception, you always, always, always start with setting the expectation, always, you know, a coaching conversation that is not punitive, that's going to put you in a position where you're being very, very clear with your team and with your leader that this is what is needed to be successful in the organization.

Don't find yourself in a position where you continue to get frustrated by or you see behavior. And instead of addressing it and setting an expectation of what you expect moving forward, you just get frustrated by behavior and start lashing out in unproductive ways. That's not a way to run your team, not a way to handle your business. I don't know how many times I've been approached by a supervisor or manager and they say, well, I'm not even using the word frustrated.

I'm sick and tired. That's what it is. They're sick and tired of this person doing whatever it is they're doing. And one of the first HR sucks types questions that you're going to get is, do they know what to expect?

Do they know what's expected of them? Is the behavior that they're showing you, have they been told that you want to see something different? That's always, always, always the place to start is to make sure that they understand exactly what's expected of them moving forward. So leave me messages, follow, subscribe, like, share, do all that fun stuff.

Let me know whether or not this is helpful or not. Let me know what it is that we want to talk about next time. I expect each and every one of you listening to my voice to send a quick note to say, hey, George, you're right there on the mark and that actually helped me out a lot. Or, man, you kind of missed it.

And what about this, this and this? Right. So I am not perfect. I won't tell you that I'm perfect for a second.

I'm absolutely not perfect. Far from perfect. but I will tell you that I accept feedback generously share feedback with me I want to hear the feedback I want to I want to make this better and more productive and beneficial for any that are interacting and so as we as we build this communication or this sorry as we build the HR sucks community please share your feedback I want to hear from you how how you're putting those things into practice. What is working for you?

What's not working for you? Man, I tried this expectation thing and these are the challenges that I'm seeing as I'm trying to do that. Let's talk through those things. Leave your questions, leave your comments.

Let's talk through that and see what we can't work out. All of us together are stronger than each of us by ourselves.