EXPECTATIONS

As a manager, how well are your expectations understood by your employees?

At a recent manager's offsite retreat, I collaborated with one of the managers around how to develop "B" players to "A".  He did a great job around how we label people at times and in ways that are not constructive. How do we know if manager-employee goals are aligned?

So we took the risk and asked the managers at this meeting to write down the 3 most important things they wanted their employees [in attendance] to achieve by year's end.  We also asked these employees at the same time to write down the 3 most important things they understood their manager expected.

Voila! They pretty much matched. However, the group expressed that this was a very important exercise because it rarely happens throughout the year.  Yes, managers are best when they stay focused on top priorities and support their people to achieve goals ... through development, mentoring, coaching and simply having their people report on progress.

Managers left with the understanding that they need to encourage their people to report on their progress and to talk about barriers occurring or anticipated - not the other way around where the manager seeks to update progress.

Result? Each person better owns their goals and expectations.