This particular challenge has come up in questions in a seminar session and during client sessions recently.
How do
you manage yours or someone else’s unrealistic expectations.
Are you the one making unrealistic expectations of yourself?
- Do you feel stressed when things don’t go according to plan?
- Does your perfectionism, wanting to do it
right, hold you back?
Fear of failure or a culture of blame creates a work environment where demands are not met with an appropriate or realistic response.
Senior leaders and line managers make unrealistic demands of their team. To avoid being perceived as poor performers, lacking skills or knowledge,
nothing is said.
Or 'feedback' is met with an unsympathetic J*DI response.
Common signs of unrealistic expectations
If you or others have
unrealistic expectations of the work involved or your ability to do the work, it can show up as:
Feeling overwhelmed. Too many requests and demands on your time you or they are overestimating your ability or underestimating how much time you have to complete the tasks.
Frequently working long hours … outside of normal working hours - evenings, weekends and even while on holiday.
Feeling under pressure to get the work done so you work long hours to make it happen, often thinking it’s your fault you’re not working productively or effectively. This leads to stress, burnout and
absenteeism.
Lack of resources - time, people, skills, knowledge … sometimes this a temporary situation. You’re short-staffed, so the pressure is on to stay productive and still meet deadlines. If this isn’t taken into account, deadlines can be set with unrealistic expectations or put undue pressure to still get the results.
Poor communication. Assumptions are made when the communication isn’t clear or effective. Lack of communication enables mismatches in expectation to go unchallenged or be mis-understood.
Unclear about your role or responsibility for the tasks
involved. Not maintaining good communication through the process. Set and forget and then being surprised when results aren’t quite as expected. Agreeing to do something when you’re not actually clear about what’s being asked or don’t want to admit to a lack of skill, knowledge or time.
Micro-managing. Constantly checking in or keeping tabs on what’s going,
undermining trust and confidence, and wasting time.
What to do when you’re being set unrealistic expectations
Firstly, assume positive intent. In most situations people aren’t out to make your life difficult or put you
under undue pressure.
Create better boundaries around your work.
If the expectation, project or task is going to step over your boundaries with an unrealistic timeframe, let them know. What’s the impact if you do or don’t do this.
They may not know you’re already working on several projects or that taking on this additional responsibility has an impact on your personal time or you’re going to have to work late or over the weekend in order to get the work done.
Value your time and maintain a healthy balance between work and life, so you don’t get stressed
and burn out.
Don’t say yes
... until you know what you’re saying ‘yes’ to. If you’re not sure how much is involved or how long something is going to take, say so. If it’s something that either you haven’t done before or has never been done before, it’s going to be more difficult to set
realistic expectations.
- Give your best guess.
- Get to work.
- Adjust, update as you find out more to get closer to what’s achievable, realistic.
Just
ask
Ask for help and support. If you don’t have the time or capacity, can you get support or ask for support from others in your team, your colleagues. Spread the load. If you don’t ask, you don’t get.
Communicate
Give or ask for feedback before it becomes a problem. The default response of ‘sure, I can do that’ is likely to become a problem if the expectations are unrealistic or not understood. Provide as much information as you can and an alternate solution or more realistic timeframe instead.
Keep communicating often and early in an effective way, without
micro-managing. This helps build confidence and trust. You’re less likely to have unrealistic expectations set the next time.
How has this affected you at work, or perhaps in your personal life?
Do you have unrealistic expectations of yourself or others or do you have
unrealistic expectations made of you and you struggle to manage them?
