Cindy and I were recently providing training for a group when she shared a story from her childhood where her dad told her and her brothers, just before they went into an event he was taking them to, that they would be representing the entire family so he expected them to be on their best behavior. That seemed to connect with everyone in the group we were working with! I could certainly picture a bunch of occasions where I received a similar message…
As we’ve worked through several steps for balancing candor with care when we have tough conversations, having clear expectations tie to many of them. Quite honestly, if the friend or family member we’re interacting with didn’t understand what was expected of them to begin with, that likely played a big part in why we even need to have the conversation. When I’m working with leaders in a professional environment, I always stress the importance of setting not just clear expectations but also high expectations. I’ve seen too many people shy away from doing that out of fear of overwhelming the people reporting to them. I believe lowering expectations pushes more people away than high expectations ever will! As I mentioned as I wrapped up last month’s column, I don’t believe anyone enjoys delivering poor results. I also don’t believe many people will ever commit their time and energy to something that asks for anything less than their best.
For our purposes here though, let’s consider how important it is to set (and maintain) clear expectations during those tough conversations that require us to balance candor and care… Assuming we’ve been willing to show the friend or family member that we’re willing to invest the effort necessary to help them change the issue we’re addressing and we’ve went as far as to provide them with an example of what that change needs to look like (the last two steps we looked at here), it’s critical that we’re clear in defining the outcome we expect.
I can think of so many examples of this while raising our kids, and even now when we’re with our grandkids… Lights left on in every room, dirty plates left at the table, toilets not flushed… Are you with me? (I know you are unless you’re the one with the perfect kids…) We call their attention to whichever it is in that moment and have them take care of it. They usually do and tell us they’re sorry in the process, then do the same thing again a few minutes later! This is where providing a very clear expectation for the change we need to see and the result they need to provide can be the difference in whether it’s a few minutes or a few hours until the next light is left on or the next mess is on the counter.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not suggesting that providing even the clearest of expectations will yield immediate results. Changing what’s likely a habit takes time and patience, but it’s not going to happen unless we’re willing to detail what change we expect to see. While this is a bit of a trivial example, I’m guessing you get the point. Even in doing all this, we’ll get much better results if we can communicate in the language they’ll best receive. Remember The Platinum Rule? We also need to know what outcome we want from the conversation so that’s what we’ll look at next!
