What do you expect out of your people? Do they know?
I ask myself those two questions a lot.
The moment that we assume someone else knows what we want out of them in any given situation, we tend to set them up for failure. At the very least, we waste some hours we never had in the first place.
Whenever I am told by one of my managers that someone on the team “screwed up”, I find that, more often than not, some part of the job was not clear to the person who made the mistake. When I used to follow up with any employee in question, asking why they did what they did, “no one ever told me.“ used to come back more than I care to admit.
There are two main forms of communication you have at your disposal:
- Spoken
- Written
Taking 5 minutes to walk someone through exactly what they need to do will save you hours of your life. Over and over!
Spending 30 to 60 minutes to write your expectations down and then record their delivery will save you days.
The following actions are vital to keeping my team running smoothly. Whether it be with a new employee or someone who has been with me a long time, I always:
- Write down your expectations and get your team to sign the truly critical ones.
- During training and as needed, ask if they know what they are supposed to do in each scenario.
- If they say they know, have them walk you through it; if they can’t explain it back, they don’t really know.
While we may feel that our people should be able to get each job right without dragging them through our expectations, the person who usually loses the most is the one who has to clean up the mess left by assumed expectations.
