How to Manage Expectations

In the workplace, the key to making your perceived effectiveness feel doubled, I believe, is whether you manage others' expectations well.

In daily work, everyone has expectations of others' future behaviors at different times and in different roles. The most common of course is the expectations supervisors have for their team members' work. However, besides managing expectations from top to bottom, I think it's also very important to manage expectations at a peer level. For example, in a software company, the interaction between product managers and engineers is often key to whether a product can be successfully launched. However, differences in skills between the two can sometimes lead to misunderstandings and incorrect expectations, such as a product manager might expect the engineer to prioritize a feasibility study for a feature they consider most important. Meanwhile, the engineer might have another task that, if not handled immediately, would significantly increase the complexity of later work. If the engineer just silently takes on the feasibility study without telling the product manager about other tasks they consider more important, or if the product manager does not communicate how much they value this feasibility study, then a few days later, it will be discovered that what the product manager thought was most important hasn't happened. This leads to more time spent explaining and could even make the product manager feel that the engineer didn’t fulfill their delivery duties, when in fact it was just a matter of poorly managed expectations.

Managing expectations definitely requires extra effort. Timely informing stakeholders of your situation, when you expect to deliver what tasks, and confirming in advance whether you and the other party are on the same page will prevent misunderstandings caused by mismatched expectations at the time of delivery. Otherwise, more time will be needed to explain later, potentially even harming your own reputation.