Introduction
In “Pygmalion” George Bernard Shaw wrote “The difference between a lady and a flower girl is not how she behaves. It’s how she’s treated.” Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe based their famous musical “My Fair Lady” around Shaw’s concept. He was talking about the power of expectation. It was good enough for Lerner and Loewe and GBS. Maybe you should consider the power of expectation too.
Expectation Defined
In 1929, most banks in the USA were solvent. But their customers believed that they weren’t. The customers expected to lose their deposits. They rushed to withdraw them. The banks couldn’t meet the sudden demand. They became insolvent. Expectation created action. Today we say, “Be careful, you might end up getting what you expect” That’s exactly what bank customers got in 1929!
Effect On Staff
When you tell staff what you expect, clearly and unequivocally, you are setting performance standards for your people. When they know exactly what you expect, you’re far more likely to get what you want from them.
Hope and Expectation
“Hope” is not expectation. “Hope” describes what you’d “like to happen”. We often confuse the two. To say ”I hope my staff will treat customers well” is what you want to happen. To say that “I expect my staff to treat customers well” is a statement of what you believe will happen. It’s what you expect.
Effect On You, The Manager
To get what you expect from your people, you must provide the resources they need. You can tell your people that you expect them to be at work on time. But your starting time may not match public transport timetables. There may be no parking within a reasonable distance of your business. Make no mistake, your staff will know that you don’t really expect them to be on time.
Monitoring and Measuring
Set the standards. Standards are so important for managing employee performance. Provide the resources. Monitor and measure. You can have excellent standards and superb resources. Only measurement will turn these into genuine expectations. If your staff know that their performance won’t be monitored and measured against previously stated standards, they’ll also know that you’re not serious about expectations.
More Than Words
“But Leon,” you might say, “I’ve told them a million times”. Expectation is about what you do. What you say is important. Unless it’s supported by what you do, your words are next to empty.
Staff Treatment
Managers who genuinely expect their staff to perform well consistently treat their staff as if they are successful. They do everything they can to ensure this. To paraphrase GBS, “If you treat your staff like idiots, they’ll behave like idiots”. If you’re “on their backs” all the time, looking for errors, they’ll make errors for you to find. You see they believe that’s what you want.
Conclusion
Set Standards. Tell your staff. Provide the resources. Measure the performance. Use praise and encouragement effectively. Make it clear that you really want them to be the best. Lead by example. Are you a Freddy who treated Eliza like a lady? Or are you Professor Higgins who still saw her as a flower girl? You may not quite reach the heights of success of “My Fair Lady”. But you will have a hit on your hands
