Clarifying Expectations

"The cause of almost all relationship difficulties is rooted in conflicting or ambiguous expectations around roles and goals... unclear expectations will lead to misunderstanding, dissapointment and withdrawals of trust." - Stephen Covey

A wife mentioned to her husband that for her birthday, she would like something that accelerates from 0 to 100 in eight seconds.

She was expecting something like this............

:) But her husband presented her with something very different...

The wife was thinking of km and the husband, lbs! In marriage, a man and a woman have implicit expectations of each other in their marriage roles. Although these expectations have not been discussed, or sometimes even recognized by the person who has them, Stephen Covey said, "fulfilling them makes great emotional deposits in the relationship and violating them makes withdrawals." (c.f. to "Emotional Bank Account" posting on 2 Sep 08).

That's why it's so important whenever you come into a new situation to get all the expectations out on the table. People will begin to judge each other through those expectations. And if they feel like their basic expectations have been violated, the reserve of trust is diminished. Covey further stressed that, "we create many negative situations by simply assuming that our expectations are self-evident and that they are clearly understood and shared by other people."

photo: Perth (Sep 1992)

Hence, it is better to make the expectations clear and explicit in the beginning. Although it takes a real investment of time and effort up front, it saves great amounts of time and effort down the road... Clarifying expectations sometimes takes a great deal of courage. It seems easier to act as though differences don't exist and to hope things will work out than it is to face the differences and work together to arrive at a mutually agreeable set of expectations. But "when expectations are not clear and shared, people begin to become emotionally involved and simple misunderstandings become compounded, turning into personality clashes and communication breakdowns."

Similarly, imagine the difficulty you might encounter if you and your boss have different assumptions... Unclear expectations in the area of goals undermine communication and trust. How many times have we had these kind of conversations?

"You said .... "
"No, you're wrong. I said ... "
"You did not! You never said I was supposed to ... "
"Oh yes, I did! I clearly said ..."
"You never even mentioned ... "
"But that was our agreement..."

source: Stephen Covey, "The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People" (p.194-95).