Steps Leaders Can Take to Set Clear Expectations

If we really want to have a shot at capturing the profitability that’s killed by confusion in our organizations by providing our teams with the kind of clear expectations they desperately need to produce great results, it will require a very focused effort! We absolutely must become experts in providing our team as a whole and each individual who’s part of our team with extreme clarity as to the results we need from them as well as the behaviors we expect from them in order to achieve those results. In doing that though, I’ve seen leaders often shy away from setting the bar too high. The idea in those cases seems to be that if expectations are set too high, people will shy away…

As we’ve worked through these profitability killers, I’ve referenced several lessons that I learned in the 15 or so years I was directly involved in a very successful behavior-based safety process. At that risk of beating that horse to death, I’ll share another here… This time though, the lesson came from two of my mentors in that process rather than from the science the process was based on. 

The first piece of this particular lesson came in May 1999 during my initial training to perform behavior-based observations on others throughout the facility. Most of that two-day training was given by the gentleman responsible for overseeing the initiative at our location but one segment was done by the then maintenance supervisor, Terry Ward. That piece was geared at detailing how our behaviors are always determined by the consequences that come from them but learning to recognize certain things that trigger those behaviors served as an effective way to predict them in advance. I certainly can’t go into all that he shared in the 90 minute lesson here but one thing he always emphasized was a core tenant he had learned in his time at the United States Military Academy (West Point): the importance of choosing the harder right over the easier wrong, and how that always produced better results over the long haul.

Here’s where you’re probably wondering how that ties to eliminating confusion by setting clear expectations… By itself, Terry’s story made a solid case for how choosing a behavior that was easier, but also riskier, in the moment would inevitably result in an injury when it was repeated over time. He went on to explain how taking the extra step to reduce the risk may require some additional effort right away but would pay huge dividends long term by eliminating the potential for injury.

The second part of this lesson ties back to something I learned from an old chap from across the pond. Dave Stanley was one of the folks charged with implementing the behavior-based safety initiative throughout the company in 1998 and was the last remaining from the group by the time I got to know him in 2003 or so. At that point, Dave held global responsibility within our company. While his home was in South Wales (UK), he traveled all over the world providing training at each of the 75+ facilities the organization had at the time. During his first visit to Harrisonburg, he explained that the difficulty of a task and the compensation involved RARELY served as the primary reason someone would choose not to perform it. Dave went on to share that the biggest reason for avoiding any task was not seeing value in performing it. He challenged us to consider all those we knew who risked their lives in the military or as first responders for very little pay, or even no pay at all in some cases. As it related to safety, his message was that providing clarity as to how specific behaviors would eliminate injuries and why that mattered would be critical if we wanted to build and maintain a success process.

Tying that will Terry’s “harder right over the easier wrong” is where we, as leaders, come into the picture to help our teams produce great results by providing them with extremely clear - and high - expectations. As I shared from Tony Jeary before, “it’s hard to sell mediocrity” so why even bother? We absolutely should be challenging our teams to exceed expectations on a daily basis but we also have to make sure we’re giving them the clarity they need to understand exactly what that looks like, how they can achieve it, and why it matters - to them individually and to the organization as a whole. Doing this can be difficult so we’ll look at a few steps we can take to simplify it next time…