TCW #024 | Clarifying unclear expectations with your manager, systematically
Never again have a surprise expectation pop up in a work review. There's no need to live with uncertainty or march confidently in the wrong direction.
This week, we’ll talk about how to clarify communication between managers and direct reports, especially when it comes to setting expectations around work product.
When communication channels become unproductive or dysfunctional, it takes more than a few clarifications here and there to set things right and get the system back in order.
Just like server packets in the opening image, in any communication-based relationship, packets of information are inevitably lost along the way. Perfect communication doesn’t exist. It’s an unachievable mirage.
Low-loss, effective communication is quite achievable, with a few tweaks to your mindset and tactics.
This post will help you identify how to build a more effective communication channel with your manager or direct report, including how to set clear expectations and do your best work together.
Let’s dive in.
🤠 The Wild West aka Unclear Expectations
The Wild West manager-employee relationship dysfunction happens when expectation get muddy, whether those expectations are for the output of the work or the way that work gets done. This issue can pop up for many reasons, including:
a manager who is overwhelmed themselves and unable to give clear direction
communication chemistry issues between the employee and manager (“talking past one another”)
shifting goalposts, which can cascade all the way from the top of the organization
Some telltale signs that you’re an employee living in The Wild West:
Lack of direction: You legitimately can’t write down the top 3 priorities for your role, or how success will be measured. Even if you have a good guess, you aren’t at least 80% confident that your manager would agree with what you wrote.
Confusion: You’re constantly unsure of what you should be doing. Even if you are making progress, you aren’t totally sure you are able to piece together the full picture.
Frequent “Gotcha” Requirements: It’s only after you share work product with your manager that you find out the full set of requirements or expectations. Instead of getting clear requirements from the beginning, you find yourself reworking your efforts over and over, and the requirements are often shifting.
Frequently Shifting Priorities: Are your role priorities shifting more frequently than you are able to start and finish a project? Corporate employees are measured by the impact of their efforts. If you aren’t able to start, scope, implement, and measure the success of your efforts before priorities shift, this will impact your perceived success — which translates to missed promotions, raises, and low performance reviews. Don’t “take one for the team” all the time and jump from Burning Thing to Burning Thing before confirming that the assumptions underlying the current prioritization are sound (and stable).
TLDR: When you work on low-priority projects, you have lower perceived impact. Knowing the expectations and True North goals for your team and company will ensure that you are working on high-impact work that will be rewarded.
Employee impacts from unclear work expectations include:
slower-than-desired career growth (because you’re not working on the right things at the right time)
emotional stress and frustration
misconceptions about your competency
Getting back on track
I’ve organized this Wild West communications Fix It guide into two sections, based on your role in the relationship:
what to do if you’re the manager
what to do if you’re the direct report
Each section walks through the strategies and tactics that you can use to clarify expectations for in-flight projects while setting the groundwork for a reliable system of effective communication so The Wild West becomes a rear-view mirror problem.
⚡ the rest of this post is for my ride-or-die paid subscribers. In it, I give you the tools to rearchitect your manager-employee communications and expectations alignment from the ground up, including:
How to get on the same page for current projects (ASAP, like today)
Rearchitecting your communications patterns from the ground up (you’ll only have to do this once, and you’ll never look back)
Shifting your mindset (if you’re the direct report) to get more out of your manager relationship and career in general
Talking scripts you can use as a draft
…and a step-by-step playbook you can start to implement today, whether you’re the manager or the direct report