 How to manage expectations at work are essential skills to learn no matter what you do. Manage expectations well and you will be firstly, easy to work with. Second, colleagues will like you more because you won't let them down. Thirdly, you'll be perceived as more professional, a team player and probably better at your job. And fourth, I think you're more likely to be promoted. I'm sure there are lots more benefits. The above are compelling in my view. And if you have poor expectation management skills, then you will experience the opposite of the lifts we just went through. So in this video, I'm going to share my five-step process to manage expectations really well at work. This is my tried and tested approach, developed and constantly used through 25 years of working in businesses at all levels. In my experience, step two and five are often missed and both will make a big difference in managing expectations. So make sure you watch these steps too. My name is Jess Coles and I've spent 25 years working in corporates and household names through to SMEs at all management levels. Managing expectations well has been critical to my success and my ability to deliver results personally and through my teams. I'd like to share the lessons I learnt with you. If you're new to this channel, Enhance.training provides online business courses to help professionals, managers and business owners improve their performance. And if you like this video, please give it a thumbs up, subscribe and share it with friends. When you're working in any business, there are so many people that you'll need to work with. For instance, your manager, your team members, maybe your leadership team and colleagues from other teams or departments, customers, suppliers and possibly things like external investors or other key stakeholders, the list goes on. And when you are working with them or delivering work or products to them or even getting works and products from them, you'll need to manage expectations. It is impossible to escape setting expectations when working in any kind of team. The better you manage expectations, the more benefits you'll get doing your role, as mentioned at the start of this video. So the five steps are, firstly, think ahead. Second, find out why you're being asked to do the work you are. Thirdly, plan ahead. Fourth, set expectations. And fifth, regularly communicate until the work is finished. It sounds easy when it's a simple five point list. It's in my experience putting it into practice is where too many people fall down. And when you have a team to manage, you have a lot more moving parts to think about and a lot more people's expectations to manage. So let's start with step one. When managing expectations, when somebody asks you for a piece of work, you must give yourself space to mentally think ahead and work out what you already have to deliver and how easy it would be to fit this new piece of work in. If you can't do this in the spot, don't commit to anything before you thought through the implications of saying yes. If it's a simple piece of work and you're not that busy, then it may be a no brainer to say yes on the spot. If the work is more complex or you are busy, then I'll suggest you find out more before you say yes. An example of a response might be, so just to confirm, you want an analysis on customer X by Friday at 3pm and you want me to cover points A, B and C. In this section, you're just reconfirming what you understand is needed. And you go on to say, can you give me 10 minutes and I'll get back to you as to when I can deliver this. Before you go, I have a couple of questions if that's all right. This takes us on to our next step. Finding out why you're being asked to do something is a really important step that many people miss or they don't feel confident enough to ask when trying to manage expectations. If you don't find out more, you're making it really hard for you to prioritise your work effectively or that of your team. I'll suggest you find out, firstly, how your work fits into the bigger picture. Secondly, what deadlines the person asking you for the work is under. And thirdly, where or who initiated the work if it's not the person you're talking to. I've also been amazed by how many requests and projects are not as urgent as they first appear to be once you start asking a few questions. So if asking a few questions gives you more time to do the work in practice, then it's a pretty good benefit straight away. Secondly, you can often do a better job if you understand how the work that you're producing is going to be used. You can tailor your output, for instance, and this helps the other person and their perception of you improves another benefit. Asking questions in the right way is important. You want to make sure you come across as being helpful rather than difficult while still getting the information you need. As an example, you might say, it would really help me to understand a bit more about the project you are doing so I can better tailor what I produce for you. What are you trying to achieve? Rather than saying, I need you to tell me a bit more about the project you're doing. Both can achieve the same result. The first is positioned as you're trying to be even more helpful. The second is open to many interpretations, not all of them positive. Other example questions could include, again, to help me put together exactly what you need, can you tell me how you're going to use the work I produce in your project or work? We're super busy at the moment and I know you've worked for this piece of work back for Friday. Could you just tell me what deadlines you're working to? I may be able to rejig some of the work we're doing around to actually make sure we can meet the deadlines you have. Or it could be, is this your project and if not, who's owning it? If you're confident or have a good relationship, you can ask much more direct questions. Even when in this situation, I still find positioning questions as trying to help the other person get you a lot more information and goodwill. Work out your way of finding out more about why you're being asked to do the work. Now you know more about the context of the work you're being asked to do. It is much easier for you to prioritise this work against all the other tasks, activities and projects you or your team are currently working on. I've always found it useful to categorise activities and projects into what is urgent and what is important. Using a grid like this can be super helpful. A lot of urgent tasks can easily drown out the really important but less urgent tasks. Plan out which activities and tasks you need to deliver on and by when against your capacity to deliver. Decide how you can fit this new request into the overall workload you have. You are now in a position to set expectations. When managing expectations, you must be very clear when you initially set expectations. Be clear on what you're going to deliver and by when. If you're meeting the other person's initial request or expectation, then this is pretty easy. You're effectively saying, yes, I can do what you ask. If you can't meet their initial request or expectations, then it is really important that you explain why you can't deliver as requested. For example, I can deliver the customer X analysis that you've requested. I'm very busy with four other customer analysis currently, all part complete and I need to deliver these between now and Thursday at 5pm. This means I can only really start working on customer X analysis on Friday morning and finish by Monday lunchtime. I know you want this by the end of Friday and the deadline for your project is the end of Thursday next week. Would Monday lunchtime work okay for you? I can probably share some preliminary work on Friday afternoon if that would be helpful to you. By explaining why you can't meet their initial request, you're demonstrating you are not being difficult or lazy and you're doing your best to accommodate them. This all helps to maintain or build your relationship with them. And even more important, when you are clear and realistic in setting expectations, then they can plan and be confident that you will deliver on those expectations. When setting expectations, it is so much more important that you'll be realistic rather than nice. Working with a person that sets clear expectations and then consistently delivers against those expectations is fantastic. Even if the expectations set don't match my original request. The worst situation is working with a person that keeps missing deadlines or keeps giving you last minute surprises. This makes it really hard to plan what you can do to hit your own deadlines. So give as much certainty as possible, even if it doesn't hit the original expectations requested. It can also be useful to put expectations that you've set into writing. You know, a quick email for instance. This gives both parties a written reference point that you can to refer to if memories become a little bit hazy later on. This can also head off or stop future disputes or misunderstandings. Remember, be realistic and give yourself some wiggle room. Things always pop up, so give yourself space to deal with the unexpected and still be able to deliver to the deadlines that you've set. The last step in managing expectations is to communicate regularly with your stakeholders until you hand over the completed work. Too few people are good at proactively communicating progress. This is one of the most important lessons that I learnt in managing expectations well. Even if the project or work is going well and you're going to deliver on time, touch base and give an update. Obviously, use your judgement. If it's a small piece of work that's not that important and you're going to deliver it in a day, say, then just deliver it. If you're working on a substantial piece of work or it's particularly important, then give regular updates. A quick phone call or email every couple of days would easily help manage expectations. By giving updates, you're communicating through your actions that you haven't forgotten about the work, that you're progressing it and that you will hit the deadlines that you've set. This proactively stops the other person chasing you while creating loads of goodwill with them. And there will be times that you can't deliver to the original deadline set, even though you've planned out the work and given yourself wiggle room. Pick up the phone or go and see the person and explain why this is the case and set a new deadline. The most important thing that you can do is to tell them as early as possible so they can plan to meet their deadlines accordingly. No one likes surprises. And even worse, getting to the deadline and not getting the work you expected. Staying silent is the best way to annoy the other person and trash your reputation with them. So pick up the phone and explain what is happening and why. The other person may not like it, but they will be grateful that you told them so they can adjust their plans accordingly and manage the expectations of their stakeholders. So whether you're on schedule to deliver, and definitely if you're not on schedule, keep communicating your progress to your stakeholders until you've delivered the work. Managing expectations is a really important skill to improve. The approach and tips shared in this video has helped me in my career massively and will help you too. Remember, when managing expectations, firstly, don't forget to ask questions so you can prioritise the request effectively. Secondly, plan out how you're going to deliver the request and then set expectations accordingly. And always keep your stakeholder informed of progress until you've delivered the work. And lastly, many people understand the theory of managing expectations, but don't put the steps into practice. Don't be like these people. If you're not already taking these steps, put them into practice. Put them into practice now. Your happiness and career will thank you for it. And I'd also love to know if you're doing something different that works. Please leave a comment below if you do. If you've got any questions as well, leave a comment and I'll get back to you. And if you like this video, please hit the thumbs up button below and subscribe and hit the bell to get notified of our weekly video releases. This really helps us produce more videos to help you. Thanks for watching and I look forward to seeing you again soon.