It has been about a week since my last post, so I thought it would be appropriate to write about the importance of setting the right expectations. But what is the right expectation? Different people certainly have different expectations in different situations.  I find that many of us are guilty of OVERPROMISING and UNDERDELIVERING, let’s be honest here, even though we are told to ensure the contrary.

Some of us may not think so, but it is very easy to overpromise.  Shading the truth a little bit or even cutting corners to save a few bucks on your bottom line. Without setting clear expectations, even your most successful project can quickly become nothing more than a subjective pat-on-the-back from your boss.

I have put together a list of 5 things I always try to remember when I am setting expectations with my employer and/or colleagues to ensure that I maintain my professional credibility.

1.  Keep Your Promises (No Matter What)!

It is simple to earn respect and build strong long-lasting business relationships – just remember if you make promises – KEEP THEM! No matter what! This is the single most important rule for ensuring that you not only keep customers, bosses and colleagues happy but also will salvage the respect of everyone on your professional rolodex.  This may seem like an overly trivial tip but SEVERAL businesses lose fortunes on undelivered expectations, by making false promises.  When you work for yourself, and everyone is the client, it’s very easy to make promises.   Promises are what everyone wants to hear. Sales teams have actually perfected the art of weaseling promises to try and make a sale.  However, the customer will always, [ALWAYS] catch this.  If you can’t deliver what you promise, DO NOT MAKE PROMISES. It’s just that simple.

2. Focus on Outcomes

Expectations should focus on outcomes, not activities. In other words, you achieve clarity when you identify the expected results rather than the method for achieving them. Managers often make the mistake of attempting to direct the process that an employee will use rather than being clear about results. The advantage of identifying the outcome is that you, the manager, focus only on the goal; after all, the employee will develop the method for achieving the desired results.

Defining the objective often requires some thought on the part of the manager because it is easy to fall into the “activities trap.” While developing a strategic plan for a department or division is a worthy activity, it does not represent an outcome.

3.  Always Lead with Values

Great leadership begins with a clear, unambiguous statement of expectations. Great leaders clarify, in specific terms, exactly what they expect of the people they lead.  This applies to every thing from work attendance to sales or production sales and/or production goals and quotas, to organizational values.  Yes, values.  Leaders cannot expect the people they lead to conduct themselves in accordance with organizational values if they don’t make it very clear that these values are important and that they expect everyone to act in a manner consistent with organizational beliefs and guiding principles Always remember to lead with values.

4. First Impressions Always Set the Stage

First impressions are still touted as the make-it or break-it of relationship building, this moment in time defines the level at which expectations are initially cast and carries considerable weight in future interactions. This benchmark can be the joy or bane of your professional credibility and is tested each time a consumer comes in contact with your brand, either directly or indirectly.

5. Never Leave Room for Assumption

Mind reading is never a job requirement, in spite of what some managers think.  When the end result is a surprise, in most cases, it is also a failure.  I know of several managers that don’t set expectations very well. They are superstars at noticing when things aren’t done right, but when it comes to telling their employees upfront what they want, they communicate by mental telepathy.  You can’t over communicate. When it comes to setting clear expectations and providing feedback – you can see the difference between a great leader with a highly effective team and a mediocre leader with above average turnover because the great leaders never leave room for assumption.

OK, what point am I really trying to drive home? Well, expectations can be both a blessing and a curse! When you meet people’s expectations, they’re generally very grateful!  If your employees know what is expected of them, it allows them to focus on results and to monitor themselves against the set standards. Environments in which expectations are not clear, or change from week to week, seldom create high-performing and productive work groups.  The vast majority of performance problems that supervisors experience can be prevented or virtually eliminated by setting and communicating expectations appropriately.  Just remember that your professional credibility is a direct representation of how you are perceived at work.  Continue to set realistic expectations and you will maintain the respect you have worked so hard to earn.

Bill Murray is famous for his deadpan acting and impenetrable cool. With a phenomenal level of consistent greatness, Murray is one of the most enduring comedic actors in movie history.
Murray received an Oscar nomination for his role in “Lost in Translation.” His screen credits also include the “Ghostbusters” movies, “Caddyshack”, “Stripes” and “Groundhog Day.” During a recent red carpet celebration a posse of media hounds assembled to meet Murray on the red carpet. In anticipation, the limo doors open with a flourish, and an unknown couple steps out, surprised at the fuss. In the background, a scooter sputters into view struggling like a broken down lawnmower, as Murray’s figure emerges from the saddle. He checks the location, flicks down the kickstand and with a deadpan look on his face – parks. “I always like to have my life in my own hands,” Murray says.

Murray, alone among the stars in Hollywood, has no entourage – no agent, business manager, lawyer or publicist. Yet, Murray is still undeniably the coolest actor to grace the big screen. I have always admired and enjoyed his sharp and savage wit, so I have come up with four things that we can all learn from Bill Murray that will make us all better individuals.

Lesson 1 -  Learn to laugh at yourself.

During an interview after filming Rushmore, Murray explained that a large part of his success was his ability to laugh at himself – “It takes certain amount of integrity when you can destroy what you do— when you’re able to laugh at yourself. Even in life, people who can laugh at themselves are the only ones I can really bear. Laughter keeps you from taking yourself too seriously.” If you can live with and laugh at your own flaws, you’ll reduce the stress of not always meeting your own expectations. You will have the priceless ability to put things in their proper perspective.

Lesson 2 -  Take your work seriously – your critics lightly.

“I think all phases of one’s career are serious, and should be taken seriously no matter if you are doing something high profile or not”, commented Bill Murray when asked about his recent string of 15 second cameos. “I’ve taken all the work I have ever done seriously but you definitely can’t take the response and reaction to it too seriously. You really can’t get all bent out of shape if the end result doesn’t pleasse. Not everyone is going to like your work and really who cares – I know I don’t.”

Lesson 3 – Life isn’t about waiting for something to happen in order to be happy.

Much like the salutary lesson that was passed to us from the movie Groundhog Day, we tend to live our life detached from what is happening in the present. We are always hoping for that next big promotion or the potential of hitting the jackpot. Should we all be that fortunate to go back and relive each day until we got it right? If we did, we would soon realize that life isn’t about waiting for something to happen in order to be happy, but making something happen in order to be happy.

Lesson 4 – Try and do absolutely nothing whenever you can.

When Murray’s not filming, he says that, “I try and do absolutely nothing. I go home and stay there. I wash and scrub up each day, and that’s it. One month I actually grew a moustache, just so I could say that I’d done something. I am years behind on reading or seeing movies. I find myself watching sports on television or riding a stationary bicycle. Once I break into a sweat, I get off it. It’s great, everyone should try doing nothing.”

So, there you have it – my pseudo tribute to an actor who’s witty and sarcastic comments have transcended comedy for the past 3 decades.

Respectfully,
Rob

The general answer to that question is no. I highly recommend arriving at an agreement to pay agencies for their pitches whenever possible if they’re going to be providing consultations, storyboards, mock ups, etc. However, if a client is basing their choice simply on your portfolio then I don’t see the need but if there are new ideas coming to the table, they should be compensated for the effort assuming you’ve agreed on the process beforehand.

The core issue here is respect. When you have respect and open communication between client and agency it leads to better work in my experience.  Quite simply agencies produce better work for clients they respect.

Giving free services away in anticipation of future business with that person communicates desperation and gives a perception of low value. If a prospective client does not want to pay full cost – or any cost, for that matter – you may still offer the following:

1.  Quid-pro-quo: Something for something.

What of this prospect’s products or services can it offer you in exchange? If none, can the prospect offer you a one-time look at his/her client and contact list, so that you may send a letter, signed by the prospect, singing your praises? If not, don’t give your services away.

2.  Offer to sell the prospect a smaller scale project.

Once the prospect has paid for that project and likes the work you did, offer to roll out the remainder of the project for the difference in cost.

3. Be prepared to walk.

In these tough economic times, money’s tight. Resist the temptation to discount or give away. Besides, even if you do win business with this prospect, he/she will be so tough to work with, it won’t even be worth the money, and they’ll detract you from the prospects that do have money for your services.

Spec work (or work on speculation is defined as any requested work for which a fair and reasonable fee has not been agreed upon, preferably in writing) depreciates the product, reduces company morale and sets an uncomfortable precedent for future business relationships. Your investments of time and effort comprise equity.

The exception to the rule, of course, is if you would be offering your services to a non-profit (NPO) or charitable organization that you have a genuine and sincere empathy towards.

Did you like this post? Let me know by commenting below.

Respectfully,
Rob

Your personal or professional credo is a statement of your beliefs and promises as to how you will live your life and/or conduct your business.

Each day, you can evaluate your behaviors and compare them against the standard that you have set for yourself and/or your company. If you internalize your own credos and believe in these words often enough, with conviction, your behaviour will change subconsciously to reflect this. A change in behavior will eventually lead you to a change in performance. And when you perform at your peak, you succeed. It doesn’t matter where you are in life, or what you do for a living, if you just modify the way you look at things, the way you think about things, you can and will achieve success.

My personal credos are in my wallet and on a fairly large poster I taped directly in front of my desk. Purposely unavoidable but nonetheless, encouraging. They are as follows:

1.  Believe in yourself.

The most important resource you will ever have is you.  You can always accomplish more.

2.  Visualize the “finish line”.

Always focus on the goal and not the road to get there.

3. Worrying is a useless emotion.

Just keep moving forward or fix it.

4. There is never an excuse.

Excuses are the exchange of the poor and money is the exchange of the wealthy. Money can not buy happiness and neither can excuses.

5. Make meaning with everything you do.

Collaborate, inspire and change what is needed to improve a life besides your own.

So now it’s your turn. What’s your credo? (Feel free to post one here, or to put it in your own blog).

Yesterday, I had lunch in Bells Corners at a Vietnamese “Pho” restaurant with one of my good colleagues.  I had asked him if he had ever seen “that homeless guy” who writes poetry on the corner of Sussex Drive and George Street.  A majority of the time I get the same reply, “Yes, I’ve seen that guy before”.

A fixture on the same corner for more than two years, Dave Dessler or Crazzy Dave as he prefers to be called, may be homeless, but he isn’t faceless. With his messianic hair and quick, caustic wit, he has been “busking poetry” that tends to focus on what he senses at street level to survive.   He doesn’t wave a hat at strangers and he never asks for money. Instead he spends his days etching rhymes onto stained pieces of cardboard in colorful shades of permanent marker. However, the poet is, in fact, tired of life on the street. “I’m so mentally and emotionally beat to sh–, I don’t know how much longer I can do this.”

Fortunately, with the financial backing of Steve Hambling, the president of a local ice-cream shop, Dessler’s poems have now turned into a book, Mindlessly Adrift: My Ottawa Streets, a co-effort with photographer Jean Boulay.   Dessler, who admits to a “checkered past,” hopes the proceeds from the book will be enough to provide a small nest egg to establish his own housing. From there, he hopes to cobble together enough income — his street poetry, possibly a small home business — to get by on his own.

Dessler is one of well-over 5,000 homeless men and women living in the Ottawa area.  It is extremely unfortunate that the homeless are still in large part society’s “visible” invisibles. There is an old saying, that if a problem is well defined then it is half solved. Part of that problem is awareness and it is also a big part of the solution.  The poetry by Dessler reminds us of the unique individuality and creativity of the forgotten. We must ensure that no matter what problems befall any of us, even during the worst of times be sure to lend a helping hand.  Let’s focus on random acts of kindness and work on promoting the social inclusion of homeless people by ensuring equal access to services so they can become a part in the life of the community.

If anyone is interested in chatting more about this topic feel free to contact me anytime!
Respectfully,
Rob

“As a well-spent day brings happy sleep, so life well used brings happy death.” - Leonardo da Vinci Italian engineer, painter, & sculptor (1452 – 1519)

I, of all people, usually never watch Oprah, but my girlfriend kindly insisted that I watch yesterday’s episode (I think it was a repeat). The topic was about two people that have incurable life threatening illnesses and how they now look at life from a different perspective. These two incredibly inspiring people will never take no for an answer. This article in its profoundest sense is about realizing that life is a terminal condition, we are all going to die eventually — but how many of us are truly going to live?

Randy Pausch – “Dream Big and Go For It!”

How many times while you were growing up did you hear, “follow your dreams”? Yet, very few of us actually did. Randy Pausch believes that we should always be dreaming because anything is possible. “Even if we fail at achieving our goal, we still gain a lot by trying for it.” Randy was diagnosed with an incurable form of Pancreatic cancer but instead of being bitter – cancer has pushed him to live! “I needed to make peace with my disease, even if it didn’t go away” said Randy during his moving final lecture at Carnegie Melon University, “lead your life in the right way because charma will take its course and your dreams will come to you.” Randy’s lecture has become a phenomenon, celebrating the dreams we all strive to make realities.

To watch the full version of Randy’s inspirational lecture please click on the video below.

Kris Carr was diagnosed with rare stage four cancer around her liver and lungs in 2003 at the age of 31. However, Kris isn’t focusing on living with cancer. She’s focusing on living her life to the fullest and not letting something she can’t see ruin the opportunities life offers. “I always wonder why, when we are challenged to survive do we give ourselves permission to truly live”, Kris asks. “We waste so much of our life worrying about the future and we should really be living in the moment.” Kris is a true example of someone who has taken desperation and turned it into her own inspiration. She really does have a truly amazing outlook on life.

“We spend most of our lives trying to live life.
Life changes in a moment.” – Kris Carr

It amazes me every time I see people with such unrelenting personal strength and ambition. These two extraordinary people have enriched many lives and motivated others to achieve their full potential. Their amazing outlook on life should teach us to live life every day to the fullest (and not wait until something tragic befalls us to start learning to live.) I could only hope to one day live my life with the same grace, dignity and joy that both Kris Carr and Randy Pausch seem to exhibit.