The Expectations Trap
In last week’s Muse, I connected the dots between adopting a stewardship mindset toward business and the benefits of diverse teams. The key point from that discussion is summed up in the following excerpt:
Adopting a stewardship mindset shifted my perspective away from my personal ownership of the business - which is, by definition, finite because I am finite - and toward the viewpoint that the business is a going concern that will outlive me. Since the business will outlive me, I have a responsibility to build teams that will work to maximize long-term value to all stakeholders - employees, shareholders, and customers.
This week, I’d like to drill a bit deeper into the benefits of diversity versus uniformity and a key trap leaders can easily fall into. We’ll call it the expectations trap. Just as leaders can be tempted to reduce friction and drag with a homogeneous “Team Yes” by hiring people who look and think like they do, it’s also easy to project expectations for dedication, effort, productivity, engagement, and results onto others.
I’m sure you’ve heard it before and you may have even uttered the words: “I had to do ___, everyone else should have to do the same.” You can fill in the blank with “work 16 hours a day,” “walk uphill to school both ways,” or any one of myriad hardships you had to face that you expect the people around you to have encountered as well.
The best example I can think of is how physicians who are nearing retirement talk about the experience new physicians have as they enter the workforce. “I had to pull all-nighters for weeks on end when I first entered the profession. We need to make sure that medical residents and new attendings go through the same pain I did!” The older generation uses this flawed logic to support their resistance to workplace reforms that help doctors, staff, and their patients. I don’t know about you, but I really don’t want to be treated by someone who’s operating on a caffeine buzz and just a few hours of sleep—I don’t care how much of a superhero complex they have.
Another example is parenting. I’ve seen many parent-child relationships sour when the expectations of the parental units are not met as the child develops and grows into adulthood. No one is happy when the uniqueness of each child is not embraced and nurtured. In my own personal experience, I can attest to the benefits of letting go of my personal expectations and instead embracing each child’s gifts, talents, and journey.
The expectations trap is also at the root of the current debate around work ethic. Over the Thanksgiving table, you may have had to endure uncle Bill tell the story about how he had to wait two extra minutes at his favorite diner and how “No one wants to work anymore.” “When I was growing up, we worked our butts off, blah, blah, blah…” Earlier this year, Paul Fairie created a Twitter (now X) thread that showed how the phrase “No one wants to work anymore” dates back to 1894 and has been in use through the decades ever since to varying degrees. Hence, there’s solid anecdotal evidence that members of more “experienced” generations have been looking down their nose at the performance of “less experienced” generations for a very long time.
The lesson today is this. Everyone is different and your way is not the only way. Your job as a leader is not to enforce uniformity, but instead to embrace and leverage the benefits of diversity in your organization. If you want to bring out the best in others, you must play to their strengths. Improved long-term sustainability and performance await the leader who understands that their own personal journey is but one data point of what success looks like in an absolute sea of successful human journeys that have forged different paths. Alternatively, frustration, disengagement, and constrained performance are what’s on the menu for leaders who insist on trying in vain to mold others in their image.
