Meeting and Exceeding Expectations

Before becoming a coach, I used to work with a number of pretty large telecommunications vendors. And one of the things that almost every new salesperson would tell me is this: "I want to exceed your expectations, Barry." But whenever I'd hear that, I couldn't help but laugh.

"You may want to re-think that," I'd reply. "You can only lose playing that game."

"Whadeya mean?" they'd ask.

"Well, it's like this. Let's say you develop a well-deserved reputation for excellence so that that's what becomes my expectation - excellence. Now how to you exceed that? Do you become super-excellent? And what if that becomes the norm. To exceed that expectation, you'll need to do better still. And if that becomes the norm, you'll have to do even better than that. And on and on it goes until I start relying on you to be able to make miracles happen - at which point you'll probably fail miserably, right when I need you the most.

"So I'd rather you not even try to exceed my expectations. I'd rather you simply find out what I need to have happen by when ... and just do that by then, time and time again. In fact, if all you ever do is 'just that by then, time and time again,' I'll be your biggest fan."

How about you? Do you tell people you want to exceed their expectations? If so, try finding out what needs to happen by when ... and just do that by then, time and time again. You can even go a bit above-and-beyond if you'd like, just don't turn it into a game you can only lose.