Page 179 - Build a Culture of Employee Engagement with the Principles

150 Carrots and Sticks Don’t Work

hold certain expectations based on their interviews. When those
expectations are clear and fulfilled, employees are naturally sat-
isfied. When expectations are vague, however, new employees
tend to be overly optimistic and content with their performance
relative to their supervisor’s expectations. When informed that
their performance has missed the mark, employees become
demoralized and frustrated because the mark was not clear. In
addition, when expectations are clear and the reasons behind
them made explicit, employees experience higher levels of
engagement as they see how their work contributes to fulfill-
ing the mission and vision of the organization. Making sure that
expectations fit with the overall strategic plan is a fundamen-
tal principle in setting effective goals and leads into our next
section.

Expectation and

Goal-Setting Fundamentals

Supervisors should always believe that their employees want
to meet goals and expectations. Except for the highly disen-
gaged, employees want to “get it right,” and when they don’t,
you should assume that it is due to miscommunication or insuf-
ficient resources rather than apathy, laziness, or stupidity. Peo-
ple don’t like to fail; we’re just not wired that way. Ask yourself,
when was the last time that you either purposely failed or felt
good about failing? Why, then, would you assume that others
feel differently? Here’s the truth: if your employees are failing to
meet expectations and goals, it is because you have failed them.
Your job is to make your people successful, and you have to take
responsibility for setting them up for success. If you believe that
the primary reason that people fail to meet goals has to do more