Page 188 - Build a Culture of Employee Engagement with the Principles

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Expectations

in checkpoints up front, you eliminate any potential awk-
wardness when you check an employee’s work. You also cre-
ate a natural opportunity for employees to ask questions and
clarify points that they otherwise might not have wanted to
bother you with.
7. Set goals collaboratively. Telling an employee what
needs to be accomplished versus reaching those expecta-
tions in partnership significantly impacts the employee’s level
of engagement and the extent to which the goal is achieved.
Setting goals with employees should be a conversation, not
a demand. For example, instead of saying, “You need to get
five new accounts by the end of the month,” you might say,
“I wanted to have a conversation with you about your sales
goals” and ask the employee for his or her thoughts. In most
cases, the employee’s goal will be realistic and very near the
one that you would have set. This process leads to much
greater ownership and commitment by the employee.
8. Compare expectations. The following is a simple and
powerful exercise that I encourage you to do regardless of how
effective you feel you are at setting clear expectations. Hold a
team meeting and tell employees that you want to make sure
that you have been doing a good job in effectively communi-
cating your performance expectations to them. Hand out a
blank piece of paper and ask them to list in order of priority
what they believe you expect from them. In addition, for any
task they are currently working on, ask them to write down
a score from 1 (Failing to meet expectations) to 5 (Exceed-
ing expectations) for their performance. In advance of this
meeting, write down your expectations and evaluation scores.
Collect their responses and then hold one-on-one meetings to
discuss how closely aligned you are. There is absolutely no