Exceeding expectations - why you need to be careful

Are you the kind of person that always likes to exceed everyone’s expectations?  Yes, of course you are. It’s always good to do that, right?

When I was buying a new kitchen I had a supplier round to give me a quote. I don’t remember the exact figure but it was around £5000. The kitchen was OK, but not exactly what I was looking for.

Then, by chance, I found a place in Bristol that had, in its window, the most beautiful dresser I had ever seen. I still remember it now.

Silas Stephens

I went into the workshop and met Silas. I asked for a brochure. He didn’t have one, just a photo album. I looked at all the wonderful and original designs. Every one was different. Each fitted the house (or in some cases boat) perfectly.

His work ranged from kitchens to bathrooms to covers for wells and intricate country gates.

I was in love.  He came to my house in Nottingham and took lots of measurements. When he came back he had an armful of drawings, pieces of smooth varnished woods of various types and coloured tile.  He had a plan for turning my dingy kitchen into a welcoming and cosy monument to delicious food and hospitality.

In a few seconds I made the decision.

The other supplier

A week later, the other supplier came round to see if he had the order. I felt a little sorry for the salesman. The plastic trimmed units he was selling could simply not compete in any way with the beauty of the designs or the quality of the work from Silas.

I let him know that I had decided to go with a different supplier.
Exceeding my expectations

His response was, “I can halve the price for you.”

I was quite shocked. Questions sprang to mind:
How could he suddenly give me that much off?
What profit were they making on the original price?
What kind of quality could they possibly be offering at that price?

Instead of being impressed, I had even less confidence in them than I’d had before.

The programmers

Whilst working on our website we experienced many delays. At one stage we were told we would have to wait 15 (working) days to have some key work done. We weren’t happy with this, as you can imagine. However, they managed to do it in just 3.

Yes, this was exceeding our expectations (which had been set very low by now) but it did not make us very confident in their ability to plan.

We suspected that they were under-resourced and that they were madly juggling the work so that other customers were now waiting.

Exceeding expectations

It’s fine to exceed expectations in some ways, but you need to be careful you don’t make yourself look bad instead of looking good when you do this. Setting realistic expectations and showing you are reliable is also a very attractive (and sometimes undervalued) quality.

How to make the most of measures in objectives

The importance of being measured – how to measure objectives

What should you measure? And how should you measure it? These are two very important questions when it comes to setting goals, objectives and targets.

You know it’s important that objectives are SMART, (specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time-bounded) but that’s no good if you are measuring the wrong thing or the wrong person is getting the information.

Example of the wrong measure

I was reading a book about measuring objectives recently. Yes, there are such books.

The thing that worried me was that the author was suggesting that all the information should be going to the manager. In only one casual aside did he mention that people might like to get the measures themselves.

He talks about the objective of reducing errors per 100 sales. `He suggests the Sales Processing Manager and the Customer Relationship Manager should be getting this information.

But he does not mention the people responsible for this task.

A typical mistake made by managers

So often managers put themselves and their processes between the person doing the job and the results they get.

If you want someone to improve their performance and level of skill, it’s vital that they get the information they need in order to do that.

Getting a report at the end of the week telling you that there were 5 errors in every hundred orders is almost useless. What you need is to know straight away if the order is correct or not.

Then you can work out what you need to do to get it right every time.
Even worse, putting all the information in the manager’s hands first is one of the biggest mistakes people make. It’s like being back at school and waiting for the results of your exams.

You can trust your people to get it right if they have the right information
If you get the information you need immediately you can work out how to do a good job every time. To keep this information from people is both patronising and stupid. It’s cutting off your nose to spite your face.

Get people to give you the information

Instead of operating in this schoolteacher manner, either make the information as automated as possible and give everyone access to it, or get the individuals to report the information back to you, instead of you giving it to them.

This will make it much easier for people to take responsibility for improving their performance and you will find they are much more motivated.

What’s wrong with self-help people?

Have you ever heard of Anger Management? It was very popular a few years ago. One of our clients had a customer who was an anger management consultant. This consultant ran courses for people in a house miles from anywhere.

His delegates would arrive late at night. Those who travelled by train would end up in a virtually deserted station two miles from the house. There was no taxi service and no phone reception. They had to make their way along unmarked and narrow lanes and then through a field (carrying their luggage) till, if they were lucky, they reached the house.

Those who came by car would have to make their way along a pot-holed road so full of deep craters that it was almost guaranteed to generate a big repair bill. 

By the time they had risked their necks getting to the location of the anger management course, most of them were very angry at the way they had been treated.

They were then told that it was their fault that they were angry and they needed to learn how to manage their anger.

I can only imagine how angry they were to hear this.

A difficult person to deal with

It turned out that this consultant was very difficult to deal with. He seemed to incite anger wherever he went. So he encountered a world full of anger and thought people should learn to control it.

Self help consultants

My dear friend Bryan told me a similar tale recently. His client presses DVDs and CDs. The one group of people this guy hates dealing with was the ‘self-help’ consultants. Awkward, fussy, difficult, they take the biscuit.

He far prefers the small bands and groups that comprised his normal, happy customers.

Oh dear. I cringed a bit when I heard this and wondered what we had been like to deal with when we produced our CDs and DVDs. I hope we were better than this.

Are you creating your own difficult people?

It’s undeniable that there are some people who are very hard to deal with.  But it’s also undeniable that there are some people who go around creating their very own difficult people.

I gave a talk recently on how to deal with difficult people. Before the meal I met a chap who reported having to deal with many awkward and difficult souls so bad you could end up poking needles in your eyes rather than wanting to talk to them.

Within a few seconds it became obvious why he experienced these problems. The tall, tanned man with the ready smile who had been part of the conversation quickly spotted someone he really needed to talk to on the other side of the room and I was left saddled with the guy while he told me of all the dreadful people he worked with. Then he moved onto his wife.

Just in case you are wondering what this delightful chap did, the main problem was his unerring belief that he is right and love of showing others just how wrong they are.

What are you doing to cause your problems?

So here’s the key – before you go blaming others for behaving badly, always ask yourself what you could have done that may have encouraged the response you are getting.

At least 90% of the time, you’ll find that there’s another way you could approach the individual that will often give you a better response. Find out what here.

How to promise what you can deliver

Do you know someone who is always late? Or do you take a train or plane that is always late?

I flew to Glasgow this week. The flight was delayed by 2 hours. The man behind me in the queue confided that this was usually the case on that day of the week.

I can accept the odd problem that causes a plane to be delayed, but when it happens every week, you wonder what is going on.

Change the schedule

If the plane is never on time, why don’t you just change the schedule? I asked one of the staff this question and was met with a blank stare. We didn’t even get an apology from her.

Telling people what they want to hear

So many times I have seen problems caused solely by people promising things they just can’t deliver.

Work out when you can deliver and then promise people that date or time. Don’t pretend you can give a faster service than possible just to make a person happy at that moment – you are storing up problems for the future. People really don’t like being let down.

Don’t annoy people more than necessary

Even worse, our helpful member of staff told us that we still had to turn up at the published time next week (even if we could see the flight was delayed), in case they somehow manage to bring the flight forward (so that it was only 1 hour 30 minutes late).

This kind of behaviour shows a complete lack of consideration for others. It’s just the same in hospitals where people are often kept in the waiting room much longer than necessary.

Sometimes there is a real emergency

I have been going to the same dentist for 25 years. One of the reasons I stay with them is that they are so reliable. Last time I went was the first time I have ever been kept waiting. It turned out that two of the dentists were off and two emergency patients had come in that morning.

My dentist had had to deal with both of them. However, she apologised profusely and I felt that, given the previous track record, I was happy to cope with this one-time delay.

Most of the time you can schedule things properly, even appointments in hospitals.

You just need to put a bit of effort in working out how long things really take, rather than how long you would like them to take. This is the vital time management skill of estimating. Without it planning is useless.

Learning how to estimate

This is very quick to learn. All you do is estimate how long you think a task will take. Then measure how long it really does take. Work out the percentage difference and change your estimate next time accordingly.
Keep doing this, and very soon your skills will improve.

For more help with time management go here.

To see our teleseminar on time management go here

How to stop interruptions in meetings

Do you have this problem with someone who keeps interrupting you in meetings?

Here’s what to do and an example of how it worked.

I was asked to run a meeting for a colleague who was having real trouble with one of the committee members (we’ll call her Beryl) who constantly interrupted everyone in the meetings. I’d seen the woman in action, so knew what he was up against.

I told him to follow my lead and not to worry about what I was doing if it seemed a bit strange.

Frame the meeting

At the beginning of the meeting I made it clear that everyone would get a chance to voice his or her opinion at each stage of the process.

We went through the first step. Beryl interrupted. I told her she would get her turn as soon as those ahead of her had been asked. I asked the others, then her. She voiced her concerns, which I summarised and noted to make it clear I had listened to them.

Proactive approach

After the next point, before she could interrupt (I could see her drawing breath) I told Beryl she would be asked as soon as it was her turn. Every time I saw her about to speak, I repeated the same process, and always made sure I asked her for her views.

After about half an hour she ran out of things to say. I persisted and kept asking her for her views. By the end of the meeting she was simply waving her hand to say she had nothing more to add.

My fellow school governors were astonished. She had been transformed in a matter of hours.

The secret of the transformation

Beryl just wanted to be heard. When she thought no one would listen, that just made her more determined to be heard. So she tried harder. Of course the more she tried, the more they resisted. The system was self-perpetuating.

Instead of falling in line with this system myself, I set up a new system, which meant that Beryl felt confident that she would have a chance to speak and be listened to. So all the effort was removed and she became, once again, a useful member of the team instead of a pain in the neck.

For more help with all kinds of difficult behaviour check our products to help you with difficult people and bullies.

How should we treat witnesses in trials?

You may have heard of the complaints about how the family of a murdered girl, Milly Dowler, were treated very badly by the defence lawyers at the trial of her murderer Levi Bellfield.

About 25 years ago, I witnessed similar behaviour by defence lawyers in a trial where I was on the jury. The judge apologised for the treatment of the witness on behalf of the British nation.

During his defence, the lawyer accused a Japanese woman who was the victim of pick pocketing on the London Underground of sleeping with four of the other witnesses. It was appalling. And there was no need for it.

His way of trying to prove his client’s innocence was to discredit the witness. All he did was to turn everyone against him.

The truth

According to the research, the best way of finding out if someone is telling the truth is to ask him or her the right questions.

In this case, asking a person to tell you what the events were in reverse order is most effective. I feel sure if someone had questioned his defendants that way, it would have been obvious they were lying.

It’s a bit macho

Unfortunately some people, probably those who have watched too many bad cop films, still seem to think that the bullying tactics are the most effective.

Maria Hartwig and John Jay of College of Criminal Justice in New York showed that in just three hours of training they could improve the success rate of interrogators at spotting lies from 56% to 85%.

It’s time we started using these techniques that mainly involve the skilful use of questions not just in the courtroom, but also in job interviews, particularly for the most senior positions. 

So often untrustworthy or incompetent people have ended up with a lot of power simply because no one asked the right questions.