Setting Standards and Expectations
VANCOUVER BUSINESS JOURNAL
May, 2000

Essential Management Concepts
JONNIE MARTIN


It is a self-evident truth that the more that we disclose our expectations of people, the greater the chance that they will respond appropriately. The clearer the standards for performance, the greater the chance of achievement. But despite the validity of these ideas, in many companies standards and expectations are unwritten, unspoken, ethereal, ephemeral.

Companies need to be open and exacting in their communication of job and team requirements; they need to archive these specifications in a manual or other permanent record, and they must repeatedly teach and reinforce these ideas. Ideally, they should include employees in periodic brainstorming sessions designed to improve standards that lead to excellence in quality of work. Several heads are usually better than one — and the process encourages a sense of ownership.

Large companies are more likely to dedicate time for these kinds of processes—partly because they have personnel dedicated to human resource functions. In large companies, however, there is often a reliance on “formula” job descriptions, job manuals, review forms and other communication methods that are sometimes stale and ineffective. Too often the “real” standards by which an employee are judged are kept carefully locked away in the mind of the manager.

Small companies often do not use any type of formal system — no job descriptions, manuals or reviews — because they do not have the luxury of HR specialists. But size should not be a determinant; I have used these ideas very effectively in all sizes and types of companies, including my relationship with my 3/4 time assistant.

A couple of years ago it was my fortune to have an employee named Barbara Darrow. She handled all of my office and administrative tasks part-time while completing her pre-nursing classes at Clark College. She’s moved on now, attending classes full-time in Clark’s nursing program — and the world will have a great nurse by this time next year.

Even though my work seemed simple — and even though Barbara was a very experienced administrator — we took the time at the beginning to sit down and set our company standards, together. We talked about our clients, who they were, what they needed from us, what they expected of us. We talked about how to meet those customer expectations. We set the standard of ALWAYS responding to their needs in a warm, friendly and professional manner. We set the standard of NEVER disappointing our clients. And we talked at length about what we needed to do as a team to meet those goals.

We talked about our relative roles in the team structure. For us to meet our client expectations, what must I do? What tasks must Barbara handle? What actions, thoughts, habits, and behaviors would make us each effective in our specific team role and which ones would limit our effectiveness. We talked about the attitudes and mental models we needed to embrace daily in order to enhance our performance on behalf of the clients and agreed to be open with each other. If one of us got off track, the other was charged with speaking up. When either of us erred or failed in some manner, we took time to fix the error, make amends if necessary, and figure out a way to avoid that pitfall in the future.

The culture we created was one of excellence — of agreed standards and behavior. We both knew when we were achieving and we knew when we were falling short and we knew how to change, adjust, improve, and continually move toward higher standards. We very actively and openly practiced Deming’s kaizen — the art of continual improvement.

It’s not that hard to accomplish the same thing in your company. Just a few hints:
  • In addition to a company Mission Statement, it is helpful to put into writing the company’s Values Statement — which captures the owner’s value system and the promises made to the customer and the employees.
  • Goals set in annual strategic planning processes also serve to frame standards and expectations. People can ask themselves: is my performance taking us toward, or away from, the company goals.
  • Some very specific standards of performance may be desirable in some companies — from the type and quality of customer service to the number of widgets to be produced hourly.
  • To develop excellence, there should be open discussions of “fair expectations.” What do the owners, managers and employees expect of each other? What does Manufacturing expect of Sales and vice versa. What do customers expect?
  • Standards should be captured in writing, in job descriptions, HR and procedure manuals, strategic plans, budgets, and other forms of permanent documentation. Written standards should be systematically issued and updated.
  • Training, coaching, review and reward systems should include measurement that goes beyond simple job tasks. The entire culture should emphasize and support the notion of meeting high standards.
  • Retreats and meetings of various types should be held to celebrate performance, to set new goals and expectations, and to renew the dream, the vision for high standards

For a company to approach excellence, there must be time spent on reflection, planning, measuring, analyzing, communicating, training, improving, celebrating—and then you repeat the cycle. Over time, the commitment to excellence and high standards becomes a part of your culture and the current team members will become the mentors and teachers for the next generation.