What Did You Expect? – I read today that somebody was predicting behavior based on the Bell Curve. Most people will fall into the middle (average), some will be better, some will be worse, a few will be exceptionally good, a few will be exceptionally bad. The message was that this is what you should expect from any group of people. And this becomes true if that is really what you expect. But what if you expect something different? What if you expect that most of your people will perform better than average and a number of them will be exceptional? And what if you not only expect that it will happen, but you tell those people what your expectations are? The result will be amazing. If you have very high expectations, most people will perform at a high level. The others won’t perform at a mediocre level. They will leave and go somewhere else. This is also true if you expect mediocrity. Most people will perform at an average level and the exceptional people will leave and go somewhere else. I bet that if you think about it, you can find examples where this has been true in your own experience. Try this for one performance review cycle. Don’t manage based on assumed ability, manage based on assumed results (expectations). If you try this, you many never expect mediocrity again.