We all have expectations everyday. No matter if we go to the meeting with our coworkers, get an amazon delivery, or dine in a restaurant, every time we expect how this event will be like. Sometimes we expect things to be bad, other times we expect thing to go well. When things are not like we expected them we can be disappointed and in other situations we are surprised because everything was much better than we expected.
While we are very familiar with experiencing expectations on a daily basis, we often do not really know how we could manage expectations either for us or for others. People often talk about expectation management but little do we know how we can intentionally craft intentions for the people that surround us, the people we interact with, as well as ourselves. This multi-part article should allow us to understand:
- What are Expectations?
- What is Expectation Management?
- How to Form Expectations for the better?
Definition: Expectations
Expectation is a belief of oneself, that at a certain point in time in the future an event is happening where an anticipated experience will be live through.
Let’s pick this definition apart to understand all of its parts. An expectation is a special kind of belief one has in the present moment, which comprises an experience that will happen within a restricted time frame in the future. This time frame between the present moment and the expected future event is the phase of expectation. Depending on the length of the time frame the expectations can either not change much in a short amount of time or offer a long time frame for opportunities to influence ones vague expectations.
The expected experience is deeply connected with anticipation as an emotion and therefore with a predisposed evaluation if the expected experience will be pleasurable and therefore a positive experience, unpleasant or even painful meaning a negative experience. If it is neither exceedingly pleasurable nor unpleasant, it might fit ones own expected norms and lead to a normal experience.
The expected value of the anticipated experience can then later be compared to the realized experience and indicate if both matched and the expectation was fulfilled, or if there is a mismatch between the expected value and the realized experience value resulting in either an under fulfillment or over fulfillment.
By recognizing the positive or negative mismatch in fulfillments one can identify if the negative experience is a disappointment or even a frustration, or if the positive experience is a relief or sparks joy. What we are feeling we experience depends on how far apart the expected value is from the experience value in relation to each other. Does the experience value exceed a certain threshold from our expectation value, we might even feel either positive or negative surprise.
The important note here is that even a relatively bad realized experience value could be a relief, if the expected value was anticipated worse. Same is true the other way around, just because one had a positive experience, does not mean, that one won’t be disappointed from that experience value, if the expectation value were higher. Disappointment and joy are therefore not necessarily only evaluated by the general experience one has, but the realized experience relative to the anticipated expectation one had. This is a very valuable insight if one will craft expectations for oneself or others.
Restaurant Example
To make this theoretical explanation a little more tangible, we can wrap that into a familiar story as an example.
I want to go to a restaurant in the evening to have dinner with a friend. I’ve never been to that restaurant before and just heard my friend talk about that restaurant. Based on what I heard an anticipated believe was formed in my mind for how that restaurant experience will be realized in the evening.
The first scenario could be that I heard my friend say, that the restaurant was a beautiful space with tasty food for a good price. The interior, taste and price therefore become expectation elements that form my expected value. When I experience in evening that the space is indeed beautiful, the food tastes good for me and I am happy to pay money for the food I got, then we have a match and my expectation was fulfilled through the realized experience.
The same would be true, if my friend told me, the restaurant looks a little shady, but the food is great and the price is cheap. Even though one expectation element is negative now, and the place turns out to be a messy place, I was expecting that, and if I like the food for the cheap price, my expectation will be still fulfilled.
Another scenario could be if I went to the homepage of the restaurant beforehand, and saw images of a relatively normal restaurant with decent food forming the expectation of a normal restaurant and a standard restaurant experience. However, when we arrive the place looks much better than the photos on the homepage, the service (to add another expectation element) is high class polite, accommodating, fast and knowledgeable, the food is visually pleasing, taste great and is satisfying and the price is good relative for what we got. Definitely and over fulfillment that is not just a relief and positive experience but a positive surprise.
The opposite would be a website that shows a restaurant presenting high standards, with an upper class venue, exclusive five course menu, and a price that comes close to some rent prices. If I now experience a venue that is nice, but not as nice as the images showed, the five course menu is good but not exclusive, the service is a little rude and the price adds some intransparent costs claiming exclusive services, an experience that is above standard could mismatch with my expectations and become a negative experience maybe even a negative surprise.
Conclusion
So far we learned:
- What an expectation is
- When we have expectations
- How they relate to experiences and
- What effects expectations can have on us
These basics so far give us a good fundamental understanding of expectations, which allow us to built some understanding for the different scenarios we often have in our minds on top next time. To learn more about those scenarios and to make your first steps into the rabbit hole of expectation management and how it could serve you and the people around you, take a look at part 2 as soon as it will be published.
Danksagung:
Erstellt mit Bildern von Pixel-Shot - "Different billiard balls with cue on green table" • Faces of Travel - "High angle view of woman taking picture of food in restaurant" • Younes - "Hand holding indian food" • Yuya Parker - "Sushi Wonderland with tempura focus" • juliamikhaylova - "Elegant black table setting: plates, napkin and silverware over black background. Flat lay. copy space"