Summary.    Managing the expectations of a wide range of stakeholders is one of the most challenging jobs of a project manager. Yet there’s no educational program or training for this skill because everyone’s expectations are unique and often deeply personal. PMs need...

Artfully managing expectations is one of the most important skills a project manager (PM) can develop. When expectations are properly managed, teams are better equipped to deliver exceptional results, from executing on a behemoth campaign to meeting small, daily deadlines. The earlier this skill can be developed in one’s career, the better.

Yet training on “expectations management” is fairly limited within professional development curriculum and new hire onboardings. It’s a difficult concept to package into a single educational experience because everyone’s expectations are unique and often deeply personal. PMs need to use a combination of intuition, listening, iterating, and learning on the fly to address them successfully.

I’ve spent the past few years gaining a deep understanding of how people work through setbacks while interviewing leaders across industries and researching the psychology behind this phenomenon for my book, The Setback Cycle. Part of working through that cycle is developing a clear understanding of expectations.

So much of our workplace anxiety, confusion and ambiguity — particularly when managing projects — stems from this great expectations gap. But directly addressing it can have a significant impact: A Gallup study on employee engagement estimates that setting clear expectations would reduce turnover by 22%, reduce safety incidents by 29%, and increase productivity by 10%.

Here are the five main principles PMs can use to work through setbacks and close the expectations gap in the workplace.

Consider the root of everyone’s expectations.

Managing expectations can be a delicate balance. Set them too high, and risk disappointment. But aiming too low can leave people and teams complacent.

To start managing expectations, you need to understand where they come from. “Expectations can be deeply rooted in our own insecurities or our own self worth,” explains Morra Aarons-Mele, author of The Anxious Achiever. “They may potentially stem from a formative experience in life. Expectations can make us vulnerable.”

This can spill over into our work. It is also part of the reason that, when workplace expectations aren’t clear, anxiety and stress seep in.

That’s why it’s critical to be clear, deliberate and decisive from the outset. “People become anxious when there are unsaid expectations that are not explicit,” Aarons-Mele says. “So, align on terms and meanings. What does ‘good’ mean? What does ‘ready for next steps’ mean? What does ‘ready for client approval’ mean? What does ‘draft’ mean? My ‘good’ might be your ‘terrible.’”

In other words, don’t make people guess, or everyone will start operating based on assumptions, not facts. Your colleagues cannot read your mind. Setting clear expectations prevents work moving forward based on assumptions, especially as logistics and timelines inevitably shift.

“Leaders tend to have the expectation that everyone thinks the way they do,” says Lindsay Dunphy, founder and project management lead at Firefly Consulting Services. “So they don’t necessarily set the groundwork for employees to work within the systems they’ve created. Being able to articulate that expectation can be challenging.”

To prevent confusion, a team can collectively set goals and understand what it will take to meet key performance indicators (KPIs). Equally as important is continually re-evaluating these goals. As a project moves along, is the team meeting expectations? Do the goals still feel reasonable to achieve? Or is working towards them demoralizing the team? If the latter, how can you reconfigure those goals or adjust expectations in order to meet those KPIs?

Approach project management as couples therapy.

A common argument among couples is that one partner can’t read the others’ mind. The same rings true for most colleagues.

That’s why executive coach Shoshanna Hecht suggests project managers take a cue from the job of couples counselors: to establish that they are not on the side of either party. The counselor’s role is to remain on the side of the relationship as a whole. As such, the project manager is on the side of the project.

“The PM is in service of the business. That doesn’t always mean appeasing the client, but understanding the job to be done and the overall business goals,” she says. “They are responsible for getting the project to the end zone.”

Further, PMs often become experts at delicately navigating the moods of various stakeholders, another skill that enables them to properly manage the expectations of the entire team.

“PMs become couples counselors, mediators, and therapists,” says Hecht. “They need to make everyone feel valued and heard, explaining what’s possible while clearly outlining the limitations. Clear is kind.”

To do this successfully, recap conversation takeaways in detail. For example, the way a client digests a conversation can significantly vary from how a creative team digests it. An all-too-familiar scenario happens when a client approves a creative concept, a team begins work and comes back to present ideas to the client. The feedback isn’t great. The PM needs to re-brief the team, set new deadlines, and present again. Minds are changing, self doubt is creeping in, the PM is trying to motivate employees as deadlines are shrinking.

“I need to make it very clear that certain things will only be possible if pieces fall into place as anticipated,” says Sandy Binjour, a senior project manager at a global advertising agency. “At the 11th hour, if things are still off the rails, it’s time to have a candid yet collaborative conversation that gets everyone to weigh in on the decision that needs to be made.”

To foster that collaboration and manage the expectations of key stakeholders prone to making unrealistic demands, Hecht suggests trying this script. “I hear that you want X, and we can deliver X to a point.” Clearly and candidly state how far you can go. Then, ask how the team can work together to come up with a different solution so everyone feels like they are co-creating the new path forward, even as folks are dealing with high stress and strong emotions.

Create and foster relationships with your team.

Project management requires a significant level of emotional intelligence. PMs need to develop an understanding of various work styles, strengths and weaknesses, and build structures – and relationships – accordingly.

So how do PMs like Binjour foster those relationships in a way that builds trust? The answer might sound counterintuitive.

“I lie all the time,” she says. “There’s the deadline I tell people, and there’s the real deadline. I tell the production team one deadline and the account team another and hope it lands somewhere in the middle.”

To be clear, Binjour isn’t exactly lying; rather, she’s managing expectations and building buffers to ensure flexibility throughout the process. She’s addressing different work styles to move the project forward without delays. This is a tactic many seasoned PMs use to accommodate the needs of different people across various departments.

“My priorities are making my creative team feel supported, ensuring the production team has the most relevant information, and that everyone understands what their expectations are,” says Binjour. “I make friends and build sincere relationships. It can be emotionally draining, because people trust you with personal information, but at the end of the day, I’m a safe space to blab to.”

Protecting the psychological safety and comfort of a team is also critical to fostering collaboration. The more people trust the PM, the more comfortable they are speaking up when issues arise, leaving more room to make adjustments, reset timelines, and manage the broader team’s expectations, especially as the project evolves. Psychological safety on a team also provides a comfortable environment for employees to give and receive feedback. Respectfully addressing this feedback reinforces expectations with clarity and helps prevent communications breakdowns.

“Communication is always number one, but so is making sure that people say what they mean,” says Dunphy. That’s why, “as a PM, you can usually see the finish line before everyone else can.”

Build a structure that’s sturdy but flexible.

One of the best methods of expectations management is balancing structure with flexibility. Even with the most organized structure, the strongest team, the best project management software, and the most skillful communicators, a project can still go awry.

“Milestones, time, and money depend on me keeping everything on track,” says Binjour. “But all of that structure needs to be nimble, because for as many plans as I make, it can easily fall apart.”

The easiest way to do this is to break projects down into small functional steps. The structure needs to be sturdy enough to move a project forward, but nimble enough to adapt in case that timeline shifts.

“It’s really about making it super tactical at this point, almost down to every second of the day so that the time feels productive and everyone knows where to focus,” says Binjour. “Once a timeline shrinks down to the last few days before a project is due, a bulleted to-do list just isn’t enough. I send 15 minute calendar blocks to those who need to know what they need to do and when it needs to be done.”

At some point, the PM needs to make sure the team can step away from the project and deliver the work in a way that enables them to feel like they did the best they could under whatever constraints they needed to work within. Those environments can actually fuel creativity, but that flexible structure is key to keeping the project on track and fostering the best possible work output.

“Build in as much backstop and infrastructure as you can and communicate it as clearly as you can,” says Aarons-Mele. “What you can control are the structure and the process.”

Keep the team grounded in the overall vision.

The best way to motivate teams, especially during tumultuous times, is to make sure everyone feels like they’re working toward a common goal.

“When you get everyone thinking they’re part of the larger vision, it improves performance,” says Dunphy. “People take more initiative when they feel more involved in every step.”

Psychologist Angela Duckworth notes in her book, Grit, that purpose is one of the strongest human motivators.“At its core, the idea of purpose is the idea that what we do matters to people other than ourselves,” she writes. Studies from the National Institute of Health to Pew Research have supported the concept that leading a purpose-driven life correlates not only with success, but happiness and overall life satisfaction. How can PMs inject that sentiment and motivation into a team’s day to day work?

“You think progress at altitude looks like a straight line, but really it’s shark teeth,” says Hecht. “Sometimes we get hung up on a tooth. We need reminders to pull our perspective back out to altitude.”

That’s the project manager’s role. To move a project forward through all the bumps, hiccups, setbacks and shark teeth while keeping everyone focused on the bigger picture. That’s especially critical when the rest of the team loses sight of that overall mission, which happens frequently amidst frantic scrambles to meet deadlines.

To keep everyone focused on the common goal, Hecht suggests continuously asking, “What’s in alignment with the mission, vision, values and goals of what we’re trying to build?”

When PMs kick off any project, they are given the herculean task of figuring out and managing the expectations of many different stakeholders. But when the PM can recognize the roots of those expectations, step into the role of a couple’s counselor, build meaningful, personal, trusting relationships, and ensure the broader team stays focused on the overall goal, they can successfully manage everyone’s expectations as they steer that project across that coveted finish line.