Attributes and Examples of Clear Expectations

The best expectations are comprehensible, measurable, and actionable. Let's look at each of these attributes.

Comprehensible expectations

Employee expectations are not the place to be hip to all the latest corporate jargon. Telling your employees they need to "synergize with the latest upward trends in disruptive technology paradigms" means what, exactly? Like any agile feedback loop, your employee needs to know what you're expecting of them, and the simpler the expectation can be phrased, the easier it will be for the employees to parse and understand. Remember, you're always there to answer any questions they have, and forcing yourself to write it out simply and clearly in turn forces you to think about what you expect your employees to be doing on a level that you hadn't considered before, either. "Explain it to me like I'm five years old" is a popular meme across social media, and while we generally don't expect to be managing teams of five-year-olds, a reasonable parallel to the meme might be, "Explain it to me like I'm fifteen."