Understanding Expectations: A Fresh Graduate’s Story
Once upon a time, a friend of mine embarked on her career journey as a fresh graduate from a premier B-school. Her enthusiasm was high, and expectations were even higher. As the youngest member of a team of seasoned professionals, she quickly found herself immersed in the world of targets, KRAs, processes, systems, and policies. Everything seemed set and known. Yet, after months of putting in tremendous effort—working overtime, taking no leaves—she found that her manager was still not satisfied. Despite doing everything she thought was right, something was missing. But the bigger question was, how could she even know what was lacking?
If you’ve ever gone through—or are currently experiencing—a similar phase in your career, this article might help. I’ve been through such an experience myself, and transitioning from a team member to a team manager gave me the clarity to understand the gap.
Here are some key things that every employee should know to align with what a manager truly expects:
1. Always Prioritize Your Core Work
Never forget that your most important work is the one you were hired to do.
- The Important Work: Remember the urgent-important matrix? Always schedule your core work with a contingency buffer, share it with your manager, and stick to the plan. Even if it’s just two hours of daily work that you could complete at the end of the week, avoid procrastination. Don’t create backlogs unless explicitly directed by your manager. If such requests arise, adjust your schedule and keep your manager informed.
- The Urgent Work: Urgent and important tasks will always be assigned by the manager, usually because someone, either inside or outside the company, didn’t schedule their important work properly. In these cases, adjust your schedule and communicate the changes to your manager.
- Everything Else: Comes next.
2. Know Your Work Inside-Out
Completing your tasks is great, but not knowing where you stand can be embarrassing.
- Understand the End User’s Requirements: Completing a task in one go can significantly boost your productivity. Whenever possible, connect with the end user of your task to understand the goal. If that’s not feasible, don’t hesitate to ask your manager what the end product should achieve.
- Know the Interdependencies: Being self-aware of your commitments is crucial, but it’s equally essential to understand the work and people around you. Delivering an individual task might be straightforward, but most of your time will likely be spent waiting on others. Understanding all parts of the process will help you prepare in advance.
3. Regularly Sync Priorities with Your Manager
It’s common for employees to focus on tasks that were once deemed urgent by the manager. However, after days or weeks, the task might no longer be a priority, and the manager may forget about it. To avoid this, periodically review and confirm the priorities of ad-hoc tasks with your manager to ensure your efforts are aligned with their current needs.
4. Communicate Properly and Promptly
We all take pride in a job well done, spreading the good news and celebrating achievements. But when it comes to bad news, employees often delay or avoid communication, which can be disastrous. Organizations thrive on learning from mistakes, and managers understand that people make them. The sooner you inform your manager of a problem, the sooner they can take corrective action—often with minimal disruption.
5. Offer Help to Your Manager
Managers are under constant pressure to accomplish more within limited timeframes. They typically have a long list of less critical tasks that consume a disproportionate amount of their time. Offer to help by taking on some of these tasks, especially those that align with your interests. Your manager will likely be grateful and happy to delegate.
These points focus on helping employees deliver what their managers want, potentially saving a lot of time and emotional energy. I hope this article provides some clarity and assistance.
Oh, and about my friend? Her story had a happy ending. She significantly improved her performance and ended up being among the top 10% of performers at the national level.
Thanks for reading.