Column: Why we manage expectations

By TERRY STAWAR
THE EVENING NEWS AND THE TRIBUNE (JEFFERSONVILLE, Ind.)

JEFFERSONVILLE, Ind. March 21, 2008 01:35 pm

— I was surprised when former president Bill Clinton came right out and said that Texas and Ohio were “must-win” primary states for his wife, if she had any chance at all of getting the Democratic nomination. Of course, it was the truth, as well as a meticulously crafted risk to try to motivate supporters. Still it seemed out of place with all the usual rhetoric emanating from the campaigns, aimed at lowering expectations, so that any setback is not immediately interpreted as a knock-out punch.
Managing expectations has become a crucial skill, not only in politics, but in business, the military, and other enterprises as well. CEOs are very cautious about forecasting profits, since no one wants to be ousted by a highly disappointed board of directors. Keeping expectations low and making everything look as difficult as possible is a common business tactic these days. Through these lenses, the smallest accomplishment gets tremendously magnified. While I believe in the “no surprises” approach to management, this seems unnecessarily manipulative.
Promising progress and raising the specter of hope is fine, so long as it is vague enough that it can't backfire and be publicly contradicted. No one wants to get painted into a corner like George W. Bush did in the “Mission Accomplished” fiasco. When the insurgency heated up and the level of violence rose, it left him — in the phrase from the movie Independence Day — no wiggle room for “plausible deniability.”
In 1999, candidate Bush was touting the “No Child Left Behind" Program in Los Angeles and uttered the now famous quote, “Some say it is unfair to hold disadvantaged children to rigorous standards. I say it is discrimination to require anything less — the soft bigotry of low expectations.”
This phrase “soft bigotry of low expectations” has considerable resonance with Americans since it implies a commitment to equality and high standards. A few years later, Bush's Secretary of Education Rod Paige cited studies which show that low expectations have an "incredible power" to undermine potential.
Societal expectations regarding groups of people are often bundled together in packages we called stereotypes. Research on what Stanford University social psychologist Claude Steele has termed “stereotype threat” clearly demonstrates that the fear associated with confirming a negative stereotype can significantly impair academic, intellectual, and other performances. In these studies when people are reminded of their group membership and the associated negative stereotype features (even by just having to write down their gender or race in some cases) they are so influenced by expectations that they tend to live up to the stereotype and do much poorer on the required tasks. For example, people in some groups may then do poorer on intelligence, math, or even athletic tests. When this threat is not introduced or when it is diminished by telling the participants beforehand that the tests show no difference among peoples, performance tends to equalize.
Similarly, over three decades ago University of California psychologist Robert Rosenthal showed that the expectations of teachers can be a major determinant of achievement in school children.
However, if demanding high expectations is good enough for disadvantaged children, should we expect no less from our leaders?
In 2003, the president was quoted as saying “I am the master of low expectations.” And only last year he told the National Hockey League champion Carolina Hurricanes that he likes to be "around people that keep expectations low.”
Writing in the March 2007 issue of Military Review, U.S. Army Major Evertt Spain outlined his primer for business and military leaders on how to best manage expectations. While the Bible needed only ten commandments, evidently our leaders require an even dozen to manage our expectations — the key one being: Thou shalt always under promise and over deliver.
Managing expectations is one way to appear to stay in control even when things start going horribly awry. The economy, the presidential campaign, and the war in Iraq are all made-to-order venues for practicing this age-old craft.
Florida State University political scientist Jeffrey Staton, says that although candidates, political and otherwise, generally try to create images of high competence, there is frequently a simultaneous, although contrary, impulse to set expectations low enough to “hedge against unanticipated failures and take advantage of unexpected successes.” He believes the most skilled candidates tend to be those most likely to lower expectations.
Expectations function pretty much as promises and there are severe penalties for not keeping a promise such as “no new taxes” (as in the case of George H.W. Bush) or “No surprises,” (as in Holiday Inn's ill-conceived advertising campaign). In fact research suggests that the negatives for breaking a promise are much more costly to violators than any benefits they may derive from overachieving.
In reference to international agreements, United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan has said “Expectations need to be managed from the beginning and through out the process. Otherwise expectations are unrealistic and people are inevitably disappointed ... and easily turn against the ... . agreement they had at first welcomed.
I think the keyword here is “realistic.” Without that, there is something quite disturbing about all this. Setting the bar low enough to always assure achievement, seems dishonest. And I don't particularly like the idea that I am being managed without my consent. There seems to be a fine line between setting realistically expectations and conning people through manipulative hype and spin.
Why can't leaders abandon their 12 commandments of managing expectations, use the real ninth commandment, and simply tell us the truth?

Terry L. Stawar writes for The Evening News in Jeffersonville, Ind.

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