The Curse of Great Expectations
One of the easiest ways to avoid and mitigate conflict is to manage others’ expectations from the outset of the interaction. In fact, most of the conflict situations I’m asked to help businesses with stem from a failure to meet a client’s expectations.
The magnitude of a conflict arising from a mismatch between expectations and the outcome will be directly proportional to the parties' emotional attachment to the expectations, and extent the outcome deviates from their expectations.
For example, if you were expecting someone to pay you $500 and they pay you $0, that is a significant deviation from your expectations.
But the amount of anger and conflict you may experience over the situation still be dependent on your EMOTIONAL ATTACHMENT to receiving the $500. If you have $50 million in your bank account readily accessible to you, you may not be very bothered about not receiving the $500. But if you had no money in your bank account and were depending on that money to feed yourself, you may became upset at this outcome.
However, the smaller the deviation from the expectation, even when there is a high degree of emotional attachment, the less dissatisfaction (and therefore conflict) will ensue. If you need $500 to feed yourself, but you only receive $496, your emotional response is more likely to be transient and less disruptive.
“Most of the conflict situations I’m asked to help businesses with stem from a failure to meet a client’s expectations”
The takeaway?
It is important to clarify expectations at the outset of any business relationship or negotiation.
Be aware of the other person's emotional attachment to the expected outcome. This may mean taking time to understand the significance of an issue to the other person.
Steer clear of over promising and under delivering.
If you can't meet someone's (reasonable) expectations, try to make the discrepancy between the actual outcome and their expectation smaller. This may mean throwing in a bit more value in other forms.
Want some help with this?
Margisons helps businesses and individuals solve problems. Whether you’re looking to prevent a conflict, or respond to one, your first step is a situation audit with a Margisons conflict strategist.
Book your free consultation today.
