The #1 Reason You’re Frustrated with Your Team

Have you ever felt frustrated with a team member and weren’t sure why things weren’t clicking? You’re not alone. In this video, I’ll share a quick story about a recent experience that perfectly illustrates one of the biggest reasons for workplace tension. It’s something I see all the time with clients, and once you recognize it, you’ll have a powerful tool to improve communication and teamwork. Dive in to find out what it is!

• Read the video transcript

  Today we are going to talk about the number one cause of frustration and disappointment with a team member at work. And I believe that number one cause is unspoken expectations.

  Just recently, our family was in the mountains just for two days, so one night for a ski trip. And my husband and I both had unspoken expectations. And so after that one night I thought that the next morning he wanted to kind of take it slow, not rush out, enjoy the morning before we headed back out to the slopes. But turns out he was a little bit worried about us getting a decent parking spot and so he wanted us to pack up and hustle out.

  Well, you can imagine what dynamic this created. So we're finally in the car driving off and there's just tension in the car. So we start talking about it and realize we each totally thought the other person wanted something else, and we each had different expectations for how that morning should go. And had we just talked about it the night before and been very clear on the plan and what we hoped for, it would have enabled us to avoid all of that tension.

  I see this all the time with clients. Typically, if I'm in a coaching session with a manager and they are sharing a frustration or a disappointment with an employee, my first question is, how aware is the employee of your expectations and how aware are they that they're not actually meeting those expectations right now?

  Typically it's on us to be more clear with what we expect to see from them because truly it's unfair to expect somebody to deliver something that they don't even know is expected. So if you're experiencing frustration or disappointment with a team member, I want you to run through that gut check of do they actually know what I'm hoping to see from them?