Managing Expectations — Part 1
Most of us were raised under a deterministic framework. For example, we were taught that if we got good grades in high school and/or college, future success was certainly guaranteed. If you didn’t you, would end up living in an uncertain future or worse.
As we grow, and learn, we realize that this axiom doesn’t hold up. Cases of people who didn’t get good grades, nor finish high school, and ended up being stupidly successful are plenty. Still, we continue to hear the same deterministic mantra. Why?
Our parents, tutors and even friends help us set expectations for our lives. Expectations are drivers to take action. Sometimes they set them through explicit statements, such as — ‘Your drawings are incredible, you should be a graphic designer’ — or implicit ones like — ‘Artists don’t make much’. The issue behind these two quotes is the same. There is a deterministic outcome linked to them. Basically it would be something like this — ‘If I become a graphic designer, I’ll be successful because I am already good enough’ and for the second quote — ‘I have to follow a hardcore profession or I’ll end up living on the street’. This last one is a little bit brutal, but that is the idea. We can tell this won’t be necessary the case.
Following this deterministic mindset creates expectations that aren’t realistic. And this is the core topic to elaborate here. Deterministic models oversimplify the reality we inhabit. They do work for math and physics, but our reality is stochastic. In a nutshell, it is governed by random events that will likely happen based on its probability of occurrence.
It doesn’t mean whatever you do doesn’t matter. Quite the opposite. You now know what you are dealing with. That is the probability of something happening for that expected outcome to materialize. Let’s bring this down to earth with a common example.
Suppose you want to become an actor. The probability of succeeding is extremely low compared to someone who decides to be an accountant. With this probability in mind you need to decide what expectations to set and what strategy to follow. Should you go to college or start going to castings immediately? Should you take private acting classes? What type of genre would you like to start with? And the list can go on. The strategy you select will affect the probability for the expected outcome you set for yourself. But won’t guarantee it.
Living in an stochastic reality means we have to deal with risks. Managing it is an art. Even though quantitative models help, balancing risk can’t be done deterministically. To balance risk you have to take into account certain contingencies. I’ll develop the concept in my upcoming post but for the moment I’ll say they are necessary to increase the probability of an expected outcome, if set right.
Closing up, the first step towards successful expectation management is shifting from a deterministic mindset towards an stochastic one. Accepting there are events that happen based on probability takes a while but helps reduce the gap between expectation and reality.
