Do You Lead Your Organization To Meet Or Exceed Expectations?

If you had to save something from a neighbour’s house that was on fire, what would you retrieve to help them out – one of their prized possessions or a coat?

For most of us, the answer is obvious since we view this scenario in terms of what we’d like others to help us save when faced with the risk of losing our home to a fire. However, as revealed in a story shared by Mark Bezos, sometimes these assumptions can obscure our vision of what’s really needed by those we’re trying to help.

During the work week, Mark heads the Development and Communications department at the non-profit organization, Robin Hood, but in his off-hours, he also serves as the assistant captain for a volunteer fire company which provides support to the town’s fire department.

As Mark points out, when you’re a volunteer firefighter, you have to get to the fire scene as soon as you can if you’re to have any chance “to get in on any action” and he certainly managed to get himself an interesting piece of that at his first fire scene.

When Mark arrived at the scene of this particular fire, he found the fire chief talking with a woman standing under an umbrella wearing pyjamas and no shoes, someone he’d later find out was the owner of the burning house. Before he could reach the fire chief to offer his assistance, another volunteer firefighter approached the fire chief and was given the task of saving the woman’s dog. When Mark got to the fire chief and asked what he could do to help, the fire chief looked at Mark and told him he needed Mark to go into the house to get the homeowner a pair of shoes.

Mark and the other volunteer firefighter went into the burning house and searched for the items they were told to locate. As they exited from the house, the other volunteer firefighter understandably received all the attention as he handed the saved dog to the homeowner while Mark gave the woman the pair of shoes he ‘rescued’ from the flames.

A few weeks after the fire, the fire department received a letter from the homeowner in which she expressed her gratitude to the firefighters for their work in trying to save her home. In her letter, the homeowner also made a point of expressing her appreciation for something she hadn’t expected – that one of the firefighters had thought to go into that burning house to get her a pair of shoes so that – on one of the worst days of her life – she at least wouldn’t have to stand barefoot on the cold, wet pavement.

Certainly, Mark’s story is a great example of how all of us have the ability to make a difference to those around us through gestures which, while seemingly simple and ordinary, can end up being the most meaningful. His story also serves to illustrate the impact we can create when we strive to exceed the expectations of those we serve.

To ascertain whether your organization is meeting or exceeding expectations, here are three questions you should consider.

1. What do your employees expect from their leaders?
Over the course of the past decade, one theme that’s become a growing reality in business is that the old command-and-control style of leadership is becoming less and less effective in fostering thriving workplace environments. Indeed, it’s becoming clear that leadership is shifting more towards a function that is defined by those who would be served by the leader than it is by those who elect to fill these positions.

This is why we’re hearing more about fostering collaborative and team environments as being critical to an organization’s success, as employees no longer require leaders to tell them how to do their jobs. Instead, what’s required are leaders who can inform employees as to why their contribution matters in the context of their organization’s shared purpose.

When the fire chief told Mark to go into the burning house to retrieve a pair of shoes, he wasn’t concerned about whether Mark would question the assignment because the fire chief knew his team was expecting him to guide them in helping this homeowner in her time of need. The letter the woman wrote to the fire department weeks after the incident demonstrates that the fire chief not only fulfilled that expectation, he exceeded it by giving Mark an opportunity to make a difference in the life of someone he wanted to help.

2. What do you expect from your team?
When it comes to handing out assignments or tasks, it’s understood that leaders need to provide their team with clear directions on what to do and when. But if you want your team to go beyond simply completing the minimum requirements of their job, you need to communicate and describe to your team what it would look like to achieve greatness as an organization.

Looking at Mark’s story about his first fire, we can see that the fire chief made it clear to his team that a successful outcome for their collective efforts was not simply putting out fires with minimal damage and loss of life. Rather, he expected them to go beyond that in doing whatever they could – no matter how small or trivial – to lessen the pain and fear people grapple with when faced with these circumstances.

By assigning Mark the task of retrieving a pair of shoes for this woman, the fire chief modelled the behaviour he wanted to see in his team. Namely, that despite the numerous logistics and issues he had to manage on-site, he never lost sight of the importance of taking measures to provide some form of comfort and assurance to the frightened homeowner standing next to him.

Remember, everyone has their own understanding and perception of what it means to be successful. As the leader of your team or organization, it’s important that you regularly communicate to your employees what success looks like for your organization. This way, they will not only have a clear vision of what they need to do to achieve success as a team, they will also be empowered to contemplate ways of how they can exceed those expectations.

3. What do your customers expect from your organization?
If we look at Mark’s story from the vantage point of an organization providing a service to their customer base, it’s easy to see that what this woman expected from this team of firefighters is to do whatever they could to save her home and her dog. And yet, it’s clear from the decisions made by the fire chief that he saw an opportunity for his team to do more than that in an effort to ease the pain, confusion and fear homeowners undoubtedly have whenever they call his team for help.

Indeed, the fact that this homeowner expressed her appreciation for Mark’s contribution of retrieving a pair of shoes for her to wear affirms the fire chief’s vision for his department – that they have the ability to do more to help those they serve, even if it might seem trivial or insignificant at that moment.

Through simple actions and orders like the one he gave Mark, this fire chief demonstrated not only his awareness of the expectations his community has for his team, but of how they can exceed them in a manner that’s meaningful both to his team and their community.

The fire chief’s actions also illustrate how organizations can exceed the expectations of those they serve by developing an understanding and awareness of the challenges their customers face and what measures they can put into action to improve those conditions.

There’s no question that, in light of the growing challenges and opportunities found in an increasingly global market, aiming for average or ‘good enough’ simply won’t cut it anymore; that we need to commit our talents, our resources and ourselves to something greater and more meaningful if we are to remain competitive and relevant.

Of course, that doesn’t mean we need to develop some bold new vision for the future of our organization. Indeed, as Mark’s story so eloquently illustrates, the ability to attain some measure of meaningful success is not dependent solely on our ability to reach some shiny, bright milestone. Instead, it can come from simply shifting our focus towards those little details that we’d otherwise brush aside, gleaning from them some insights on how we can start today to foster a sense of purpose and meaning in what we do.