Setting expectations

In a recent PMI ‘Voices’ post, Communicating Change  I briefly touched on the way expectations affect experience.  A wonderful New Year’s Eve party in one of our preferred training venues (the Bayview Eden Hotel) really brought this home!

When we turn up at the hotel for our next PMP and CAPM courses starting on the 20th January,  our previous experience and expectations of a friendly and efficient business environment with comfortable training rooms and great catering are likely to be fulfilled as normal.

However, take a peaceful PMP training room, add some bling, invite a group of old rockers from the 60s and 70s to listen to Brian Cadd an Australian songwriter-legend from that time (I know that’s before many of you were born) and watch one of the best NYE parties develop. Our expectations were dramatically reframed as we walked into the room!

Fast forward 20 days and I’m sure we will be back to the calm, professional, well lit environment we are used to.

There are valuable business lessons to be learned from the way hotels quickly reconfigure the atmosphere within their public rooms. The artefacts you have on display, ambient lighting and temperature, the venue itself and the way you dress and behave starting with the invitation to a meeting all contribute to the perceptions of the person you are communicating with and their perceptions will influence the way any discussion or negotiation starts. Once started, it is very difficult to reframe the process if it is ‘on the wrong track’.

So next time you are preparing for an important communication decide if you want the ambiance to be friendly, casual, professional, intimidating or something else and then think through the list above to decide how you will present to the person.

You cannot change the basics any more than a hotel can change its physical building, but you can change the way it is perceived and the ambiance you create and use that as the foundation for an effective communication.

Wishing you all a happy and prosperous 2014 – our year certainly started with a bang.