The 12-Week MBA Chapter 12: Trust and Expectations - The Foundation of Every Working Relationship
You used to play guitar in a band. If you nailed your part, that was on you. Nobody else could do it for you, and nobody else could take that away. Then you became a manager. And suddenly your success depended entirely on what other people did. Welcome to the most jarring transition in any career.
This is post 14 in my 12-Week MBA retelling series.
Chapter 12 dives into the foundation of people management: trust. Not the inspirational poster kind. The practical, day-to-day kind that determines whether your team actually works or just pretends to.
The Power You Lose
The authors start with a confession that surprised me. When they were young individual contributors, they thought managers had all the power. Power to assign tasks. Power to set deadlines. Power to judge quality. Power to decide if you still had a job tomorrow.
All of that power is real. But here is what nobody tells you before you become a manager: you also lose power. A lot of it.
As a manager, your success no longer comes from what you do. It comes from what other people do. You can assign the work, but you cannot do it for them. If a direct report shows up poorly or does not show up at all, sure, you can fire them. But firing does not deliver results. The person is gone. The work is still there.
The authors say the question of who holds more power is always irrelevant. You will be a better manager if you accept the power you do not have.
Trust Is a Two-Way Street
When you delegate a task, you are making an act of trust. You are hoping it will be done on time and at the quality you need. But the authors say something important that most management books skip over: trust has to go both ways.
Trusting your employees is ultimately a choice you make. But the harder and more important job is building their trust in you. Because if someone does not trust you, they will work against you even if they are otherwise the best person on your team. They will withhold information. They will hold back effort. They will spread their distrust to others.
This is not about bad people being difficult. The authors reference the philosopher Thomas Hobbes, who said that even good people will strike out against someone they distrust. It is a survival instinct. An employee who fears you will act defensively, even if they are kind and talented.
Anyone Can Build Trust
Here is the good news. Trust does not require charisma. It does not require formal training. It does not even require people to like you. You can love someone you do not trust, and you can put your life in the hands of someone you actually dislike.
Some people get a head start in the trust department. People with certain looks, or people who remind you of yourself, tend to get more initial trust. We also trust people who we believe others already trust. That is just human nature.
But no matter where you start, you can always build trust up from there. How? By consistently keeping the promises you make.
And you can instantly destroy it by breaking one. Warren Buffett supposedly said it takes twenty years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it. The authors boil this down to one mantra that they say should guide every manager:
First, do no harm to trust.
That line is borrowed from the medical profession’s Hippocratic oath. And they mean it just as seriously.
The Problem with Accidental Promises
Here is where this chapter gets really practical. Most managers do not break promises on purpose. The problem is breaking them without even knowing you made them.
You say to Spencer, “I would like to know what kinds of projects you want to work on.” You meant it as a conversation starter. Spencer heard, “I get to pick my own projects.” You did not promise anything. But Spencer built a sand castle of expectations on top of your casual comment.
We do this all the time. We rarely use the words “I promise to…” because we save that for special occasions. But people are constantly listening to what we say and building their picture of the future from it. Everything we say, and everything we do not say, sets expectations.
Three Areas Where Expectations Matter Most
The authors lay out three major areas where managers set expectations with their team. They use an example of a manager working with an employee named Jim.
The Relationship
When you first interact with Jim, you will shape his expectations about how you two will work together. Notice the word “will,” not “should.” You do not get to choose whether you set expectations. You only get to choose whether you set them intentionally.
Whatever you do or do not do in those early interactions establishes a pattern. You can change it later, but that costs effort. Better to get it right from the start.
The best way to start? Tell Jim what to expect from you. What kind of support you can provide. What you cannot provide. How you communicate. How you give feedback. When you model transparency, Jim is more likely to be transparent back.
Tasks
Day to day, most expectations live around tasks. Deadlines, quality standards, what resources you will provide, what depends on Jim’s work. It would be great if Jim always told you what he can realistically deliver. But he will only do that if he trusts you and if he has seen good expectation-setting modeled for him. By you.
Development
Jim has career goals. You have a vision for what your team needs. Your organization has its own plans. These three visions might not line up. And this is the area where sand castle expectations form most easily and where conversations feel the most uncomfortable.
Close the Loop
The authors bring in a simple but powerful idea from communication theory. In any conversation, both the sender and the receiver share responsibility for making sure the message arrived correctly. The technique is called closing the loop.
The receiver repeats back what they heard. The sender confirms it is correct. Done.
This is standard practice in aviation. Pilots are required by law to read back instructions from air traffic control. The controller then says “readback correct.” Lives depend on it.
At work, we almost never do this. And that is where misunderstandings pile up.
Here is their example. You tell Jim about a project deadline. Jim responds by telling you when he plans to take vacation. He did not say the deadline is unrealistic. But that is what he meant. As his manager, you close the loop by saying back what you understood, both the explicit part and the implicit part. That way Jim can check if his message landed correctly.
And when you tell Jim something, you should ask him to close the loop too. Ask him what he heard. He might not be good at this yet. But by modeling the behavior and asking for it, you teach him over time.
The authors admit they fail to use this technique surprisingly often, even though they know how important it is. It is simple to understand but takes practice to make automatic.
The Danger of Implicit Messages
Communication is always multilayered. “Would you like a cup of coffee?” could mean “you look tired,” or “I find you attractive,” or “I accept that my social status is lower than yours.” Or it could just mean someone wants to know if you want coffee.
The authors share a funny story. On a family vacation in England, a couple approached them at a historic site and asked, “Would you like us to take a photo of you?” The explicit message was an offer to take their photo. The implicit message was a request: “Would you take a photo of us?”
You could close the loop by making everything explicit: “So you want us to take a photo of you, and in return you will take one of us. Deal.” But that would be awkward and weird. Sometimes the implicit layer is meant to stay implicit.
This gets even harder in a global workplace. Different cultures have very different rules about what should be said directly and what should be left unsaid. The authors, who are both married to partners from other cultures, are especially sensitive to this.
Their practical advice comes down to two principles:
- Make expectations explicit about measurable, quantifiable things. Dates, times, numbers. Do not leave those to interpretation.
- Always assume the best motives in other people. Give them the same benefit of the doubt you want for yourself.
These two rules work inside the office and outside of it.
Key Takeaway
Trust is not a soft skill you can afford to ignore. It is the foundation everything else in management sits on. You build it by setting clear expectations and then meeting them. You destroy it by breaking promises, especially the ones you did not realize you were making.
The practical tools are simple. Tell people what to expect from you. Be specific about measurable things. Close the communication loop. Ask people to tell you what they heard. And above all, do no harm to trust. Everything else in management, from feedback to motivation to delegation, only works if trust is already in place.
Book: The 12-Week MBA by Nathan Kracklauer & Bjorn Billhardt | ISBN: 978-0-306-83236-9
Previous: Chapter 11 - Joy and Frustration
Next up: Chapter 13 - Adventures in Feedback - How to give feedback without destroying trust.
Part of the 12-Week MBA retelling series