Cindy Esliger addresses the phenomenon known as expectation escalation in today’s episode. Expectation escalation is the subtle challenge of incrementally increased demands and responsibilities placed on employees. It expands our work exponentially without associated time or monetary increase to accommodate the new work. What does it look like? How can we identify it? And better yet, how can we politely and professionally turn down these escalated expectations? Cindy unpacks these questions with salient answers.
The escalation starts innocently, with an additional responsibility here and there added to your workload as a testament to your capabilities. And certainly, professionals thrive on challenges. A certain amount of natural job expansion is to be expected. But the problem with expansion expectations is the lack of stability, resources, or systems in place to manage the new challenges effectively. The first consequences are usually emotional ones, as we feel overburdened and undervalued. Cindy walks us through how the expectations affect us and how we can rebalance our workload.
If rebalancing the workload isn’t available or the expectations have risen to a degree that no amount of balance will alleviate how over capacity we are, Cindy explores how we can say no without jeopardizing our careers and current job status. She offers examples of pocket phrases to prepare in advance so we can easily sidestep requests to take on more and counsels on the mindset shift necessary to perfect the art of saying no. Her guidance directs us to evaluate our feelings and capacity, how to have difficult conversations with supervisors, and ultimately why unaddressed expectation escalation can damage our well-being.
Resources discussed in this episode:
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Contact Cindy Esliger
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