Why Unspoken Expectations Erode Trust (and How to Fix It)

You're frustrated with someone you’re collaborating with, but you can't quite explain why. 

Chances are, the problem isn't their performance - it's the unspoken expectations neither of you knew the other had.

Most of us walk into collaborative relationships with an unwritten rulebook, and then feel quietly frustrated when others don't follow it. 

The problem? We never handed them the book.

In this episode of Practicing Connection, Jessica introduces the Expectation Audit, a simple but powerful practice rooted in organizational psychology. Drawing on research about unspoken workplace expectations, and what Brené Brown calls "stealth expectations," Jessica and Erin explore why crossed wires at work are rarely about performance or personality. 

More often, they're about invisible norms we've never made visible.

You'll walk away with a practice you can use on your own or with your team to turn frustration into honest, productive conversation.

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• Send us a message: practicingconnection@oneop.org 

Transcript

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[00:00:00]

ERIN CARLSON RIVERA: Hi, and welcome to the Practicing Connection Podcast. I'm Erin. Today we're talking about a tool to help with those relationships where you feel like you're constantly dealing with crossed wires. You know that feeling, where you're a little let down, but you can't quite put your finger on what's missing. Jessica's going to share a practice we're calling the “Expectation audit.” 

Hi, Jessica. I think we've all had those moments where we've felt let down by a colleague, but can't quite put our finger on why.

JESSICA BECKENDORF: Hi, Erin. Yeah, exactly. We can fall into the trap of thinking that these frustrations are about the other person's performance or their personality, but more often than not, they're about unspoken expectations that we're placing on the person. 

And I want to be really clear too, this isn't about creating a long list of demands for your coworkers or for your collaborators. It's about making those unwritten rules of your partnership [00:01:00] visible so that you can both actually succeed. And so the project, or the issue you're trying to address, can actually move forward and you can start making impacts In that issue.

ERIN CARLSON RIVERA: Yeah. Okay, that makes sense. It's like you want to make sure you're both playing the same game with the same rule book.

JESSICA BECKENDORF: Yeah. Right. Not using two different rule books, yeah.

ERIN CARLSON RIVERA: Okay. So let's get into the why behind this. Where does this idea come from?

JESSICA BECKENDORF: Yeah, and I wanted to say, I love that you framed it as, “We want to make sure we're playing the same game.” Because when I teach about building trust, I often tell people that when we don't share what builds or breaks our trust, we're unknowingly playing games with each other. And it really erodes our ability to build good working relationships.

So, back to your question, where is this coming from? This is grounded in a concept from organizational psychology called the psychological contract. Researchers define this as, “The set of unwritten, informal expectations between people in a [00:02:00] working relationship, or commonly between an employer and employee.”

I've seen a lot of descriptions of this psychological contract describing a relationship between an employer and an employee. It's sort of like an internal contract. When you think interpersonally, it's like an internal contract that we have. Things like, how fast you expect an email reply versus how fast the other person thinks emails can and should be replied to.

Or, how much detail you want to see or hear about in project updates versus how much detail the other person might feel like they're willing to share, or is necessary to share.

Are there any examples you would care to share with us right now?

ERIN CARLSON RIVERA: Yes, so I used to have this one colleague who would, their main priority was replying to things as quickly as possible, and it would drive me insane because then they would reply, and then they would have four or five more ideas, and so I would get five rapid fire emails in a row that were all conflicting and [00:03:00] different.

JESSICA BECKENDORF: This sounds like me.

ERIN CARLSON RIVERA: This was not you. I promise, I would directly tell you about it if it was you!

And so it was always just overwhelming. And then I would miss things because I wouldn't see that there were new emails, and I just always would be like, “Oh my gosh, can you just stop and think before you press send, ‘Is there anything else I want to say?’”

And it used to drive me insane. And unfortunately, like we never quite resolved that before we ended up working on a project.

JESSICA BECKENDORF: And did you feel like when you got that many messages, or when you would send a message and they got back to you immediately, did you feel like, “Oh crap, this person expects me to respond as quickly.” Did that ever cross your mind?

ERIN CARLSON RIVERA: Yes, it did all the time.

JESSICA BECKENDORF: So it's a lot of pressure, yeah.

ERIN CARLSON RIVERA: It is a lot of pressure, and I think there was also just this sense of, “Oh, I also have to make sure that I follow up on everything.” You know, like there was this unspoken thing of like, “Oh, I'm getting everything out at you, and then I have to carry it and move it forward and make sure it's passed back.”

And you [00:04:00] know, we really probably could have talked about that, but I think we were both pretty swamped at the time, so we never stopped to talk about it.

JESSICA BECKENDORF: And then with all the extra information they were sending you right in between those messages that were really important for you to actually answer, I would imagine that the message that you needed to respond to, it just, everything got muddier and muddier. And it was harder for you to like pick out what you actually needed to do versus not. Is that right?

ERIN CARLSON RIVERA: Yeah, I think too, you know, I often would then pause, read all of the things, send kind of like one comprehensive message.

JESSICA BECKENDORF: Yeah.

ERIN CARLSON RIVERA: And I'd really stop and pause and go, “Okay, wait, am I saying everything I want to say?” I'd maybe condense it so it wasn't as long, because I know it's hard to read long emails, and I try, I'm like a, ‘say all the things’ person.

So I was like, “Okay, how do I make this easier for other people?” And so I think I had this expectation of, “Oh, this is how everybody communicates, right?”

JESSICA BECKENDORF: Yeah. Oh, we're gonna get to that. Not to your expectation. We're gonna get to [00:05:00] talking about that.

ERIN CARLSON RIVERA: Yeah. And I'm realizing that it really felt like there were all these unwritten rules that both she had and I had, and then we never talked about them. And we were just perpetually irritated with each other. I think a couple of times we had some conversations about, “What works really well for you isn't necessarily what works best for me, and we can respond to things differently.”

And like we never got past that. So, I'm really excited if you have - yeah, I would love to hear more about this. So are you also kind of talking about that idea of unwritten rules, and like breaching trust with unwritten rules?

JESSICA BECKENDORF: Yeah, it can really feel like a breach of trust. Sometimes when we have an expectation on someone that, whether we've communicated that expectation or not, if they don't meet that it actually erodes our trust as well. So when these informal, unwritten, unspoken contracts are breached, it can also lead to real burnout [00:06:00] and lower engagement too.

So, I have read almost all of Brene Brown's books, and I like her description of this. So she calls these stealth expectations. So, things we expect from others but haven't actually asked for. And honestly, Erin, half the time we don't even realize that we have these expectations on other people until they fail to meet them.

So we're walking around with a secret rule book in our back pocket, and we're frustrated that no one else is reading from it.

ERIN CARLSON RIVERA: Yes. Oh man, this is so true. I'm having so many thoughts. I often am in a place of, like, “I can tell that I've upset somebody, but I don't know why.”

JESSICA BECKENDORF: Yeah, me too.

ERIN CARLSON RIVERA: Often everybody else is playing with the same rule book and I'm just like, “What is happening here?” So it's nice to know that it's not just me.

But it can really feel like you're trying to build something together, but one of you is using Imperial and one of you is using metric. You're cutting the pieces but they don't fit together. And [00:07:00] you know, you both think you're completely right , because you measured three times before you cut anything and then it still doesn't work.

And that really is sometimes how teams feel.

JESSICA BECKENDORF: Yeah, and that's also the trap. I mean, we think that our way of working is just the way it's done. It's our normal, but your normal is likely very different from your colleague's normal.

ERIN CARLSON RIVERA: Yes, This is exactly it. I think a good example is, my normal might be when I need something, I send a quick Slack message to get the answer. But my teammate's normal is to gather all of the data and send one big email at the end of the day with all of the things.

JESSICA BECKENDORF: Oh gosh, that sounds overwhelming.

ERIN CARLSON RIVERA: Right. I could see that and, you know, if I'm sitting there waiting for someone to get back to me immediately, and they're waiting to have enough information to feel really prepared and comprehensive and strategic, we're both going to be super stressed out, even though neither [00:08:00] one of us is doing something wrong.

JESSICA BECKENDORF: Yeah. And that's it. I mean, that's why this audit is so important. It's not about correcting someone else's behavior. It's about making your normal visible, right? What's normal for you now becomes visible to everyone. 

So when we don't articulate our preferences, we're essentially asking people to be mind readers, which nobody likes, right? By doing this audit, you're saying, “Hey, this is how I'm wired. Does this work for you?” And it can shift the conversation from blame to coordination.

ERIN CARLSON RIVERA: I love this. So often I see people getting stuck fighting about ‘the right way to do something,’ rather than deciding together from many helpful ways how to do it. So often people just get stuck on, ‘There's only one correct optimal way,’ and you know, this is my particular axe that I have to grind because I think you limit yourself and you drive yourself crazy when everybody has to be exactly the same.

And really it's so much more [00:09:00] open, and there's so much more possibility to what works for us. So I love that we're talking about this, but walk us through the practice. How do we actually do this?

JESSICA BECKENDORF: Well, just like any practice we share, this is just one of many ways that you could build it. So you can do this on your own at first, and if you like, you can bring it into conversations with your team or your collaborators.

So step one is for you to identify what I've been calling a crossed wires relationship. So, bring to mind a situation where working with a team member or a collaborator is feeling heavy or frustrating, or it feels like you're always crossing wires, right. You're not quite making the connection.

So once you have a relationship in mind, then do a little bit of a brain dump of your unspoken expectations. So you might ask yourself, “What am I assuming here?” And then you might write down a few things that you expect from this person, but you've never actually said out [00:10:00] loud. Or maybe some things that if you're having a hard time identifying what you've said out loud and what you haven't, you could just write down the things that you're not getting from that person that you expected.

And then you can ask yourself, “Did I ask for this out loud?” And if I haven't, or if I think I have in the past, maybe it's time to just have a gentle reminder, or maybe it's time for me to verbalize this. So, just start out by finding some things that you've been expecting from the person, and then identify whether you've asked for it out loud or not.

And then step three is checking your certainty. Look at those expectations and ask yourself, “Well, how would they actually know that this is your expectation? Have you vocalized it?” I know I already said that you should identify that, but I think going this step further and asking, “How would they have known it?”

So if you asked about it and maybe the last time you asked was seven months ago or longer, maybe that's a [00:11:00] clue for, they don't actually know that that's your expectation, that that was something communicated months ago. Possibly in passing, possibly in the middle of a long email. 

So keep vocalizing it. You might ask yourself, have you really clearly vocalized it or have you just hinted? And if the answer is that, ‘They should just know,’ right, that, “Oh, well, we have a list of things that the team is supposed to work on, they should just know.” Well, that's a stealth expectation then. You have an expectation on them that has not been clearly identified or clearly shared. 

And then the last step is to ensure that you are vocalizing it. And I say vocalize, it could be written, that's fine. I do think that a lot of connection happens through discussion. 

And so if you're vocalizing in person, here's what I would recommend. So admit to the person out loud that you might have been [00:12:00] unclear, you might say, “I realized that I might have some internal quote/unquote “rules” for how I like to receive updates that I've never actually shared with you. Can we check in on what would work best for both of us?” That's why I recommend that you do this verbally if you can, because then it invites conversation, right?

If you're just sharing it in writing, here's my expectation. “I realize that I have been unclear about this.” You know, “Please do this in the future.” There's no opening for the other person to say, “Hey, I didn't realize that you needed that. I need to do it this way because I have these other three things that I have to do that are attached to it. Can we talk about this?” 

When you do it in writing it's more of a one-sided thing, and that's why I recommend that you verbalize. So admit to the person out loud that you might've been unclear. And then check in with them on what would work best for both of you. Make the offer a very genuine offer.

I would like to add, make the offer that you want [00:13:00] to find a way where it'll work for both of you. So this can sound a little bit formal, but it is often a really big relief for both people. 

Like when you say, “Hey, I realize I never told you that I prefer text for urgent messages.” The other person will often respond with something like, “Oh, thank goodness. I've been emailing and wondering why I didn't hear back.”

ERIN CARLSON RIVERA: Yeah, I can imagine that even just saying, you know, “I realized I wasn't clear about this,” or, “I realize I never told you immediately,” might decrease the temperature or the pressure in a room, and it stops being about a communication failure and starts being more about process. More about, “Oh, how do we build a system that works for us? How do we make sure we're operating with the same instruction manual?” 

I think what I really love about step four is it also gives an opportunity and an invitation from you to the other person to share what they need. It's a way to [00:14:00] kindly ask for what your needs are, but also invite the other person into expressing their needs.

And then you can have this kind of, you know, when they - I'm sorry, I'm immediately thinking about couples counseling where you're saying, ‘it's not me versus them. It's us versus a problem.’ And I think while you maybe work with your partner, most likely don't, a lot of people don't, you still have a working relationship with a person. 

And then this framing really is, “How do we have us against the problem of our miscommunication?” Not, “You are doing it wrong, and I'm right about everything,” which I think that's sometimes the fear of, “I can't express this expectation because then I'm being bossy or I'm being overbearing,” or I don't know, that they're capable of meeting my needs. 

And then it takes all of the pressure off of forcing another person to do what you want, and more inviting a conversation. So I really appreciate how you framed this audit.

JESSICA BECKENDORF: Well, thank you so much. And you know, the final step of inviting their [00:15:00] perspective, because it's not just about you, but it's about finding a pathway that fits both of you. You might even ask them, “Take this opportunity.” 

This is sort of a little hidden step five. Or you could call it a ‘stealth step five.’

ERIN CARLSON RIVERA: Stealth mode.

JESSICA BECKENDORF: Yeah, if I use this opportunity to maybe ask them like, “Do you have some unspoken rules for a good workflow? Like, things that maybe I haven't been meeting, or ways that you like to operate?” 

Now I'm not saying just because someone says, “Oh yeah, I want to operate this way, this way, and this way,” it doesn't mean that you have to do what they say because they're the person who spoke up and said what their needs were. 

I really want to be clear, this is about both of you finding something that will work for the two of you, or for the many team members - I say two because that's been sort of the context of our examples here - but you could ask them like, “What am I missing that might make things easier for you?” 

It's about meeting your needs, while also co-creating a better process together, so [00:16:00] really meeting each other's needs.

ERIN CARLSON RIVERA: Yeah. And that's what makes a good team.

JESSICA BECKENDORF: Yeah.

ERIN CARLSON RIVERA: Thanks so much for sharing this practice with us, Jessica. I love it, and it's such a great way to turn that ‘crossed wires’ feeling into a moment of connection, and building community with each other.

JESSICA BECKENDORF: You are so welcome. I love talking about interpersonal relationships.

ERIN CARLSON RIVERA: That's good. We talk about them a lot.

JESSICA BECKENDORF: I know, right!

ERIN CARLSON RIVERA: All right, well that's it everybody, that's the episode. If you liked it, please share with a friend or a colleague. 

We will be back next week with a new episode. And until then, keep practicing.

[00:17:00]

CREDITS: The Practicing Connection Podcast is a production of One-Op and is supported by the National Institute of Food and Agriculture, US Department of Agriculture and the Office of Military Family Readiness Policy, US Department of Defense under award number 2 0 2 3 4 8 7 74 3 3.