Expectation is to my mind very closely linked to perception. It’s like the future tense of perception. What I think about a future event is governing my feelings about it. I might be excited, nervous, mellow or downbeat.

I was reminded of this when I had an apple the other day. I like my apples fresh, with a hard, crisp texture, and a flavoursome but juicy centre. I don’t like them soft, mushy or ‘woody’, as my Dad used to term it. The apple felt firm, I was really looking forward to it and then when I bit, there was a palpable sense of disappointment as I realised it was soft and not particularly nice.

Expectations count for an awful lot, which is why we should manage them with the people and companies we deal with. If we set the expectation as close to the likely reality as we can, they will have a more consistent experience. Better still, we’ll avoid the situation of the phantom where we build demand for something and then annoy our customers if they can’t get what we’re promoting.

Better again, if we can set an expectation that we then exceed, we’re moving the mindset and emotion of the people we’re dealing with in an upward manner, not a downward one.