Expectations – Exceed Them
Have you been watching all the hype around the new Washington Nationals pitcher, Stephen Strasburg? He is the rookie pitcher who had very large expectations on him before his first Major League Baseball start this past Tuesday. Before he even threw his first official pitch the media-hype was overwhelming for weeks prior. The game was sold out for weeks, televised nationally, tons of interviews and media. All eyes in the baseball and sports world were on Strasburg. Why? Because he is darn good and everyone’s expectations are extremely high of his performance. I didn’t get to watch the first few innings so when I turned on the game I saw there were two hits against him and I remember thinking to myself “oh, maybe he’s not that good”. Geez, he gave up two hits, struck-out 5 or 6 and I actually thought he wasn’t that impressive. That’s how high my expectations were. Then I watched him strikeout 14 batters and win the game in his debut. The kid met and exceeded everyone’s expectations. This kid looked good.
Then today on the way home from work I was listening to ESPN Radio and they were talking about Strasburg as if he has been playing the game for 10 years and has been the greatest ever. He pitched one game, did awesome and now for the next game he pitches there are even higher expectations on him than his first game. I trust he will deliver because Strasburg seems like the type of player who will continue to get better and better. Tiger knows it, Peyton knows it and Applie knows it – you have to constantly get better because your fans expectations or your clients expectations will always be high.
Athletes know this and businesses know this. We know that we have to constantly get better as a business and we know our competition is getting better. But more importantly, our clients have expectations and those expectations are high. Just like Strasburg we have to go out there everyday and perform better than the day before. This is part of what makes this “game” so much fun!
