Concept
Results minus expectations
Results minus expectations is the relationship Morgan Housel returns to in Same as Ever: the satisfaction we take from an outcome is roughly the result minus what we expected, and because expectations rise with good results, managing them is as much part of the work as improving the outcome.
Two people can receive the same raise or the same sales figure and feel opposite things about it, because they arrived with different expectations. The difficulty is that expectations do not stay put. A team that beats its target finds the next one set at the new level; a customer delighted by next-day delivery soon treats it as the minimum. Housel shows the same pattern across whole societies, where living standards improve for decades while people report feeling no better off, because what they expect and whom they compare themselves with have risen too. Psychologists call the personal version hedonic adaptation. Housel's point is not that ambition is a mistake, but that the gap is a lever and often the cheaper one to move: targets set as ranges, unusual results named as unusual at the time, and an agreed picture of what good looks like before a period starts all keep the gap honest.
A real-life example
A software agency in İzmir finished a project two weeks early and told the client this was its normal pace. On the next project, delivery on the agreed date was received as a delay. The agency now quotes realistic dates and tells clients when an early finish is unusual.
How to use it
- 1Write down what would count as a good result before a period begins.
- 2Say openly when a result is unusual, before it becomes the new baseline.
- 3Promise what you can deliver on an ordinary day, not on your best one.