Sunday 30th April, 2017, marked the first 100 days of the US Presidency of Donald Trump with his sharing a day before that the first lesson he has learnt: it’s harder than he thought.

Trump has called the 100-day milestone ‘a ridiculous standard’ yet it is one that Presidents’ have been judged by since FD Roosevelt redefined the standard for leadership in 1933 by tackling the dire financial and economic problems that the country found itself facing as a consequence of the Great Depression.

Roosevelt had been elected by an electorate with high expectations that he could save their banks, farms, and jobs. In his inaugural speech he said: ‘…the country demands action and action now’. He then laid out his plans of what he could do in those 100-days and delivered it by signing 76 bills into law, 15 of which remain legislative landmarks, and inventing modern American government.

Whilst the circumstances of the time were unique, successive Presidents since have struggled to live with Roosevelt’s achievements, for if a measure is the signing of legal legislation the best to date in this period of time by any President is some 10 bills. Trump has signed none. More importantly, he has as yet not met his campaign promises and thus the expectations of the electorate.

An ‘expectation’ is an anticipation of what we think will happen before it does or does not. Our expectations are limited to our previous experiences: we are unable to expect something that we have not seen before and we cannot expect something better than what we know. They are like our beliefs for they influence our behaviour and attitudes either positively or negatively.

Neuroscience informs us that when an expectation is met we experience a dose of dopamine: a chemical release by our neurons that boost our motivation, our working memory, our attention and our learning capacity. More critically dopamine meets our ‘reward’ (stimuli) needs to both survive and thrive. If we exceed our expectations we get a ‘super boost’ of dopamine and will feel more motivated, conversely our unmet expectations will cause a drop in dopamine levels and we will feel demotivated.

The ‘first 100-days’ benchmark is alive in the business world with newly appointed leaders, sales people, and most employees today expected to ‘hit the ground running’. Many organisations are clear about this by inserting ‘probationary period’ clauses in the employment contract - a period of time, usually 3 months, for both parties to see if they are a ‘good fit’.

Whether it be a newly elected President, a newly appointed CEO, a new salesman, or any newly appointed executive there are ‘expectations’ upon which ‘good fit’ will be decided. Typically, but not exclusively, these may be:

• Performance expectations;

• Peer expectations;

• Follower expectations;

• Cultural expectations;

• Customer/Client expectations; as well as

• The individual’s own expectations.

There is much that potentially could go wrong when expectations meet that may further be exacerbated if there are ‘high expectations’. As admirable as these may be, for after all we want the best and we should expect it, the problem is that if they are not met not only is disappointment the outcome for all concerned but as neuroscience informs us human dopamine levels drop as does motivation.

To avoid this pitfall many psychologists advise that when it comes to expectations, it is best to set lower expectations as it is far more likely that we will meet these and not create the problems of ‘high expectations’.

President JF Kennedy in laying out his Presidential agenda in 1961 used this tactic when he ‘asked for patience’ saying that: ‘All this will not be finished in the first 100 days; nor will it be finished in the first 1,000 days; nor in the lifetime of this administration.’

In a world today where we measure almost anything in terms of performance such as schools, restaurants, trains etc., would a business accept lower performance expectations being expressed by newly promoted or appointed executive?

Kennedy may have got away with that tactic in 1961 and whilst President Trump has called the ‘100-day milestone a ‘ridiculous standard’ looking for understanding and reasonableness, it is unlikely that the ‘first 100-day’ benchmark will go away, for we live in an increasingly fast changing and competitive world where performance really matters.

The beliefs and attitudes that underpin performance, and the meeting of ‘high expectation’, are critical for every business and organisation. Leaders and employees who possess self-belief, discipline, awareness, esteem, and resilience are more important than ever to recruit and retain but few organisations understand or value this.

It is interesting to note that there is no law governing ‘probationary clauses’. The law has an ‘expectation’ that the employer will be reasonable.