“But surely that’s just common sense?”
I’ve heard that so many times from frustrated business owners. Someone hasn’t done something the way they expected, a customer hasn’t been dealt with properly, or something obvious has been missed, and the reaction is usually some version of, “I shouldn’t have to tell them that!”
Maybe you shouldn’t, but if you haven’t told them, you can’t be too surprised when they don’t know.
Experience shapes what feels obvious
When you’ve been doing something for years, you forget how much you know. You notice things without consciously looking for them: you know which details matter, which corners should never be cut and when something doesn’t quite look or feel right.
Much of what you call common sense comes from experience that someone who joined three weeks ago hasn’t had yet.
Everyone’s version of common sense is shaped by different experience.
Even two experienced people can look at the same situation and make completely different decisions, simply because they’ve worked in different businesses, had different training and learned different ways of doing things.
Both might be perfectly reasonable, but if there’s a particular way you want things done in your business, people need to know what that is.
Give people clear boundaries for using their initiative
Of course you want people to think for themselves and handle something unexpected without having to ask permission every time. They need to understand what they can decide for themselves and when to ask for help.
If I ask five people to “deal with customer complaints properly”, I could get five perfectly reasonable interpretations of what properly means.
For your team to handle complaints consistently, you need to explain:
- Who can offer a refund, and how much?
- When should a complaint be escalated?
- What do we always do to put things right?
- What should we never promise?
Clear boundaries give people the confidence to use their own judgement.
Without that clarity, you’re relying on everyone magically having the same version of common sense, and good luck with that.
Turn your expectations into Our Way
This is one of the simplest Frustration Gaps to close.
The next time you hear yourself saying, “They should know that,” stop and ask yourself why they should know it.
Have you made your expectations clear?
- Have you explained what you expect?
- Have you shown them what good looks like?
- Have you made sure they’ve been trained to do it?
- Have you given feedback when something has been done differently, explaining why it matters?
If you haven’t, the gap might simply be that something sitting very clearly in your head has never made it clearly into theirs.
Make your expectations clear through explanation, training and feedback.
As your business scales, you can’t rely on people picking things up by osmosis or learning your preferences through trial and error. You need enough clarity that people understand how you do things around here, and enough freedom that they can still think for themselves.
So the next time you catch yourself thinking, “Surely it’s just common sense,” check that you’ve actually explained what you expect.
