You walk into your manager’s office and they say: “Do you have a moment to look at this?”

And the this turns out to be something that they have been thinking about for the last few days, or week, and they also have just a few more minutes before they have to finalize it.

They ask for your feedback.

You quickly read it and point out a couple of things. They seem a little disappointed that you did not have more to say, your comments were not really deep enough.

You walk out of your manager’s office and you feel that you did not live up to their expectations.

A few hours later, once it is too late, but you have had the chance to put more thought into it, you have more ideas and things to say. Your manager has been thinking about this all week. They expected you, after a couple of minutes, to have the same level of thoughts and insights that they gained by thinking about this same thing for days.

How do you avoid this feeling of disappointment from both sides? How do you set the right expectations?

If you really want someone’s feedback give them some advance notice, give them the time to ruminate about the issue/idea. Set them up for success. It can be as easy as reaching out earlier and saying: “I am working on this and that, would love to hear your thoughts about it before the Thursday deadline.”

If you do request input from someone very last minute, set the stage: “I realize that I just dumped this on you now, and you are just starting to think about it, but I appreciate any feedback that you may have.” Accept the fact their insights will likely only be at a certain level because unlike you, who have been contemplating this for a while, they have just started thinking about it.