Doubt is sometimes said to kill more dreams than failure ever will. However, doubting could help us be successful if we harness it the right way.

“We have to trust each other to survive!”

“No. We have to doubt to survive.”

These are subtitles from the two characters in Pending Train. Pending Train is a Japanese show being shown on Netflix. It is about a group of people who were transported to the future aboard a car five of the train. In the future, they work together to survive, remember who they left in the past and figure out a way back home.

The dialogue got me interested as there is some truth to it in how we deal with our lives. We put our trust in others hoping and expecting that things will go as we wanted. At the same time, we also have doubts and skepticism about how people are which makes us very wary of how things will proceed thus, we make other plans to ensure what we envision happens.

We can actually combine both lines of thinking. How? Let me tell you a story first.

Not meeting expectations

There was this one time at work when I was leading a team of analysts and our regular deliverable was to provide reports and analysis. The very purpose of the work is to provide timely reports, analysis and data presentation to ensure that the leadership makes the right strategy and decision in running the business.

With a team, a lot of things could go awry. There would be some who would deliver their work early or on time, some would not be able to complete it for whatever reasons, and some would be absent until the deadline has past.

One of the supervisors in my team came to me and raised a concern about his subordinate. His subordinate was always delivering mediocre results and was not coming to work for different reasons resulting for work be done by him instead.

He mentioned that he talked to the person and had issued reprimand letters however, his subordinate continued to be the way he was. He was getting annoyed as he did not know what to do. All of his work had been dumped on my supervisor.

If he had done everything he must do like coaching, feedback, reprimand letters, and sanctions, then the expectation should be what the person regularly delivers. This means that there is not much my supervisor could do, aside from terminating him, but to expect that the work would probably be the same output as what he had been delivering.

Expect not to receive your expectations

At work, we interact with a lot of people. We collaborate with them on different tasks. Most of our output will depend on how others will accomplish theirs and vice versa. Interdependency would mean either a great output or a failure. And most of the time, it does not get isolated who should have done what. The output of the work remains yours alone.

When people collaborate, it is wise to consider what to expect from the person. Expect that the person will deliver or not will entirely depend on his or her previous work behavior. When we know that a person can deliver a certain level of output, we can then expect that it would be the same for most collaborative work.

Knowing this, we all have to adjust our expectations. We can not hope that a person will change, especially overnight. If that person will change, it will take time and a fair amount of effort to provide guidance and help. However, in the immediate present, we should consider what the person can realistically deliver based on what he or she has been delivering so far.

Trust is required at work. Without it, a team can not function. It will make people in a team feel unwanted or lose their sense of belongingness. This in turn could be detrimental to the team’s output and performance.

Although, doubt should also be in place. Not that we doubt each and every one but more like doubting if the plan will work and if each and everyone assigned to each task will do what is expected of them. By having doubt, a plan B can be created and salvage the work of the team.

“Plan A does not always work.”

That is another line from the Pending Train show. It was from the woman CEO who have been successful in running her company that she always have Plan B as part of her strategy.

At work, and in life, we all have a strategy to achieve what we want. Work, earn, save, and maybe retire rich. Get promoted, have more money, and retire rich. And then, life gets in the way. Someone got sick, someone got into an accident, or something else that would destroy your path to success.

While it is good to bounce back after any challenges life throws us, it is also good to have a backup plan. A safety net that you could fall into without hitting the ground.

Same for work, knowing and understanding what our colleagues are capable of, we could further create a strategy that will minimize the risks of not completing our work. This way, we have anticipated what could happen and made our plans around it.

Trust people based on who they are. Doubt what could probably happen and do something else to mitigate the impact of risk. By doing so, we still are able to collaborate effectively and at the same time, avoiding any major pitfalls that could affect our output and performance.

Be better than yesterday.