Get them to expect less but deliver more

I'm always struck by how easily people are disappointed by things. We all are. I fear that public policy is at times driven by announcementism: we're keen to tell everyone now what we're going to be doing for them. This is a bit like hire purchase - people want the product now but invariably get disappointed in it as the monthly payments leave the bank account. Everything loses its lustre over time. 

We need to cut back on our "we wills" and up our quota of "we haves". We need to train ourselves in not allowing the hype to overtake us. Enjoying life is so much about the relationship between what we expect and what we actually get rather than just what we get.

The trouble is that we all expect more and more. We expect our public sector experience to feel as good as it might in the private sector. It won't always. That's because the private sector differentiates at the point of consumption (or experience) in order to win market share and new customers. (It often goes downhill pretty quickly after that). 

The sad truth is that if we try to live up to expectations, then people will always be disappointed. Anyone with children will know that we all learn to want more very early on. We need to promise less and deliver more. If waited until we had delivered before we promised, local authority stock would probably be rocketing. 

Unfortunately, whilst there are news columns to fill and profiles to raise, there's a tendency to go for the sugar rush now.