“Motivation gets you going, but discipline keeps you growing. That’s the Law of Consistency. It doesn’t matter how talented you are. It doesn’t matter how many opportunities you receive. If you want to grow, consistency is the key.”
John Maxwell
Having the opportunity to coach companies all over the country, one of the biggest challenges I see is inconsistency. I was with a leadership team last week. After an hour of discussion, the owner said, “Bobby, we already do almost all of these things. Our problem is execution and consistency.” Sometimes the challenge is the lack of clarity, the lack of good systems and processes. But, sometimes it is not consistently following the systems and processes we have already put in place. People must be held accountable, consistently, for the things we have agreed are required. If not, it is very difficult to really understand what is going on in our organization. You cannot make good decisions based on inconsistent behavior and inconsistent results.
Last week, the owner ask me. “What can we do?” Here are a few steps you might take to create clarity, accountability, and consistency.
- Make sure everyone understands where we are going or where they, or their department are going.
- Make sure we understand what the results should look like. How does each person or department know when they are winning? When they are hitting it out of the park or when they are falling behind.
- Measure, track, review, the metrics/ results weekly.
- Address any areas that are lagging behind or not hitting the communicated outcome.
- Discuss the cause and discuss what we can and will do to correct.
- Do this weekly or monthly in every area.
- Review the results of the solutions, adjust if needed, and measure, review, adjust, measure, review, adjust, etc. If we still are not getting the results we agreed on, you may have a person issue.
- When a situation or team member struggles to hit the mark, address the situation immediately. Every time. Don’t delay the conversation until the next meeting or the next quarterly review, address the situation immediately. That creates consistency.
Consistency is the commitment to hold each other accountable for what we have agreed is expected from everyone. Not measuring, tracking, and reviewing results is an issue. Not having difficult conversations about results or behavior is an issue. And, not having those conversations right away, is an issue.
You got this! Let’s begin our transition from stories, talking, excuses, to clarity, measuring, and accountability which equals consistency.