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This week, I want to share with you a behaviour to avoid that could be killing your execution and damaging your company culture.
It’s inconsistency.
We have to remember that our team can’t hear a thing we’re saying because our actions are screaming so loud. People pay a lot more attention to what we do than what we say we’re going to do.
Now, if we’re an inconsistent leader, if we’re not taking action on the things that we need to, if we’re not following through on our own initiatives, how can we possibly expect our team to follow through on anything we ask them to do? We’re not demonstrating consistency.
They’re watching us. And no matter what we say,
IT’S WHAT WE DO
they’re really paying attention to.
Here’s an example of how this hurts your execution and company culture if you’re inconsistent:
Let’s say you have a new initiative that you’re excited about and you tell the whole team about it and you start taking action on it, everyone’s taking a bit of action, and it’s moving forward a bit. And then all of a sudden, you get distracted. Something else is competing for your time or demanding your time away from this initiative.
Well, if you’ve been the one that’s driving it, you’re talking about it, you’re taking action on it, and all of a sudden you can’t do that anymore, well, who’s leading the team to complete the initiative?
Well, it’s nobody. And so, the initiative is going to grind to a halt.
Now, if that happens once in a while, it’s not ideal, but it’s not the end of the world.
But if that becomes how things are, if we’re always getting distracted and letting things slide and the team gets used to that, now we have an execution problem because we’re never getting anything done.
And that start impacts the culture of the company – that initiatives are optional. Because if we start a lot, but we don’t finish a lot, and there’s no consequences, “that’s just kind of how things are around here.”
And your culture is:
HOW THINGS ARE AROUND HERE
So we have to make sure that we’re being consistent in our execution and our leadership.
So here’s a couple of things that are helpful to make sure that things get done:
First off, recognize you’re going to get distracted. So, make someone else responsible for the execution.
Ask someone on the team to stand up and say, “Yeah, I’m going to own this thing. I’m going report to you and I’m going to own it.”
Okay, and now what else do we need?
- Effective communication about progress.
- Measurements.
- Time milestones and key results that we need to achieve within in those time milestones.
Those need to be reported on weekly, daily, monthly, depending on the length of the initiative. And that gets reported back up to you.
Now, if you don’t get distracted through this process, wonderful, you’ll accelerate it because you’ll be there leading the charge.
But we have to recognize as business leaders, there are a lot of things on your plate. You have to pick and choose your battles and you need delegation – you need that help from the team to get things done.
So this week, as you’re thinking about your upcoming initiatives, just recognize, have that self-awareness that you may not be able to drive the whole thing forward, but you can rely on your team to do so if you help them develop a plan, have a framework to take action and reporting mechanisms.
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