You know what your organization wants from you?
It’s not to be great. Or to be an “A” player. Or high energy. Or Top 10 percent.
It’s also not to just show up.
The only thing you really need to do is to be consistent. Not consistently great or consistently sucky. Just come in and meet expectations. Every day. Every week. Every year.
Consistent. We can count on Tim, he’s consistent.
Why does “consistent” get such a bad rap?
But we don’t feel that way, do we? We feel like we need to be more than consistent. Consistent is somehow the new below average.
We strive to be “world-class” and create “best practices” that are “industry leading” — which leads everyone to believe that just being consistent is like having a disease.
In reality, if everyone was consistent in our organizations, we would kick the crap out of our competition.
So, why aren’t we all kicking the crap out of our competition?
It’s actually pretty hard to be consistent
That’s because it’s really hard be consistent! It’s why we push so hard for rock star performance. We need those rock stars to make up for the trolls, because it’s impossible to get everyone to just meet expectations.
The next time you sit down with an employee who is “meeting expectations,” who is consistent, hug them. Thank them for what they do each day. Tell them, “If I could only get everyone else to be just like you, we would be great!”
We don’t need exceptional performance to be great. We just need everyone to do what they’re suppose to do — be consistent.
Let’s put that on a leadership poster and sell it – “Strive to do what you’re suppose to do!”
This was originally published on Tim Sackett’s blog, The Tim Sackett Project.