Conformity is the application of something, that is necessary for the sake of logic, accuracy, or fairness.
‘streamline the grading system to ensure greater consistency’
Why do I talk about consistency often? When we find a system that works in our business or lives, the repeated application of that behavior gets us closer to our goals.
>> Watch this FaceBook Live where I talked about consistency.
When we first open our businesses, we are excited, our eyes are open to all the details, we are hungry to make it work. We focus on specifics that we learned to make our business a success.
Once we are open for a while, things could start slipping without notice, people are coming in late, you don’t feel like leaning into a possible conflict because it’s not comfortable or you don’t know how. And as things start morphing or settling from newness to day to day, you are letting more things go because you are busy, or you don’t notice or fill in the blanks.
But what remains a fact is that you were on high alert at first, then you settled in too. What you were doing in the beginning changed. Hence a changed behavior will change an outcome, which leads to inconsistency.
Have you ever been on a rollercoaster of a diet? Or seen someone on one? They are so excited about it in the beginning, tracking everything, putting their food into their fav type of tracker, getting up everyday or many days to work out. WOW do you see results?
Your behavior is working towards an end result you desire. Then you settle into the routine, some things don’t get tracked, you skip a few days working out or stop altogether. The behavior changed, you get discouraged because you are not seeing results. So you stop. This is inconsistency!
YO YO. We hear that in dieting. The yo yo dieter. So many are YoYo workers. They pay attention at first, then settle into default mode not letting the habit that brings you to your desired result become your default. There are a million things I can get specific on about consistency, especially in my own world, but what I want to focus on today is:
1. Consistency with your Team
People want to work in a fair and equal environment. Although not intended, it creates favoritism when we are treating some people differently than others.
For example: IN our company, teamwork is key. When someone is not busy we expect them to jump in and help out. Assisting, cleaning, inventory, etc. We had a situation in one of our locations that a story got created. The management only asks people that are already team players to help, but they won’t ask the primadonnas of the world because they don’t want the kickback or attitude. Has that ever happened to you? It happened to us.
When we do check in’s with our team and I hear this on more than one occasion, my flag goes up with further investigation. I found that this was a story and it was somewhat true. We had to fix this. There was inconsistency in how we treated people. Same with coming in late and consequences that go with that if it is chronic. Same with staff being unprofessional. It creates more problem and turns into bigger cultural issues that we will have to dismantle if not handled properly.
2. Consistency with your back-end business practices
Each week, do you know where you are based on the industry success benchmarks? When you are tracking daily, weekly monthly, etc., you can make adjustments, coach, and launch different levels of excitement to either increase sales, or decrease expenses.
If you DO NOT KNOW, or only track sometimes, then are surprised when you get your P/L end of the month, the money is already spent, the expenses are already high. The mere practice of weekly tracking and projecting will keep your profits on track.
3. Guest consistency
These are the systems that create great customer service. How many people have ever had someone say they had a bad experience or looked on social reviews to see a horrific write-up. What was the breakdown? was it consistent?
Did someone drop the ball or did they not have the skill set in the first place? What are the greetings? Service wheels that ensure great, consistent customer care? This takes training.
If you are having breakdowns, check to see where there is a gap and start there – train up!