At AmplifyTech we discussed how consistency matters in leadership.

In particular, we talked about how kids respond to coaching better when there is consistency.

If you are consistently calm, there’s power in that.

And if you are intense – having consistency in that can make it inspiring and optimistic.

When you try to impact kids and they are overly concerned with your emotions and response, you don’t get the learning or results you hope for. They can be anxious trying to understand your response instead of focused and engaged.

It’s similar in business.

Our business coach talked to us about consistency and how we needed to strive for that as an executive team, and as founders leading that team.

When you have great passion, this can lead you to volatility.

Intensity and passion can work, but not at the expense of consistency.

Knowing the risk of inconsistency can be a significant first step.

Having the kids you coach, or the employees you lead, approach their work and interactions with a focus on what your intensity will look like, or what armour they need to put on to be prepared, or how they are going to respond, is a distraction.

Similarly, if you don’t have consistency, do you have clarity?

Are your expectations understood?

It isn’t always easy!

Let’s walk through our top five examples in Tech Implementations and Projects

 

REPORTING

1. A written document that uses a consistent template and allows for “one-stop shopping” of all updates is vital to a well-run project.

Writing down the risks, delays, issues, and decisions allows stakeholders to have real-time access even if they aren’t active in the project.

It provides an “audit trail” of bottlenecks and interdependence that helps people understand changes to the project timeline.

Using a traditional medium helps with alignment and validation too.

Consistency is when the report is available, knowing where to find it, and how it is organized and structured, means people can rely on it.

It allows the team and leaders to understand expectations, quickly understand the report, and find the information they need.

They don’t have to spend time understanding; instead, they can leap to commitment and action.

 

SCHEDULES

2. Tech projects are too often ‘side-of-the-desk opportunities’ for people still expected to do their day job.

Organizing projects with consistent days and times that the team is dedicated to the project helps them manage their calendar and expectations.

It reduces chaos and lets people be proactive.

 

EXECUTIVE

3. The magic.

When Amplifiers anchor discussions and decisions to the strategy and growth of the client, it is a form of consistency that influences and builds trust.

If you have a challenging conversation and can’t anchor it to the strategy and growth, you might not be ready, or it may not be a necessary confrontation.

Tech consultants that practice this magic consistently build trust and influence.

 

SCOPE

4. Scope creep kills budgets and projects. It happens with the best of intent.

• you realize you didn’t address something during the system selection and planning of the scope
• you didn’t understand the current state as thoroughly as you thought and now need to adjust for requirements and expectations
• you discover the system can do things that you’d love to leverage
• you get into a “transformation mindset” and want to boil the ocean instead of taking a phased approach as planned initially

Consistent discipline and checking back to expectations and scope help keep projects on time and budget.

Approaching decisions with the organization’s strategy and how the project fits into that helps.

Working with an IT roadmap where everyone can visually see when Tech will address the asks or needs helps manage expectations.

Consistently keeping the IT project a business project with stakeholders top of mind makes a difference.

 

LEADERSHIP: FLEXIBILITY AND CHAOS

5. Creating a culture of flexibility is an act of threading the needle between empowerment and chaos.

Without policy and rules, and the consistency they bring, you are at constant risk of disorder.

As a Business Leader on a Tech project, you need to push back on some flexibility to bring confidence to your team and the organization’s leaders.

Even if they resist, there are some areas of Tech that benefit too greatly from consistency to be overruled by flexibility.

The need for consistency is prominent if your business is in the stage of scaling.

• Leverage system best practices where possible
  • reduces customizations and configurations that are only requested due to change management and not strategic needs
• Leveraging system functionality
  • reduces integrations and additional vendors and complexity and cost where best in the breed is not strategically required
• Scope
• Communication
• Process

These are just a few!

As Tech Business Leaders the four areas we are involved in are reporting, schedules, the executive team, scope and leadership.

All of these benefit significantly from consistency.

Our other areas of responsibility do too!

QUESTIONS TO PONDER

Can you think of anything you do that needs consistency?

Is consistency not always a good thing?

Do we need some spontaneous interactions and emotions too?

Let us know your experience with it.