Starting Off Simple Isn’t Very Exciting

In the fifth lesson of our Emerging Leader Development course, I share a story detailing how a friend once introduced me and Cindy to some of his business partners. With a somewhat puzzled look on his face after a few seconds of trying to come up with a reasonable description, he simply said “they’re consistent.” Since we still work very closely with that friend today, he’s heard me use that example many times. Each time, he shakes his head and attempts to apologize for such a basic introduction. I always respond by telling him that it was one of the most heartwarming things we could have heard anyone say about us! While there are plenty of people who have more talent and more advanced formal education than either of us have, I haven’t met many willing to be more consistent than Cindy and I have been since starting our business in 2015 - or in any of our roles prior to that, if I’m being honest…

When we’re working, as leaders, to lay the initial foundation of values that we want our entire organization to be built on moving forward, we’ll have no choice but to be extremely consistent. I’ll be very candid with you here: building that consistency is incredibly hard! But consistency is so important that I created a lesson in our Leading At The Next Level program that outlined steps for developing a system for doing exactly that, based on our individual behavioral style; I assure you that the systems I use to help me remain consistent would offer little support for Cindy to do the same. And that’s OK because the systems that help her remain consistent in everything she does would likely cause me to have a seizure… It’s not the individual steps that matter, it’s the consistency we develop through those steps!

In detailing the process involved in laying the foundation for any kind of building, I mentioned being assigned to the crew doing that work because I lacked the fine tuned skills to be proficient in the plumbing, electrical, or trim work. In addition to the rough carpentry skills I did have, the one other skill I had developed at just fifteen years old was my work ethic. As I said before, laying the foundation and installing the roof system are the most physical stages I’ve experienced in building a home. Without a strong work ethic, I can’t picture many teenagers sticking it out for the entire summer - especially if they’re riding a bicycle to and from work while trying to keep up with men who have worked in that trade for most of their lives. Although there’s little excitement involved with digging or pouring footers, mixing mud and laying cinder block, setting trusses or nailing down asphalt shingles (all by hand in those days), the simple steps involved with each are hard - and each must be completed effectively, consistently. Even the slightest shortcut to make the work easier could have a tremendous negative impact years down the road.

As leaders, modeling the values that will serve as our organization’s foundation requires the same hard, consistent effort. Developing a system for making each behavior that exemplifies one of our values part of our everyday routine, especially if we can design that system around our individual behavioral style, can be the difference between getting a strong start and actually sustaining it over the long haul. I heard the phrase, “Work smarter, not harder” over and over while learning to pour concrete. I was trying to muscle my way through the process and at 130 pounds, there wasn’t much muscle to use! The guys I was working with made it seem almost effortless - because they had developed systems for doing that incredibly hard work. Teaching me their systems may have been almost as difficult as working with the concrete. Getting our team members to follow suit in modeling our values can seem just as hard early on, which makes it even more important to keep things as simple as we possibly can - and that’s where we’ll pick up next time.