The standards you live determine the results you get
Organisations have revenue goals. Salespeople have production goals. Leaders have growth goals. We set them at annual meetings, write them on whiteboards and build strategic plans around them. And still the results do not follow.
A goal describes where you want to go. A standard determines how you are willing to operate to get there.
In this leadership session Gary asks leaders to stop looking only at the goals hanging on the wall and start examining the behaviour happening inside their organisation every day.
Because every organisation already has standards. Including the ones nobody chose. There is a standard for communication, preparation, customer service, accountability, follow-up, punctuality and performance, and you do not find it by reading the handbook.
Your real standards aren't written on the wall. They're revealed by what happens every day.Gary Carpenter
Three questions Gary walks a leadership team through in the room.
What do we tell people is important? The stated values, the annual number, the service promise, the things that get repeated at every meeting.
What actually happens inside the organisation? Not on the best day. On an ordinary Tuesday when nobody senior is watching.
Where is the gap? And what behaviour are we currently tolerating that contradicts the standard we say we have?
An organisation can say customer service is important. But if poor service repeatedly goes unaddressed, what is the real standard? A leader can say accountability matters. But if missed commitments have no consequences, what has the organisation actually established?
Over time, tolerated behaviour becomes accepted behaviour. Accepted behaviour becomes culture.
Every behaviour you repeatedly tolerate becomes an unofficial standard.People watch leaders. They notice whether they are prepared. Whether they follow through. Whether they are on time. How they respond when something goes wrong, and how they treat people when nobody important is in the room.
Leaders cannot consistently demand standards they are unwilling to demonstrate. That is the part of this talk that lands hardest, and it is the reason it changes anything.
Culture listens to your words, but it follows your behavior.Gary Carpenter