On Consistency…
Last week I shared with my team in one of our weekly meetings that I had written 27 weekly articles since I started this experiment 6 months ago. One article, every week that is sent on Thursday at 9am, and I still haven’t missed one. I even joked saying: “who thought I wasn’t going to be that consistent?”. For those of you who know me personally, consistency is probably not the first adjective you would use to describe me. That moment made me think of one of the most underrated skills and traits in business and leadership. Consistency.
As you know, I come from an “agile” and “agility” background and in many ways, agility is mistaken in the business world for “lack of consistency” or “constantly changing”. I have even heard the word used to justify lack of quality or planning and low standards. When I work with teams and organisations, this is one of the myths that I quickly dispel. Yes, agility gives room for teams and organisations to change directions, or even plans if we learn things that justify that change. But it does not support lack of rigour and consistency.
One of the most important things for teams, in my view, are their rhythms. How often they meet, what they discuss in those meetings and how they are run and structured. Those meetings and rhythms are the heartbeat of a team. And like with our hearts, we are in trouble when those beats start to skip.
Like in most of those things, there is an art and not a science in terms of how many, how long and who should attend the different meetings of a team. There is not a rule. For many years, “agile” teams were following religiously the scrum guide and were doing 15 minutes “daily stand ups”, and weekly sprint plannings and retrospectives. I believe that every team should design their rhythms according to the work they do and what works best. The most important thing is not how often (although I would always recommend shorter and more frequent meetings than longer and more spaced in time); the most important thing is to be consistent. Once you have designed a rhythm that works for the team, stick to it. Even if it feels like some days or weeks, you are not getting value out of them or attendance is low, stick to it. Be consistent and you will see the benefits long term.
At Neu21, we have had the same core structure of weekly meetings for a long time. We have one meeting every Tuesday morning to discuss our pipeline of clients and current engagements; and one every Wednesday morning to discuss the initiatives and work we do “on the business” that quarter. We have had that structure of meetings for a very long time, and it is our heartbeat. Yes. Sometimes attendance is low – usually because we are with clients. Yes. Sometimes they feel repetitive; but we have stuck to them for a long time, and I believe it is part of our success. Those meetings only run for 30-45 minutes; but in that time everyone gets a great understanding of how the business is going. Pin addition to those two, people also have other meetings, depending on the sub teams they form part of that quarter. So, I may also have a weekly catch up with the strategy team and the ventures team for instance.
The point is, stick to them. I often see the things that get cancelled when businesses and organisations get busy are the team meetings and the one on ones. Don’t let this happen. This is the time you need them the most. Stick to them and you will see the benefit.
In a way, it has been the same with me and my weekly writing. Some weeks I didn’t know what I was going to write about. But I have stuck to a routine where every week I sit down at the same time (approximately) in front of my computer, clear all distractions and let the “inspiration” come. Some weeks take longer, some weeks it is easier. But if you are enjoying these weekly reads; and thank you to the ones that provided me with that feedback, it is not because of brilliance; it has been because of consistency.