Regardless of the sport. A championship team has standards. Regardless of the business, a Fortune 500 company has standards. Regardless of the school district, a high performing school has standards. The first task of a leader is not to cast vision. It’s not to change the culture. It’s not to create goals for sales, wins, or scores. The first task of a leader is to create and implement standards.
I have a theory, every company, team, or school operates within the boundaries of three different types of communicating standards. Standards are either implied, interpreted or inspired.
Standards are the behaviors in a group all members will be held to. Standards are the baseline for culture. Standards are the measurable actions that make up the process which leads to the desired results. Standards are what separate intramurals from competitive sports. In intramurals people can come and go when they please. In competitive sports, there is a set arrival time, departure time, there is a minimum commitment to be on the team. Standards are what separate volunteer work from employment. A volunteer can chime in as they feel led, come and go as they please while an employee has some requirements to their position, they can’t leave until 5:00 p.m. Standards are used to evaluate performance.
The higher performing the team - the higher the standards for those involved. Over time, the success or failure of a team is less about talent and more about the standards. A leader must create and communicate standards more than any other element to their role. The standards drive everything.
Unmet standards are one of the most frustrating experiences for a leader. When there is confusion on standards, there becomes no real ground for accountability. Every environment functions in three tiers of standards. The first type of standard will lead to failure. The second will lead to sustainability, and the third will lead to thriving.
Implied Standard
In an environment of implied standards the leader assumes everyone knows what is expected of them. While there may have never been a single conversation, workshop, or discussion on the standard - in the leader’s eyes the standard is obvious. “I shouldn’t have to tell you ___________, it should be obvious!”
An implied standard is crystal clear in the mind of the leader, but no other member of the team has any clarity. A poor leader lives in the realm of implied standards. It takes extra effort to create clear communication lines, effort that a poor leader doesn’t want to spend. It takes confidence on the part of a leader to ask where their communication is not clear, confidence the leader often doesn’t have. It’s far easier for a leader to think the breakdown in communication, obviously lies with the team and not the leader. It’s far easier for a leader to live in the realm of “They should already know this!”
An underperforming environment is riddled with implied standards. No one is operating with a clear understanding of the behavior needed to thrive. In an underperforming environment the standards are locked away in the privacy of the leader’s mind. Unchallenged by anyone, and only known for team members in hindsight - after they have been told they missed the standard.
Interpreted Standard
With interpreted standards, some effort is made to create some clarity, but those efforts still leave the staff or team with some guesswork to understand the standards. Human resources departments are notorious for crafting interpreted standards. If you have ever taken a new job, it’s a common experience to have a sit down with a Human Resources representative to go over the company’s stances and policies. You’re given a large notebook of policies as a quick run-through of the company's standards. For a sports team a coach usually has a beginning of the year meeting outlining all of the standards in a one-hour get together. Most schools or companies have interpreted standards on the walls of the building in some sort of sharp looking marketing material. Notebooks, workshops, banners on the wall all have a way of fooling a leader into thinking everyone has clarity on the standards.
The reality is it takes a lot more than one meeting, a ream of paper, and a few placards on the wall to drive standards home. The notebook usually gets tucked away in a desk. The meeting is forgotten within 3-5 days, and eventually people become numb to tag-lines and billboards on the walls when the behaviors walking the halls don’t reflect the standards. These efforts are far better than implied standards. At least there is some effort to create a normative rhythm to standards. But, unless the values on the wall come alive in the leaders and team members it’s all just a guessing game of confusion.
Inspired Standard
A leader can put anything they want on the walls. They can hand out all the notebooks they want. They can invite outside speakers to do workshops to set standards. But all of the efforts will be in vain unless the team is compelled to live up to the standard. The days of a leader pounding the desk and demanding the standard are gone. Those leaders will get eye-rolls more than results. We are in the day and age of leaders earning buy-in instead of demanding buy-in.
An inspired standard is more effective. An inspired standard requires no arm-twisting from the leader. It is a compelling standard, drawing from deep within the fiber of the team's desire to live and work at a higher altitude. With an inspired standard, everyone believes to their core, this is important. While an interpreted standard and an implied standard may seem important to the leader, an inspired standard has no loss of value as it moves throughout the organization. Everyone from the janitor to the CEO believes this standard is important, it is inspiring and compelling.
The way to an inspired standard is only through transformational leadership. A transformational leader craves inspired standards. They will take time out of their day for a cup of coffee with a mid-level employee, lean over and hang on every word and idea. The transformational leader knows that by taking the time to move beyond their own perspective, they are sowing seeds of buy-in throughout the team, one person at a time. With every suggestion received, they gain the credibility a policy notebook or core values poster on the wall can’t deliver.
We would be hard pressed to find a story of an employee so fired up to live a standard after combing the HR handbook. We wouldn’t have to look far to find a story of an employee compelled to live at a higher standard after being looked in the eye and valued.
The way of the transformational leader is through creating inspired standards.
Stay The Course,
JB
Book of the week: The Winner’s Manuel by Jim Tressel
Podcast episode of the week: Becoming A Leader People Love To Follow - Craig Groeschel Leadership Podcast
Article of the week: The Architect by Peter Staunton
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