Insight #279:
“If we all lowered our standards, we would have less to fight for.” The Chief Nonsense Officer.
Somewhere on our planet right now, someone is fighting someone else. It could be a verbal disagreement, it could be a simple scuffle, it could even be an all-out war. It is just the nature of being human, or so it seems.
If you want a disagreement, a scuffle, or a war to really take hold, you must declare where you stand. You must take a stand against someone else’s stand. But what does this mean? To find out, let’s go back to the era of many kings, because when it came to a fight, kings of old had standard ways of taking a stand.
During those ever so romantic times when knights on white horses fought brave battles, the king’s standard fluttered high on a long pole for all to see. When the standard was visible, it meant that the king was there in person. It also showed where he was so that his knights could protect him.
When the standard was no longer visible, it meant that the king was gone. Either he had fallen or he had left the field of battle.
It makes sense to have the standard visible for all to see. Not just on the field of battle. And yet, many leaders in many organizations don’t make their standards visible for all to follow. They assume people know.
Don’t assume that people know what you expect of them, what service levels to provide, what quality to produce, who the enemy, I mean competitors are, and so on. Make your standards visible and understandable. Not just to your few loyal knights.
Here’s an uncomfortable truth about capitalism. When there’s more than a sniff of risk in the air, we are more than willing to compromise our standards to win, or just to stay successful. Actually, I think this applies to all forms of competition and conflict.
When do visible standards matter most? When the going gets tough. Because if you drop your standards, you signal defeat. Even if you did not mean to.
Welcome to my side of the nonsense divide.
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