The key to setting standards

I put a lot of value in standards. In my personal life I am always looking at what the standard thought or action is in any given situation. In my work life, I help define the standards for each role in the business. This gives clarity around expectations and accountability.

Standards are important yet most people find this topic boring and mundane. Who wants to look at the standard process or routine when they can dream about what they might do once they succeed?

But spending our time in the future, daydreaming about rewards is not going to help us when we have to buckle up and get to work. It might feel good in the moment. But it is more likely to keep us stuck, refusing to do the difficult tasks necessary to succeed.

The other problem is that most people want to feel free. They want to be able to make choices and not hinder their decisions. If they feel like doing something right now, they assume freedom means the ability to do that now.

This puts way too much emphasis on instant gratification. Freedom isn’t the ability to jump at whatever fleeting temptation appears. True freedom is the ability to create structures where you are in control.

This is where standards come in. If we want to be in shape and healthy, we have to look at the standard way we approach eating and moving. Do we stay active? Do we tend to eat healthy foods? How do we put together our grocery lists to make sure we get healthy options? How do we make sure to create enough time in our lives for exercise?

The key to improvement is to identify and document standards and then make adjustments that improve the outcomes. So we measure our standard processes to know how impactful they are.

As we come up with ways to change, we can then see how the outputs compare to the previous outputs. Are they better? Worse? The same?

I do this in my personal life. I measure important aspects of my life. Then I have regular check-ins to see how I got better or worse from some change that I tried.

My team also does this at work. We have standards for each role. We know the expectations and we put structure around those expectations. This means we clearly communicate with the team what we want to see and how we complete each aspect of the job.

Some people immediately assume we take out their freedom but this isn’t the case. Having a standard means that we have a minimum level that we set. The output from the standard is set and we don’t accept a lower output.

But we encourage changes. We encourage tweaks to the process. But at the end of the day we have to be able to show a benefit, otherwise we go back to the old standard. There is no room for change for the sake of change. There is no room for changes that provide a worse outcome.

Standards mean that we set a clear line. This demonstrates where we can consistently reach. This level is important.

If you take the time to observe and document your current standard methods, then you have a baseline. Start measuring the output and you soon have benchmark data. This becomes the output you expect from following the current standards.

Then come up with changes that you think might improve the outcome. Try them out and keep measuring. After a short time evaluate those changes. Did they improve the output in the way that you assumed? If so, make them the new standard.

Then keep working through changes and tweaks that might result in a better outcome. Doing this will lead you on a journey of continuous improvement. Then you can make changes without those changes being worse that the current ways you do things.