Flexible or Inconsistent? The Leadership Mistake That’s Costing You Trust

Flexibility sounds great… until your team feels confused, burned out, or treated unfairly.

In this episode of The Business Fix, Chrissy and Josh tackle one of the most common leadership blind spots they see with business owners and managers: mistaking inconsistency for flexibility.

If you’ve ever said, “We like to go with the flow,” but still struggle with turnover, decision fatigue, or frustrated employees, this conversation is for you.

You’ll learn:

• Why “unstructured flexibility” creates stress instead of freedom
• The real difference between being flexible and being inconsistent
• How inconsistency quietly damages trust, culture, and legal standing
• The 3 F’s of Consistency every leader must understand: Friction, Fatigue, and Fracture
• Why consistency is actually what creates freedom for leaders and teams
• How favoritism (even unintentional) shows up in workplace culture
• Practical guardrails leaders can use to stay flexible without chaos

Chrissy brings the HR and CEO perspective, while Josh adds operational insight (and a few laughs), making this a must-listen for anyone responsible for people, culture, or leadership decisions.

If you're looking to get help with your culture, or to help out an entire group, reach out to Josh and Chrissy today!  We would love to see how we can help you, your business, or your event. Contact us!

ClarityHR is your fractional HR team, giving you real people, real support, and real solutions. Whether it’s compliance headaches, hiring struggles, or just needing someone to take the people stuff off your plate — we’ve got your back. So if you’re ready to stop using duct-tape and hope as your HR strategy and finally get some peace of mind, head over to ClarityHR.com

If you're looking to start your own podcast or maybe you just want to add the next level of professionalism to your podcast and brand, you should be working with the producers behind The Business Fix at Pedal Stomper Productions. Click the link to learn more about how you can get your podcast to the next level. https://www.pedalstomperproductions.com

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Transcript

0:30

There's a lot of business owners that say, hey, I'm flexible. I'm assuming you've experienced that where you're like, no, we we like to go with the flow. We don't like to keep things. Yeah. We just we want to make sure that we've got the flexibility to do things how we need to, when we need to. And those typically have the employees that are bald. And it's not usually like male pattern hair loss. No, it's ripped out or they don't know why they don't have people stay. Correct, correct. Those are also the no one wants to work here anymore. People. Yes. Imagine that. It's expensive. Yes, it is amazing what some SOPs can do. And I don't want to say I'm not inflexible. No. Consistent. Consistent. Yes, that's the word I was looking for. That is what we're talking about this week. Stay tuned. She's the CEO. He's the marketing and operations guy. If it's broken, you need the business fix. Since we're talking about consistency, you're gonna. You're gonna like this. Yeah, and this is not going to surprise you. Okay. Um, my. I had a big shift recently. My dog stopped liking egg yolks as much. Oh, um, still loves breakfast. Just later in the morning. Doesn't like egg yolks as much. So that caused me to shift from going from four egg whites and two whole eggs to just four whole eggs in the morning. Okay. That has been my breakfast for the past, like twelve years. Yeah, I believe we're talking about consistency. Yes we are. I have worn out pans. Um. Yes, that that's that's consistency. Um, what is the freakish thing that you do that's consistent? Uh, everything. I'm trying to think I was about to say. I mean, I know there's certain everything. There's so many things in order. I know as a child, I had like there were certain things my mom would always say if you didn't brush your teeth in the right order. Her day was ruined. So, I mean, like, I am freakishly consistent when it comes to like getting ready, doing things I need to do. Oh, wow. Yeah, that sounds like a therapy session. Probably. Maybe a little bit of OCD, maybe. I've gotten a lot better. Kids. Kids will humble and mellow you so I can. I can believe that's what pets. Pets will do the same thing. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Because there's times where. Yeah. Irving. Like I said, he caused the big shift for me because we had to go from. Yeah. So. But yeah, I figured it out. It's been like a couple of thousand eggs. Yeah. Um, like ten or twelve thousand eggs. So. Yeah. Interesting. And I'll make sure I brush my teeth in the right order tonight. You have to brush your teeth in the right order, and I have to have, like, silence, usually in the morning for a few minutes. Like, just if you talk to me too early, that's just wrong. You can't. Oh, okay. I'll keep that in mind. Like, why are you mad, mom? Like, did you talk to me too soon? I'll keep that in mind. I will not text Chrissy before nine a m. It's okay. No, it really is fine. It's just like I need like, five minutes of silence before I, like, do anything. Okay, yeah. That's consistent. Yeah. You need stuff to wake up. Yeah, I have to wake up. And I have to just be in the right. Yeah. Pick my pick my mindset. Okay. Duly noted. Duly noted. That being said, every business owner we want, every business owner besides us wants to be flexible. Yeah. I mean, I like flexibility. I do too, because there's there's certain things and there's certain like, I mean, lunch used to be at one o'clock for me every day for years. And now owning the business. And that doesn't happen. No. I'm like lunch on Tuesday. Um, next week it'll be Wednesday. Yeah, it depends on when people want to schedule the studio, stuff like that. So there's all sorts of those other inconsistencies, inconsistencies. This is going to be a really long episode if I have time saying that. But flexibility. I mean, to me it's a framework that allows for choice and inconsistency is when you when you move the goalposts, um, when like, is the boss in what mood is the boss in, um, that? It's so funny. I still remember like, in fact, I just talked with a, uh, another executive that I worked with, the owner of a company that I worked at before. You had no clue what he was going to say when he was going to say it. I mean, you could you could try and predict his mood and be like, he's in a good mood. I'm going to ask for this today. But no. And he would scream you right out of the office. Oh. Oh yeah. Yeah. He was not a pleasant individual. Um, but. So yeah, that inconsistency makes it I mean, it's it's stressful as hell. It is. It absolutely is because it's a guessing game and people don't like to guess. No. And it's, it's to me, I mean, like, I'm gonna, you know, I'm gonna dive into my favorite saying here if I'm walking into a shitstorm. Yes, I want to know which way the wind is blowing and if it is the poop tornado. What do you what do you do? What do you do? So from an HR and like the CEO perspective, I mean why is unstructured flexibility. And I like that term there unstructured flexibility. Like seat of the pants actually dangerous. I mean for a company rather like a company as a whole and its culture. Yeah. And let's go even further because I said HR their legal standing because yes, this can legally bite you in the behind. Yes it can. Yeah. I'm assuming you've seen that. Oh absolutely. Several times this week. Yeah. Yeah, happens a lot. So I want to start by stating clearly I am pro flexibility. Yes. And I like flexibility. I want people and myself to have autonomy balance and agency. It's really important. But what I've learned, sometimes painfully, sometimes by watching our clients do things painfully, is that flexibility without consistency doesn't feel freeing. It's really stressful. Yes. And so the bigger, the biggest leadership lie we tell ourselves is that consistency is rigid. And in reality, consistency is what creates freedom for leaders and for teams. So I would say that as we talk about consistency, because that's really what I think we need to talk about when we talk about flexibility is that there are three F's for consistency. So consistency. I was excited to figure out what the letter of the day was. I know it's f um, and it's not the word you think it is. So consistency creates freedom. So that's one f word. But it's by reducing friction fatigue and fracture. And so yeah you're all this is a good one. All the this is yeah that's to me just right off the rip. Yeah I mean the freedom piece is what everyone's going for. Yes. When they get flexibility, they think they flexibility gives them freedom. It doesn't. Consistency is what gives you freedom. Yeah. No that's awesome. So friction. Friction. Yeah. So that's when rules feel personal. Work becomes political. So let's talk about friction. Friction shows up when employees don't know what the real rules are because the rules change depending on who's asking. You have separate rules for your kids. You have separate rules for your employees, or this set of employees or this set of like, don't do that. So this is where leaders think they're being kind by saying yes, but what the team really feels is another F-word, and that's favoritism. And they don't like it. And from there, the other F word. Oh yes. Yeah, it becomes really bad. So here's what friction looks like in real life. Okay. Side conversations. How did they get that approved. How did they get that approved? I mean like that's just side conversations. Hesitation to ask for flexibility, quiet resentment, employee spending, more energy, interpreting leadership moods. You know, the weather pattern. Which way is the wind blowing when you're walking into your storm? They're worrying more about those moods than doing their jobs. Reading moods like the weather. And so I've been that leader. I have done this wrong. I have made those decisions thinking I was helping. I'm being flexible. I'm helping everyone. And because of that, I am their favorite leader. Not really. Because what I still hated, they still hated me. And that's because I was creating comparison and confusion. So it's like you're giving this person, you're treating this person special. You're being favorites. No I'm not. So I mean, and at clarity, you know, we see this constantly. I mean and leaders don't have a culture problem here. They really have a consistency gap. And so that friction is the first symptom. So you know, if employees have to read your mood to know the rules, that's not flexibility. That's friction. So we want to eliminate friction. Second one you ready is fatigue. I think we've both been there. We have. We have. And I would say this decision exhaustion is a leadership tax that you don't need to pay. No, you don't have to pay it. This one hits leaders hard because it sneaks up on you when everything is flexible. Every request becomes a decision. There is no autonomy. There is no like every. You got to make a decision. Everything. Because you know. Well, there's the exception. There's always an exception. Right. They shouldn't have to ask. Exactly. So here's what fatigue looks like. Leaders defaulting to sure fine. Sure it's fine. You say that with a different tone than I do. Yeah, sure. Fine. Whatever. Either way. Or avoiding decisions altogether, you just kind of. You know what? Let me think about that. Oh, yeah. I should have thought about that. Oh, yeah, you had asked me to think about that. So you just you never make the decision to get back to you Tuesday. I didn't say which Tuesday it was. Correct. So managers feeling drained and resentful, like, oh my gosh, why are they always asking me questions? Don't they know the answer? Why are they asking me if they can do this? Well, because sometimes you said yes and sometimes you've said no. Or if you're like, the rule is that we don't do this. Well, you've said yes three times to this person, so somebody else is going to ask you to. Why is everybody asking me to approve their PTO when Janet's supposed to approve their PTO? Because you did it and you're not supposed to. So. And then there's that, that inconsistent answer simply because you're tired. Those of us that are parents can deal with this, too. Sometimes our kids or teenagers are really good at knowing when to ask us questions because they know we're tired. I'm like, yeah, fine, go ahead and do it. So I don't want to deal with this and deal with this. Or like, you know, if you are, if you are worthless between twelve and two, that's when your employees are coming and asking you the questions. So. So as a survivor of decision fatigue, I've had moments where I realized I wasn't making better decisions. I was making faster ones just to clear my plate. Yep. Go, go do that. Yep. You can do that. Yep. You can do that. Because I just want to get to the next thing and that's a moment to reset. So that for me was a clear like I've gotten much better at realizing when I'm not in the right space. So. And decision fatigue doesn't make you a bad leader. I think sometimes people think like, oh, I'm just exhausted making decisions. I must be a bad leader. That's not true. It just makes you human. Yeah. And in some cases, to me, like, would you make that analogy to kicking the can down the road? Yeah, yeah. Sometimes I say yes now and deal with it later. Yes. Yeah, yeah. So it's delayed. It's not delayed gratification if you remember. It's not. It's bad. Um, systems are what protect humans from burnout. Yes. So when everything is flexible, leadership becomes exhausting. And the difference between authoritarian and authoritative. So there are guardrails, there are standards. They're documented and clarified values. You need to be as a leader, authoritative. You need to be authoritarian but authoritative. This is what it is. That's what it is. Yep, yep. And then that third F is fracture. That just sounds bad, doesn't it? I know because this is where inconsistency quietly breaks trust and creates risk. And I would say that out of all of the FS that we've talked about, this is the most expensive because fracture happens when inconsistency erodes trust. Sure. And then this is what fracture looks like. Employees stop asking for flexibility. They stop giving feedback. They protect themselves instead of the mission. They're worried about themselves. And then culture becomes transactional instead of relational. And so you'd ask from an HR lens what this potentially does. Inconsistency is also where the legal risk lives. Sure. Because uneven application of policies is one of the most common factors in employee disputes. Because you applied this to this person, but you didn't apply the same standard and policy to this person. Great relationships in the workplace. Well, these people were allowed to date. You didn't say anything. Well, because it was the head of sales and the head of marketing. Well, but I want to date this other person. Well, no you can't. I mean, don't do that. Trust the way you say don't do that always cracks me up. Don't do that. Don't do that. It's just don't. We just don't. So trust isn't built on perks or promises. It's built on that predictability. And so people don't need to agree with every rule that you have. They do need to trust, though, that the rules apply evenly. And I think that's something that often as leaders we think like, well, I want every I want consensus. No you don't. You want to be able to make sure that you can move the ball forward for your organization. Consensus does not always mean that everyone agrees. It's okay. You're the consensus. You are the consensus. It's you like you are as a leader. You have to make tough decisions sometimes. Yes, and I don't. I want you to hear me in the context of someone who always wants to be a people pleaser. Okay? There were times when I was being coached by other individuals and saying, you need to remind yourself that you are the supreme leader of your business, not because you're going to be an authoritarian dictator, but because you need to be authoritative in how you make this decision, right? Yes. Now, I know there are some people that would hear that and be like, I am the Supreme leader. But no, we need to talk a little bit more. You need to listen to a couple of other episodes that that comment was not for you. When when someone says that, do you picture yourself with a bunch of medals on your chest like some other, like, dictators? Exactly. If you've got the medals on your. Or you got a scepter and a crown or fancy uniform, you got. No. If that's where you are when you're thinking about that, that comment was not for you. But if you are the person who is like, I just I want everyone to like me. We talked about the nice leader trap. If you're that person, then you need to think about you or the supreme leader of your business. Your business is your baby and you've got to take care of that baby. So the people that are in your organization, your employees are the caretakers. So you've got to make sure that you're giving them the right consistency and the framework to be able to move forward. So let's take the reframe of of consistency and freedom because we've talked about, you know, well I don't want to be completely inflexible. I don't want to do consistency. Doesn't remove flexibility. It really makes it possible. One hundred percent. Yes. And here's here's why it matters. We talk about being clear as to be kind, clear rules, remove fear, clear processes remove politics, and those clear boundaries remove guilt so that when employees know the guardrails, they're not anxious about asking. And when leaders know the framework, they're not drained by deciding. So policy isn't a cage, it's a container. And the container is what allows flexibility without chaos. It's why we have handbooks. It's why we have SOPs, clear mission, vision, and values. It's why we do those things and build that foundation. So I got a little bit more. That's okay. Um. Clear policy. I knew you were gonna like this one. I do. I really like this one because I love when we talked about, you know, the three C's of leadership. I mean, consistency. Yeah. Care. All the things. So this is this this is this is in the three C's of leadership. It is about consistency. So clear policies create boundaries. Boundaries do not kill freedom. We've had this conversation a couple of other episodes too. They create freedom. So how are we consistent? Avoiding friction, fatigue, and failure. There are four steps to avoiding the three F's. All right, I know you're going to talk about more operation stuff, but this is this is how we avoid the three F's. We define what's flexible and what's not. We standardize how flexibility is requested. We communicate decisions transparently, and we apply criteria evenly, even when it's uncomfortable. So when those four things, we get clear rules that lead to calm teams that have confident leaders. So you have to think about like improv comedy. I know that like people think like improv comedy is just absolute chaos. It is organized chaos because there are rules. There are yeses and there are no's. And without rules, it's not improv, it's chaos. But with those rules, it makes it really fun and interesting. And flexibility works the same way. Without consistency, it's not freedom, it's just noise. It's interesting because what it reminds me back to is that consistency. Jimmy Carr was his a comedian. He was talking to someone about something and he said, hard decisions now, make easy decisions later. Yes. And that's that exactly feeds into that. It really does. Yeah. So Josh, how does this lack of consistency impact the actual machine of the business, the workflows, the marketing and the scaling? Ah, yes. The what I like to call the death of repeatability. Yes. Uh, if something is different every time you do it, there's a problem. Uh, we've never done it the same way. No. And I mean, I get like, people are like, well, all buildings are different, correct? But they're all assembled the same way. Um, that so that's the the big piece about that. I mean, you have to have systems that work the same way every time. Here's how you put the screw in the in the, in the joist. Here's how you lay the concrete. Here's how you do the thing starts with the foundation. Exactly. Once you introduce. Well, I'm only going to put one screw in this instead of four. Like I'm supposed to. There's a reason why we have building codes. That's. And well, this one's tough to get to, so I'm only going to put one in here. I mean, what happens with that is you force the team to stop, and then now we've got to rebuild a custom process for one task. Yeah. To me, it's we. I've said this all the time. Once is not a pattern. If you get something that is an outlier from what you normally do, one time is not a pattern. If it's below one time and above the next, that's. Those aren't patterns either. It has to be a pattern of look, we've we've had this come up three times. Okay. That's when you start to look at it. And once again you don't make an exception. You look at do we need to rewrite the process to fit this type of thing. So that way once again those guardrails are there so people know, oh, hey, I can do three or four screws in this thing, not one. Um, but so because the problem is, is if you're making multiple exceptions on projects, you have to go back and look at that. Yeah. Um, and so many people do that. The problem is, is if you don't have if you don't have a process for it. Yeah. You don't know when you've got exceptions. No. Because everything's an exception. Everything's an exception. If you build a building different every single time, you first off, you never learn anything. Second off, you never get any better at it. And third off, you're just, like, winging it the whole time. So. No. Um, the other thing that I found with this is we find, like when you look at, like, project deadlines, um, there's, I worked at one place where deadlines were inflexible or deadlines were flexible until they weren't. Yeah. Um, you you don't know what capacity is first off? So if you're constantly pushing back deadlines like are you over capacity or is it just people are doing things differently? Yeah. Um, if there's rushed to deadlines all the time, you're doing this wrong. Uh, the one I worked at a video company for a short period of time where, I mean, we were working fifty, sixty hours a week. And they're like, just squeeze this in. Yeah. Um, no, it doesn't fit. Yeah. Um, this this is a big thing. This is a twenty hour thing that does not fit in the already sixty hour week that we have. Uh, when I would go to people and be like, what do we want to delay so we can get this done? Oh, nothing. Right. No, just just find a way. No, that's not how this works. If you have processes you can document, you can look at your capacity. Um, if you don't look at your capacity, you have no idea what you're up against. and then you run into problems when like I love your saying PTO shouldn't be panic. Yes. Um, if you are running at one hundred and twenty percent capacity and someone says, hey, gotta take that vacation time, you have no idea what you're looking for. And once again, if you aren't consistent about stuff, you have no idea what capacity is. Yeah, there's an ebb and flow to many businesses in terms of what how much work they can do. Being able to tell your client, yes, we'll get to that next month. Yes. Rather than saying, yeah, yeah, it's good because you have no idea what your capacity is because you have no idea what the process is. It's just get it done. How long does it take. Yes. Mhm. That's that's not an answer. Uh the other big thing is, is you cannot calculate the return on investment when the investment aka time and resources is constantly shifting because of special requirements or moving goalposts. Oh yeah. The look on your face when I said that, and I've seen it so many times, I just do the just add the one thing in. Well, that's like six hours. Is it really that big of a deal? I've sat in meetings where I've had someone look at me and go, is it really that big of a deal? And you're like, yeah, it actually is. Yeah. It's like fourteen man hours and we're already at capacity. Um, so you don't know what that what that's like for me. I know what each podcast costs us to do when special requests are made and someone's like, can you just do the clips? Um, yeah, but that's going to be another charge, right? Yeah, not only that, but here's going to be another couple of days because we are scheduled on a tight schedule in terms of what's going where. Yes, I know when projects are due. I know when other people are expecting your stuff. I want everyone to feel like they are our only customer. They are not. No. Here's your production schedule. Here's when it's coming. And it all starts with could you just like you said. It's it's just it's the, the big operational debt of that, of that flexibility of just I'll just go ahead and do the things and screw the SOPs. We're gonna throw this in here. Or like when the boss comes in, just add this into the project and there's four people working on a project. They tell it to one person. Yeah. No. So first off, time is not free. Your time is not free. Your employees time is not free. Um, every exception creates a debt that the team has to pay back later through cleanup, confusion or rework. Yes, they threw something in the middle of a project and it didn't get done quite right because it didn't fit the process. And now it's not up to your standards. And now it's really expensive because they get to do it twice. Yeah. Yes. Once again, this is a hit for you. And who the hell wants to pay for that? No. As a business owner, I typically don't like to pay for things once. Yes. Um. Buy once, cry once, Spend the time up front saying, do it right. This is what we do. This is how we do it. It's got to be true for both you and your employees. If you tolerate it or you tell your employees to to go outside of the lines, guess what you're going to notice. Your quality's going to start to suffer because they're going to be like, well, we just gotta they're going to make that decision of, what are we going to do? Are we going to do quality or quantity? Yeah. And every time they have to pivot to I don't know about you. Like there's people that talk like I can multitask. I'm like, no you can't. No your brain cannot scientifically proven cannot multitask. And for me, like it takes me a while to wind back up into something. Yes. And you distract me with something and. Oh, gosh. Like the next twenty minutes, I'm useless. Yeah. Who can task switch now? There are studies about, like how people can task switch and the speed within task switching, but you cannot hold two things at the same time. No. And there's there are some people that are very good at it. The example I like to give is an automotive shop. The manager of an automotive shop. He's managing the people. He's working on an estimate. And then the phone rings and he can go like, hey, I'm going to talk on the phone. Okay, great. I'm right back into the estimate. I'm like, where the hell was I? Yeah. Um, it takes me a minute to to kind of figure that out where some people can put it down and pick it back up. I'm not one of those people. I guarantee that you have a mix of that in your employees, don't you don't think everyone can do or the ability to manage several projects at a time. You have some team members who are going to be good at handling one project, or two or three clients at a time, and then you may have some employees that can handle multiple projects or can handle. I mean, like, I know my capacity to project manage is way higher than most people's, but I don't expect people to do the same thing that I do know. And for me, I can do it, but I'm going to do it in chunks. Yeah, I can chunk this, I can chunk that, and I can chunk that. But I've got it tracked someplace and once again, it all fits into a process. So I know, hey, I need to have this chunk of this project done by this date. Great. I'll work on this to get it up to date. And then I can go work on the other one to get it up to date, and then I can go work on the other one to do that. But once again, I can see and it's all listed out. It's not just I'm going to float around and work on whatever I feel, whatever tickles my fancy. That's exactly. Well, I think a great like visual example would be kind of like an orchestra. So there are some people that can play one instrument. There's some people that can play two or three instruments. Some people are built for percussion and they can move in different directions. And then there's the person that conducts the symphony, and they're able to see all of it and move all of it in the direction that it needs to be. And I think that you have to look at your employees in some ways as like, you know, how many things can they handle? Because if they're just a piccolo player, but they're like the best piccolo player, that's great. Sometimes you just need a piccolo player, other times you need someone who can. Don't give them a tuba. Yes. Don't give them a tuba. Or if they play, they play the viola and the violin, and they can play like maybe they're good at some things, but they're not good at all of them. But they're, they're kind of a jack of some of some of the trades, not all of them. But like with percussion, a lot of times you have people that can play a whole bunch of different types of things timpani, woodblock drums, all of them. Yeah. Yeah. And then you get your conductor who's like, okay, we're going to put this together and put this together. So look at it that way too, as you're assembling things, you know, knowing what your team is capable of is really important. Yeah, I like that. The other thing that I see, too, is when you ask people to switch, in so many cases, you end up with that burnout. Yeah. Um, once again, you keep throwing tasks on top of tasks. Um, just handle this. And once again, it doesn't go in the task system. No. Um, done. Um, the other thing is, too, is like, to me, consistency allows you to market things correctly. Yeah. It does. Um, McDonald's, they've always said they do not have the best tasting burger in the world. No, they they but once again, they always used to have the best operations. You know Exactly what you were getting in every single location. It didn't matter. The same. You go, here you go, California. You go Maine. Florida. Doesn't matter where you're at, you are getting the same exact product, delivered the same exact way, the same exact time. And those employees are able to make the decisions within those parameters to allow them to do that. Yeah. Um, the other thing is too, is like McDonald's is a big, big proof that great operations allow people who aren't necessarily invested to produce repeatable global product. I don't know, many like fast food workers typically. I mean, let's face it, they're typically there for a short term job. They're they're not like there are some that make great careers out of it. Yeah, a majority of them are there for short term jobs. Yeah. And but McDonald's has operationalized things well enough that even those people can come in and execute on a high level and create that consistency. You cannot do that with flexibility. No, no, because what happens when the top bun is on the bottom and the bottom bun is and there's. I mean, I still remember the McDonald's movie. Two pickles. Every burger gets two pickles. Um. Not one. No. Two. Two. It's that exact thing. When your internal operations are consistent, people know what to expect. Yes. That predictability, you can market. Uh, if I know every single time I go into McDonald's, I know what I'm going to get. Now, I'm not a big McDonald's fan, but I still know what I'm going to get when I'm going to go there. I know exactly what's going to happen there. Um, the other piece to that is between seven and fifteen times is how many times people need to see and or hear your stuff in order to remember it. If you're inconsistent with that message. People have no idea that they've heard you seven other times or fifteen other times. If you say one thing one time and something completely different the next time. No. It's why slogans are so common. Yes, because they can do their commercial. They can talk about let's let's use a car dealership. They can talk. Hey, we've got this kind of car on sale this month, but then they've got their slogan, and that is the thing that triggers that. Oh, this is recognizable. I have heard this fourteen times before. Next time I'm going to go buy the car. Yes. The last thing that I want to talk about real quickly is scaling. Yeah. Um, if you've built your business on one offs, if your processes are inconsistent, you are essentially building a house on a bad foundation. Um, everyone wants to scale their business. Everyone wants to build their business. It may look fine. You're like, hey, look. Look at this brick foundation that I have. And then you realize, oh, it's built on a swamp. And I didn't use any mortar between the joints and all this other stuff. As soon as you start to put any weight on, that foundation is gone, and it doesn't take much before the whole thing starts to collapse. I don't know about you, but I have actually helped rebuild a footer wall in a house before. Oh wow. It's much easier to do it before the house is on top of it. Oh, I would think so. I would think so. So yeah, there is my analogy for the day. Build the foundation. Right. And then as you scale you're going to need to change. And I tell you what you're going to need to put additions onto that basement and those other things. But as you scale you have the ability to do that. Once again, it's that repeatability. And the other thing is too, is as you invite new people in, they're gonna it's going to be the same thing. What to expect. Because I guarantee like whenever you hire someone, you're like, this is the most wonderful person ever. That's exactly why I hired them. They're amazing. They're awesome because you don't know how much of a pain in the ass they are yet it's fair. Everyone's on their best behavior when they're getting hired. Oh my gosh. Yes. And if you're mortified, then just don't hire them. Right? And you think the world of them because they they they're always special. They have no flaws. It's like the first date. One hundred percent. You come, they come walking through the door. You're hot. Champagne rains down from the heavens. Angels are singing. The light seems to. The lighting seems to be amazing on them. It's like there's an Instagram filter in front of them. Yeah. Um, the problem is, is if you don't have these operations in place, when that person comes walking through the door, you're automatically going to treat them different. Yeah. Um, suddenly you've set them up with a different expectation six months later when they've disappointed you three times, and now you treat them the same as the rest of their employees, they're like, boy, they really turned. Yeah. Um, it it was you. and you are the problem. That being said, how often does inconsistency come down to being, you know, the cool boss? Do you like how I said that? Yeah. That's nice. And you're looking down. But did you see the jacket, pop? Nice job. That's a nice job. Because, you know, I'm. You're the cool boss. Yeah. Yeah, I would say, you know. No, um, teams don't need a cool boss. They need a consistent one. Oh, they really do. I mean, leaders say yes often because they want to be liked, but. But being liked doesn't build trust. Clarity does. It's so funny, the leaders that I can think back that I liked the most were the ones where I would walk in and be like, hey, can we do this? And they'd be like, nope. They'd be like, oh, well, I see this. And they're like, um, still no, still no. And here's why. Exactly. I mean, if they just were able to say, nope, we can't do that or whatever. I had no problem with that when they'd be like, well, let's see what we can do with this. And nope. Yeah, yes or no. It's yes or no or you know, that's a great idea. Tell me how you're going to accomplish it. And then you start asking questions. I mean, if you really want to like, train your people to think through processes, not just come up with an idea, but actually help solve the implementation piece as a leader. Ask them clarifying questions. Say yes or no, or say no. Here's why or no. But I want you to tell me why. Why you think I'm telling you now. It's like, that's those spaces where it can be really good. Yeah. You have to also know when everything's a yes. No one knows what actually matters. One hundred percent. Yeah. Yeah. How do you like. I like this topic. Um, documenting the flexibility. Oh, yeah. Like, as an HR person, like, I mean, you want to document everything we do. Um, we love it. Insurance, too. We love all the forms, all the forms, all the signatures. I mean, just the sheer filing that you guys have to do. I know, thank God for the cloud. Um, so you want, like, how to build a flexibility policy? It's actually consistent. Yeah. I mean, because, look, we need to adapt. Yeah. Business is changing if you're still doing the same thing that you were in nineteen sixty eight, you probably have some problems now. Yeah. Um, there's this new thing called the internet. You may want to check it out. Check it out. Anything called AI, you might want to check it out. You might want a policy about it. So just saying you might I would say, you know, flexibility only works when it is documented. Yeah. Because if people don't know how to ask who decides or what the criteria are, I mean, it's already broken. Yep. So simple policy turns flexibility from favoritism into fairness. And to me, it's having a. Something that I've seen before that was effective was if you need flexibility with something, it needs to go through two people. Yeah. Um, because it shouldn't be. Just like we've all had bad days where we're just, like, just do it and get the hell out of my office. Yes. Um, if it has to go through two people, you are far less likely to have the. Just do it and get the hell out of my office syndrome. Yeah. Um, that way, it really brings that together and makes sure that there's accountability to it. You can document it that way. Um, the other thing that I see all the time is clients that break processes. Yes. And they're like, well, just do it this way. This would be so much easier. Mhm. Um, I'm dealing with one right now. I was about to say dealing with one right now. The look on your face said this hits close to home. I to me it's so funny because that is when stuff starts to go sideways. It is that the top thing for me is, is you know what you do. Yes. Do it. Don't let the client tell you how to do it. Take their feedback. Take their input. But do the thing. We're having this conversation right now because we have a client who we're walking through on an audit, and they're like, well, we think you can do it in half the time. And we're like, we think you're taking a gamble here because we're pretty confident we can't. They're like, well, how about we we do this and then we'll pay you even more if it doesn't work. And I was like, well, that's fine because it's not going to work because I already know what we do takes three months. You want to do it in one and you like to talk a lot. So you're going to have a lot of conversations and it's probably going to cost a lot more because it's going to take a lot longer. And you know what? This is one of those where I'm like, you're inflexibility is going to cost you, but if you're willing to take that risk, fine. Just know this is not our standard work product. I think especially when you've got customers that want to make an exception and you are willing to make an exception because you've had a relationship for a long time and they are a good client, but occasionally they just don't want to listen to you. It happens. Um, it does, it does because I think I can do this better. I'm like, you are not an HR expert. You do something else. But that's okay. We'll let you be an expert for now. It might be expensive. Um, it's really important that you walk through and you document that with them too and say, you know, we want to be flexible. Let's see if we can do it, but we're not going to to. There is a line in where our integrity and our ability to deliver good work product is. And if we get to that line, we're going to tell you it's like it's interesting in our because we deliver different things. Um, we set ours up that if someone says, hey, we'd like to do this, we will set it up as a different product. Correct. And then that way we can be flexible to them. Yes. But when it's setting up that different product, it's not just, oh, it's this thing with a tweak. it is a different product. And then I go through and say, okay, what's the cost on this? What is going to be their their cost. Exactly. Because I realize this is outside of what we normally do. And we're going to we're changing something here. So once again it is a different product. It is not going to have the same price. Yes. And having the flexibility in your scope of work. So we have flexibility in this project. Sure. We've given them the recommendation. They've said we'd really like to do it this way. And we're like, you know what? We can customize this and we can do it this way. Here is where we still have the contract. We still have. We still are consistent in these are the regulations and these are the things we have to do. So there's still a scope of work that gets signed. There's still a master service agreement which has when it doesn't work the right way. This is what's going to happen. If all goes well, this is what's going to happen. Here's where the potential is for an overrun. Here's how we're going to have conversations about it. So we are still consistent in our process even though we are being flexible potentially in how we are delivering the project. So there's still it's yes. So it saves you from heartburn. Some of it you're still gonna have some of it. But it's about to say it's less says the woman that had a childhood ulcer. Yeah. It's all good. It's fine. What are some key takeaways from this week to me? One is audit the exceptions, go back, look at the last month and be like, how many times did I take a step out? Um, more than twice. You don't have rules? Yeah, I'd say you need to name the non-negotiables before you talk about flexibility. You have to be crystal clear about what isn't flexible because people need to know those guardrails. So if they know the guardrails, core hours, deadlines, client commitments, they experience freedom and not fear. Yeah. Oh, I love that. Especially like the core hours and deadlines. Yeah. This is it. Get it done before this. Exactly. All I care. Yes, I standardize the ask. Um, when people are going to request flexibility in something, make sure that there is a a way that it's not just someone poking their head in someone's office going, hey, dude, can I do this? Yeah. Yeah. Standardizing I like I just saw the ulcer, like, start to. I just pinged for a second. I'd say what you need to do, too is review flexibility. Like a system, not a favor. So you're setting that quarterly rhythm to review flexibility. And is it actually working? Are they exceptions increasing. Are managers burning out. You treat flexibility as a system. You refine not a perk you're handing out. Ooh I like that. Yeah. Remember flexibility is consistency. Yeah. It's not. Yeah. Go ahead and take that extra PTO day. Um, I told four other people they couldn't have Monday off, but you can. Exactly. No, don't do that. Last but not least, clear is kind. Have we ever talked about that? Just a few times. That's my favorite sayings. To be clear is to be kind. Oh, one hundred percent is. And it's like to me it's not kicking the can down the road. Mhm. I work from anywhere and core hours. What is harder to keep consistent work from anywhere is harder because it requires extreme clarity. Without clear deliverables and communication norms, it can quickly turn into inequity which can really it can wreak havoc on your team. Core hours are rhythm and rhythm builds trust. So I think it's much easier for core hours as opposed to work from anywhere. I agree with that. To me it's it's tough to not have. Can I, can I send them a message now or can't I. Um what is this a good time? Is this not a good time? Ah, yeah. No. Totally makes sense. Um, should you ever make an exception for the star employee? I believe we kind of covered this one a couple of episodes ago, but it's good to revisit it is, and I would say only if you're willing to apply the same criteria to everyone else. So yeah, you can make the exception, but you've got to be willing to give it to everyone. If the exception can't be explained transparently. You're trading short term performance for long term trust. There are times where you have to make exceptions, or you can make exceptions like that's that's part of the flexibility of what we are as organizations. But you have to be able to defend it, and you have to be able to be willing to say, well, no, I'm not going to give you that. And here's why. There have to be clear criterion. You have to be willing to put your hand on the anvil and pass out sledgehammers. Yes you do. Yeah. That's not fun. Um, Josh, what's the one tool that keeps a team consistent without feeling robotic? It's interesting because to me it is the it's twofold in that it is the like we use asana for our for planning and tasks. People know what they are to get done and they just know. Get it done. Yeah. Um, if they have some, if they need to do it a different way, they have full freedom and autonomy to do that differently. Yeah. They just know that there's the end result and we just got to get there. So to me, it's that it's that clear goalpost. Yeah. That's what makes it so people have the freedom. Yes. Because they know I have to get there. You can run a million different ways to get there. Yep. But you got to get there. Bus, train, plane, car, bicycle, little red wagon. Take whatever you want. Yeah. Just get there on time. That's all I care. That being said, we're going to have another episode next week because, you know, that's consistent. Yes it is. We love consistency. I guess what I'm having for breakfast tomorrow morning are four eggs. You got it, baby. That being said, business podcast.com. Go listen to other podcasts. Visit us there. Leave comments. Leave us messages. Um, you probably leave Chrissy messages there. Um, probably a better idea. I like messages, she does, she does. That being said, next week is the return on investment of culture, because that's one of those things where you, like, feel like, hey, I'm making people feel good and what the hell am I getting from it? Uh, we're going to talk about that because there is a big return on investment. With that. As always, do me a favor. Take care of yourself. If you can take care of someone else too. We will see you very, very soon.