The power of consistency

Consistency is the room where greatness is conceived, shaped and birthed. Nothing of lasting significance is ever accomplished without consistency. Hence, as observed by Tony Robbins, an American businessman, it is not what we do once in a while that shapes our lives. It is what we do on a consistent basis. Every great athlete knows this. So does every outstanding artist, musician, engineer, footballer and entrepreneur. The more consistent a person is at executing a task, the more proficient he becomes at it. Consistency results in momentum which builds a powerful force in favour of the consistent.

Usually, failure is a consequence of consistent inconsistency. Aristotle said a person becomes what he repeatedly does, adding that excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit. By inference, those who do not repeatedly do anything become nothing. This is simply because their inconsistence does not allow them to build impetus in a particular direction. The tide is never in their favour because each time they go off course only to come back later, they lose ground and are unable to keep the force. Invariably, they become a shadow of what they could have been.

Although a great footballer by every standard, David Beckham excelled in playing free kicks as well as corner kicks. He was so good in these two areas that whenever his team had to play either of the two, all eyes would rivet on him. But Beckham did not just become a master of these kicks because he played football. Right from his early years, he had spent hours daily practicing and perfecting his acts.  According to him, he and his dad would sometimes be out on the field practicing “until it was so dark that we could hardly see each other. Mum would be worried because it would be 11 o’clock at night and we still weren’t home.” This was not an occasional thing, it was a consistent thing. It is therefore not surprising that Beckham turned out to be one of the best free kick players the world has ever known.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was said to have practiced playing keyboard and violin for upward of 12 hours daily without fail. Despite his widely acknowledged talents in music, he was committed to consistent practice. It was this that made the whole world his stage.

Consistency works for organisations as well. In his classic, Good to Great, Professor Jim Collins writes about the flywheel effect.

Collins writes, “Picture a huge, heavy flywheel—a massive metal disk mounted horizontally on an axle, about 30 feet in diameter, 2 feet thick, and weighing about 5,000 pounds. Now imagine that your task is to get the flywheel rotating on the axle as fast and long as possible.

“Pushing with great effort, you get the flywheel to inch forward, moving almost imperceptibly at first. You keep pushing and, after two or three hours of persistent effort, you get the flywheel to complete one entire turn.

“You keep pushing, and the flywheel begins to move a bit faster, and with continued great effort, you move it around a second rotation. You keep pushing in a consistent direction.  Three turns … four … five … six … the flywheel builds up speed … seven … eight … you keep pushing … nine … ten … it builds momentum … eleven … twelve … moving faster with each turn … twenty … thirty … fifty … a hundred.

“Then, at some point—breakthrough!  The momentum of the thing kicks in your favor, hurling the flywheel forward, turn after turn … whoosh! … its own heavy weight working for you. You’re pushing no harder than during the first rotation, but the flywheel goes faster and faster.  Each turn of the flywheel builds upon work done earlier, compounding your investment of effort. A thousand times faster, then ten thousand, then a hundred thousand. The huge heavy disk flies forward, with almost unstoppable momentum.

“…There was no single defining action, no grand program, no one killer innovation, no solitary lucky break, no wrenching revolution. Good to great comes about by a cumulative process—step by step, action by action, decision by decision, turn by turn of the flywheel—that adds up to sustained and spectacular results.”

The import of this is that the secret of great organizations is their consistency. They keep doing what they are known for and keep getting better at it. This is what results in their breakthrough.

 

Pronovost’s prognosis

In 2003, Dr Peter Pronovost carried out a study of hospitals and health organizations in Michigan, United States of America, and found out that avoidable deaths were occurring among intensive care unit patients as a result of hospital-acquired infections. He was able to link this development to the non-observance of certain procedures by surgeons and other hospital staff while inserting central venous catheter on patients. According to Pronovost, “central venous catheter, or line, is used for medications, blood, fluids or nutrition and can stay in for days or weeks. But bacteria can grow in the lines and spread a type of infection to the bloodstream, which causes death in one out of five patients who contract it.”

So, he came up with a checklist to be used by doctors with a view to reducing the risk of infection when installing a central venous catheter in patients. The checklist goes thus: Doctors are supposed to (1) wash their hands with soap, (2) clean the patient’s skin with chlorhexidine antiseptic, (3) put sterile drapes over the entire patient, (4) wear a sterile mask, hat, gown, and gloves, and (5) put a sterile dressing over the catheter site once the line is in.

Although nothing in the checklist was new and the procedure had been taught in medical schools for decades, the result of adhering to it was mindboggling. According to a report published in the December 2006 edition of the New England Journal of Medicine, in the first three months of the practice, the infection rate in Michigan’s ICUs decreased by 66 per cent. In the first 18 months, it was estimated that about 1500 lives and $100 million were saved. These results were sustained for almost four years.

What made the difference? It was not an earth-shaking discovery or the deployment of a cutting edge technology. It was just the consistency of medical practitioners in following a seemingly simple procedure.

 

Pathway to consistency

The first step to consistency is identifying the task or course. Before embarking on the journey of consistency, an individual must be clear-headed about what it is that he wants to do. Similarly, an organization must decide the path it wants to toe. This is what is built on through the consistent application of effort. As this is done, the individual or the organization gets better at the task. It is the precursor for success.

 

Consistency is a proof of conviction

When the going gets tough, the tough get going, so goes the saying. However, the stimulus for the tough to get going when it is unpopular or unattractive so to do is their conviction. Hence, success is not for the unconvinced or the uncommitted; it is for those willing to stake their all for it. The consistent do uncommon things, hence the uncommon results they record.

 

Lack of priority breeds inconsistency

Inconsistency often arises from lack of priority. Stephen Covey in his book, The 7 Habits of Highly Successful People, counsels that first things must be put first. He adds that the key to achieving this is not to prioritise what’s on one’s schedule but to schedule one’s priorities. To be consistent, you have to decide what is important to you and do it irrespective of the challenges or difficulties you may encounter. People fail to be consistent in doing a thing when they lose cognizance of its importance.

 

How to develop consistency

A number of steps can be taken to become consistent. Here are a few of them.

 

Start with why

Many organizations and individuals are unable to weather the storm when the situation goes awry because they never started with why. One of the first questions to answer before embarking on any activity is the why question. It is not a question to answer when the ship is already sailing, it is a question to answer before the ship goes off shore. Without a convincing why, the temptation to go back will always be high, especially during tough times. Imagine Collins’ flywheel. Why will anyone be pushing a dead weight flywheel? Without a compelling why, after a few attempts that do not produce the expected result, discouragement will set in and the mission may be abandoned. So, it is best to start by answering the question of the essence of the exercise.

 

Imbibe discipline

John Maxwell says no one can avoid either of two pains; the pain of discipline or the pain of regret. While both are painful, one is milder than the other. The pain of discipline produces tangible and pleasant fruits. But the outcome of pains of regret is distasteful. Those who are inconsistent are priming themselves for the pain of regret because later they would wish they had been consistent when they see the result of others’ consistency.

 

Don’t just love what you do, do what you love

People are often counseled to love what they do. While the counsel is not out of place, it is always better to do what is loved. That is what fuels passion. Passion is a matter of the heart. So is love. Love that is natural lasts the distance, not so for that which is forced. It requires more effort to love what is done out of necessity than what is loved naturally. When an organization is forced to love something, sticking to it when it is not convenient becomes herculean. But people are willing to defend what they love from their hearts irrespective of the circumstances and the situation.

Focus on the end, not the process

The temptation to abandon a cause is always high when the focus is on what is happening at the moment rather than what lies ahead on the accomplishment of the task. The road to accomplishing any outstanding feat is not paved with gold; the road is usually very rough and dispiriting but the motivation to trudge on comes from knowing that the reward of success outstrips the pains of the momentary hurdle.