Develop the Discipline to Get Things Done - Step 4

In life, all the rewards go to those who actually get things done. They go to those who have the discipline to do what they have set out to do. The rewards go to you.

Decide right now, what it is that you want, and what behaviors will give it to you.

Once you have decided what needs to be done, there are five steps to developing the discipline needed to do it. Development and practice make perfect in most everything we do. Developing good discipline habits is no exception to this rule.

Step 4: Development
Discipline rarely if ever shows up by accident. It is the result of careful development and practice. And that practice focuses on five key words:

ClaritynSimplicitynConsistencynIncrementality
Relevance

To put it simply, discipline within organizations is developed by making sure that expectations and standards are clear, by keeping systems and procedures as simple as possible, by maintaining absolute consistency in implementation, through taking incremental steps that implement one new requirement at a time, and by ensuring that people within the organization understand the relevance and importance of consistent performance based on pre-established standards.

Discipline can only be achieved if people know what is expected. If expectations are ambiguous or people are unclear about what is required, it simply will not happen.

If the behaviors and procedures are too complicated, they will not be effectively implemented. People will see them as a burden and find ways to avoid having to do them.

If discipline is a flavor of the month, if meetings happen only when it’s convenient, if reports are allowed to slide, then discipline is on the downward, slippery slope to mediocrity. Consistency is the hallmark of discipline.

Discipline does not usually happen all at once. It is the product of incremental development of good habits, usually one at a time. Doing things one at a time allows the degree of focus necessary for disciplined implementation to become a habit.

And finally, discipline can only occur where people see the relevance and importance of what they are doing. “Why” we are doing it needs to be made crystal clear or people will not follow through consistently over time. Then again, if there isn’t a “Why,” then it probably doesn’t matter one way or the other anyway!

Start thinking now about how you can get more clarity, how you can make procedures and required actions simpler for people to understand, where you and your organization need to be more consistent, where should you start, and how you can help people to understand the relevance and importance of doing that which we have decided in advance that we will do.