How You Do Anything is How You Do Everything

“Being consistent is a high bar for all of us.”

— Ronn Lehmann

A few years back, I collaborated with Terrie Ten Eyck of Intellectual Architects. One of the things she often said was “How you do anything is how you do everything.”

I have come to see the wisdom of her words. It’s difficult for me to believe that a person can be one way in one situation, and a completely different way in another…at least, consistently. How many politicians have we seen make problematic decisions in their personal life, and then assure us they can be trusted to make good decisions as public servants?

To take a historical example, it became clear to the American public that if Nixon could screw around with the Constitution to protect his presidency, he couldn’t be trusted to put their interests before his own in anything else.

And one closer-to-home example that occurred in my own backyard. I had tree branches that were coming close to pushing down on the power line coming to my house. After a call to my electricity provider, I was informed that while they would take care of branches on the main line, any branches that affected the line from the pole to my house would be my responsibility. However, they would come out and drop the power to the line while a tree trimmer was working.

So, I contacted some tree services, and each sent a representative out to give me an estimate. The first one was a nice guy who seemed to know what he was doing. But when I mentioned that I would be contacting the power company to drop the line, he said. “You don’t need to do that. We work around live power lines all the time.”

That gave me pause, for three reasons. First, I work with a lot of companies to help them improve their safety efforts through their culture and people. As a result, I am pretty steeped in the notion that every hazard should be controlled.

Second, about 15 years ago a tree trimmer died in my neighbor’s yard after coming into contact with a power line. The image of him hanging lifeless from his harness still haunts me.

And third I recalled Terrie’s words. If this guy is willing to cut corners on safety, could I trust him to do a good job? To my way of thinking, safety, and quality go hand-in-hand. If he wasn’t willing to work safely, I was betting he wouldn’t do a quality job, either.

The next guy actually brought up the need to contact the power company to drop the line. He also gave me a copy of his liability insurance policy and a few references. Right there I knew he was a professional in how he ran his business and how he sold his services. I had confidence that the work he did would be equally professional. And I was right.

Admittedly, being consistent is a high bar for all of us. It’s not so much that we aren’t always perfect; we’re humans, after all. What I’m suggesting is that we all get better at recognizing our inconsistencies, and determining how we want to show up…all the time.

Ronn Lehmann advises organizations and leaders on the human factors that determine their culture. Lehmann developed the Cultural Audit Process, which is designed to provide an outside perspective of an organization’s culture: what’s important, what’s rewarded and punished, what the rules are, and how people “show up.” 

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