Every leader has had this moment. A good agent comes to you, frustrated. The rule feels unfair. The system doesn't fit their situation. And you can feel the pull to bend, just a little, to keep them happy.
Don't.
If standards move, people don't. And if the standard doesn't move, people do.
When you change the rules to keep someone comfortable, you don't create loyalty. You create politics. Everyone on your team learns that the standard is negotiable if you push hard enough. And the people who were already meeting it start wondering why they bother.
When the standard holds, people move. They either rise up to meet it, or they move out of the organization. Both are good outcomes.
A standard is an immovable object
I think about standards differently than most leaders do. A standard isn't a goal or a hope. It's an immovable object. It doesn't care how long you've been here, how much you produced last year, or how good your excuse is.
Whether someone has been with me for five years or five days, the conversation is the same.
That's hard for a lot of leaders, because they want to be liked. But you've got to quit trying to be liked and start being respected. If everyone likes you, it's usually because you're not holding anyone to anything.
Let the system make the decision
Here's how this works in practice on our team. Every new agent goes through onboarding with me personally. I walk them through our values, our systems, and exactly what we expect. Then I ask their permission to hold them accountable to it.
The standard is simple: 20 connects a day. If you miss it, you get written up on a performance improvement plan, and I remind you that we covered this on day one. Miss again and you get a second write-up. Miss a third time inside 30 days and we part ways.
No emotion. No drama. The system and the process make the decision for me.
In one six-month stretch, that process let 21 people go. I didn't have to fire anyone. My leadership and my standards did it for us. People self-select.
That's why I say my onboarding is really for offboarding. Clarity up front creates the filter.
Hold yourself first
Here's the part most leaders skip. You can't hold others to a standard you don't hold yourself to.
If you accept your own excuses (the kids, the calendar, feeling overwhelmed), your agents will out-script you every time. They'll hand you the same excuses, and you'll have no ground to stand on.
If your words don't have impact, it's simply because your actions are not backing them up.
People don't remember what you say. Think about your parents. You don't remember most of the dinner conversations. You remember how they behaved. Your team is the same. They're watching what you do, not what you put on the slide deck.
The takeaway
What you tolerate speaks louder than the culture you preach. Losers treat standards like punishment. Winners treat standards like wings.
Set the standard. Live it first. Then don't move it.
This post is adapted from Episode 27 of the Built for More podcast, "Culture, Standards, and Alignment." Listen to the full episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or YouTube.