“A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson
Given the sloppiness of leadership and resultant lack of accountability on display this week,1 2 it’s a good time to consider why accountability matters and what the connection is to consistency.
“We’ve always done it that way.”
How often have you heard this knee-jerk phrase uttered in a business setting?
It’s typically uttered when someone doesn’t like following a set way of doing things — when a process is mindlessly followed and someone is trying to introduce something new: a new technology, new process, or new way of thinking.
“We’ve always done it that way” is the business equivalent of a parent uttering “Because I said so.”
There may be very good reasons for doing something consistently over time jus…
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