Discipline as a competitive advantage

21 May

19 May

Stop looking for ‘talent’.

Too often we see ‘talent’ when in actual fact we are simply witnessing discipline executed over a longer timeframe than the immediate benchmarks.

Only it’s not talent.

It’s discipline.

And discipline is a skill.

And skills can be taught.

Here’s the how businesses can leverage the skill of discipline for competitive advantage

1. You’re dealing with humans. It’s humans all the way down.

For all our talk of AI production, organisation-wide wellbeing initiatives, productivity metrics, strategic realignments - pick your poison. In the end, it’s all just humans.

Humans are creatures of habit. We thrive on it - all for the simple reason that our brains are uncertainty reducing machines. Whenever possible it wants to automate and reduce, downshifting the cognitive and energetic load for any given task.

Automating a task, allocating it into a routine is the vehicle for turning the difficult into the easy.

More importantly, if the brain can offload a process to a lower order it leaves it with greater bandwidth to focus on the important stuff. Survival, dopamine, procreation. You know - human stuff. And yes it probably leaves some bandwidth for the stuff your boss wants you to do as well.

Think of it like gardening - only with the mushy gray matter floating around between your ears - scientists call it ‘synaptic pruning’. We clear off dead pathways and promote more efficient ones. All in the pursuit of maximum speed and efficiency.

But, there is an inherent flaw in this process - your brain desperately wants to reduce disorder and offload cognitive burden - and it will sometimes do that regardless of the cost. Even if that cost is nonsensical. That’s where we must bridge the gap between autonomic and conscious state and proactively manage the costs - make that evaluation of cost/benefit and modify behaviours accordingly.

So step one - realise that every action must be predicated on the fact that you are dealing with humans. And whilst they can be irrational, they are - from a biological standpoint - an open book.

You should leverage that fact.

2. The No. 1 requested topic for keynotes last year was motivation - it should have been Discipline.

Why motivation?

Simple - motivation is sexy. It sells. It sounds and feels damn good. Consultants can sell the sizzle and at face value it looks worth it.

Motivation is great at delivering the initial nudge - so post keynote or conference, the team is vibing, it’s all hoo-rah and kumbaya.

And then it’s not.

And you realise that you’re still dealing with humans - except that you ‘ve been treating them like rechargeable batteries - and they’re flat again. So you jump on the motivation merry go round again - and the team is vibing. And then they’re not.

You see the problem.

Stop treating your team like they’re batteries.

Teach them to be their own generators instead.

Motivation is extrinsic - we keep needing a top up. It’s ephemeral and subjective - what motivates you may be a complete waste of time and resources when it comes to motivating me.

Most importantly - and here’s the kicker for all you operational types and gantt chart fanboys - motivation does not provide a framework to build from.

It’s just a feeling.

Motivation makes you feel like you want to be successful. As humans we get a lovely little dopamine kick from simply talking about the thing - without actually doing the thing. And that’s a problem - because we feel and sound all raa-raa because we are getting a nice little dopamine surge just by talking about being productive or doing the thing. But we still haven’t done the thing.

Jung once said ‘beware the unearned wisdom’

I’d argue that the modern day version of that truth is this, ‘beware the unearned dopamine’

Motivation is for movies, it’s the heroic act or rousing half time speech.

But life is not a Hollywood movie.

We operate in the real world. And the real world rewards skills, not feelings

“The professional conducts his business in the real world. The field is only level in heaven”
- Pressfield

3. So why Discipline?

What the hell do I mean by the term ‘discipline’?

For me it is this;

‘Discipline is the ability to maintain conscious sovereignty over your behavior and actions’

Hate to break it to you but even with 8 billion people on the planet - much of life is a single player game. Because the drivers of your behaviour are mostly in your head - and that narrative is a single player space. Ready player one.

So nice definition, but what does that actually look like in the ‘real world’?

For the individual :

Discipline manifests as confidence (not mindless swagger, that's confidence without competence aka delusion), impulse control, a degree of patience that seems biblical and a tendency towards anti-fragility. You see failure as a procedural step, not a graphic derailment.

In Business;

True discipline in the business world will manifest as the solution to the talent vs consistency equation.

Success is not predicated on talent.

And a ‘lack of talent’ is often touted as an excuse - it’s not us, it’s a lack of talent.

Discipline (or consistency) - is a binary deliverable. You did or you didn’t. That’s not an excuse, it’s a performance issue.

So when we look at discipline in a business context and reframe it as ‘consistency’ we suddenly have a framework that we can track, measure, influence and attach deliverables to.

“Repetition can be boring and tedious, which is why so few people ever master anything”
- Pressfield.

Discipline works well with long term goals - long runways, complex deliverables, bumps, setbacks and curveballs are relegated to part of the process and fall into that lower order of mental bandwidth stealers.

We can measure patterns when the lexicon is discipline.

How do you measure patterns of motivation? What common language can you use? How do you build a framework that you can leverage when you’re working with a material as ephemeral as an individual's feelings?

Discipline is also a bulwark against abstraction. Which in modern society effectively makes it a superpower. Entire industries and unimaginable wealth has been created around keeping us distracted. Ensuring abstraction from the self - because the opposite is uncomfortable. For some people it’s terrifying.

When you can maintain sovereignty and agency over what you should and need to do - you are no longer shackled by the tools of distraction.

You return to the behaviour and actions that exist based on your core belief that what you want to achieve is important.

Discipline inherently produces a bias for action. Disciplined people just do.

That in and of itself is almost an unfair advantage of ridiculous proportions

That bias for action delivers a darwinian style reductionism. When you take action, you take the unknown and make it known. It brings theory and reality into violent collision and you get immediate feedback.

You discover what works and what doesn't. That means you eliminate poor pathways and can focus on successful ones. That sounds like a learning machine to me.

That regular meeting with reality, which will inevitably bring with it a dose of failure and setback - allows you to simultaneously do two things.

The first is it allows a recalibration.

When you become comfortable with knockbacks and setbacks and ‘failures’ as part of the process you recalibrate what you believe a true ‘failure’ is. Your definition of ‘hard’ is reset.

Secondly it serves you a regular does of humility. The real world is like that, even to the best.

When you take a person who is humble, displays a consistency of output, is a learning machine that doesn’t require constant recharging….well that sounds like the foundation of a high performing team to me.

And if you think I’m advocating the production on Terminator style automatons then you’ve missed the entire point.

Back to point 1 (again) - it’s humans all the way down.

Do you think a person who has developed the skill to take difficulty in their stride, to feel that they have conscious control over their own impulses and behaviour, can understand and ultimately reap the rewards of long term thinking - do you think that is a happier person?

4. So how do I get some of this discipline stuff?

As an individual;

This is a choice, a singular act of will that must be repeated. Ad infinitum.

Understand that you will not go from zero to Goggins in a day.

Start with a clarity of why - what do you truly want and what behaviours are supporting or undermining that.

Map out the behaviours, small and incremental.

Reframe your thoughts around what you do - this is who we are now.

For example, we are one of those people that prioritizes sleep.

Because I’m tired of getting home tired and not be able to play with my kids,

So the decision of another hour of netflix or insta before bed versus being a better parent is simple.

This is who we are now and our behaviours reflect that.

Have clarity around what is important, why it is important and then become the person who acts in accordance with those goals.

Small victories, amassed in the minutes, hours, days and weeks.

“That’s how you build a mountain, one layer of paint at a time”
- Rogan

As a business;

Discipline comes from a belief that what we are working towards is important, valuable, necessary,.

If you cannot communicate effectively and with clarity - what it is that you as an organisation are trying to achieve then don’t expect people to align and execute accordingly. That does’t mean that everyone will chant your name and rally around the campfire.

Even with clarity and communication you may still have some attrition along the way. That’s a good thing - for the business and the individual.

And again - don't fall into the motivational speaker trap. This clarity of purpose shouldn’t be composed of inspirational fluff. If you’re producing some word salad nonsense about how the organization values loyalty and honesty and integrity and passion…..that sounds great but who the hell doesn’t value those things.

That’s not clear and it communicates nothing at all about intention and provides no guidance for behaviour.

Try this on for size, Johnson and Johnson’s Credo Value statement boils down to, ‘Customers first, shareholder last’. That’s clarity.

Brian Armstrong's famous/infamous Medium memo to employees of Coinbase in Sept 2020 - we are an apolitical mission focussed company, and if that’s not you here’s a generous package to help you on your way. Like it or not, that was clarity.

It’s humans.

Be clear to them about what it is we are trying to achieve and why that matters.

Celebrate and foster consistency of performance - understanding that performance is a wave not a straight line. There are peaks and troughs and we accept that.

Recognise that disciplined players will not just be disciplined at work - they will be disciplined across their entire lives.

That means they will have boundaries and will prioritize - and that as an organisation you will need to respect and support that. Because you will not always be at the front of the queue.

But trust me - you want these people in your corner.

Because above all things - discipline drives performance in the face of adversity.