An interesting article in the Washington Post focuses on a study that shows people are less stressed if their boss is consistently unfair than if she is unfair one minute and fair the next.

“Intuitively, you would think the more fairness you get, the better,” said Fadel Matta, a researcher at Michigan State University and the lead author of the paper, in an interview. “But that’s not what we demonstrated. It’s better if supervisors are a consistent jerk than if they’re fair sometimes and not fair other times. People want to know what they can expect when they come into work.”

Reading that reminded me of something I wrote back in 2009.

The action is inconsistency and the primary effect is fear. Secondary effects include intimidation and insecurity. (…) It’s not knowing that really gets to people—even more than expected abuse. (…) That fear grows exponentially once it takes root and distrust typically increases at the same rate.

As far back in history as you care to go, no matter the circumstances — work, personal, relationship, religious — inconsistency has always been a negative.

What also seems to be a constant, in this case in the workplace, is the inability for bosses’ opinions of themselves to accurately reflect their employees’ take on the same subject — although the disconnect does embody a kind of consistency.

In short, when evaluating your own actions for consistency don’t ask yourself, your boss, or your peer.

Ask the people who actually experience you every day of their lives.

Ask your team.

Flickr image credit: Susanne Nilsson

A few weeks ago Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican leader, said “The danger of that for the country is that there won’t automatically be an ability to restrain the excess that is typically associated with big majorities and single-party rule.”

OK, typical political rhetoric, but that isn’t what caught my eye.

What I found so amusing was the line about the dangers of “single party-rule.”

Amusing because when the Republicans owned the majorities in both the House and the Senate and there was a Republican President single-party rule was fine.

But it brings up an important point and one that can have a major effect on your company or team.

The point is consistency.

If, in fact, holding both the Presidency and Congressional majorities is de facto single-party rule then it doesn’t matter which party holds it, it’s still dangerous.

In business terms that means that if you condemn something your competition does or the way it acts and then do or act the same way you’re being inconsistent.

Likewise, if you laude something and don’t either follow suit or escalate it you’re being inconsistent.

People hate inconsistency, whether they’re your customers or employees.

And don’t kid yourself that they won’t notice, they will—people aren’t stupid.

You don’t have the advantage of ideology working for you in a business setting. Ideology works in politics, most people won’t notice the inconsistency in McConnell’s words, but even rabid Apple fans are quick to call Apple on anything that they think is inconsistent with the brand or the culture.

So think about your consistency and monitor your words and actions—better yet, build consistency into your MAP.

Image credit: Les Bessant on flickr