David Morrison’s “the Standard you walk past is the Standard you accept” is perhaps one of my favourite quotes of all time. 

Why? Because it gets you thinking about your standards and especially, what standards will you not accept. 

Why does this topic fit into our theme this month of humanising the workplace? 

Often businesses have some standards and policies documented but what they don’t often have if the standards that they will not accept. 

If you can communicate this early – like your values, team members can decide up front if they want to sign up to them and there are no surprises. 

We often see traditional ones covered in policies like the Code of Conduct which covers a range of inappropriate behaviour like theft, use of drug and alcohol and confidentiality breaches which is great start but even more than that, what are you organisation’s and your leadership eccentricities around standards of work that are not a good fit. 

What are those things that really drive you crazy when people do them? This might be related to customer service, quality of work, presentation of materials or how people rock up to meetings. 

These are often the ‘small things’ that build up and build and can turn into big issues quickly. 

These standards are also important to communicate and not ‘walk past’ and are often the things that really end up ‘ticking’ us off. 

So, what are you standards you will not walk past? 

A great way to think about this is what are your pet peeves when it comes to work? What are those things that you either autocorrect that others do, feel your blood boil or you just dismiss? 

If you have properly established an open feedback culture (see Week 1 of November), then having conversations with team members early can assist you in correcting and skills or behaviours early. 

What are your standards?