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X is for Cross-Team Consistency
Welcome! This article is part of an A–Z series where I’m sharing reflections on the patterns I keep seeing in teams, leadership and workplace culture.
Not theory. Not tips. Just observations from real working life.
Have you ever worked somewhere where everyone seems to have their own way of doing things? Same business. Same values. Same overall purpose.
But depending on which department you're dealing with, or which manager you speak to, the way things are done can be completely different.
For example; One manager holds regular team meetings, another, prefers to catch people as and when they need them. Or one department has a clear process for handing work over, whereas another relies on someone remembering to tell the right person.
And the interesting thing is, everyone probably thinks they're doing things the right way, but what happens when everyone is working from a different interpretation of how things should be done?
We all put our own spin on things
Here's something I've noticed. If you give 10 people the same instruction, there is a good chance you'll get ten slightly different interpretations. Not because anyone is deliberately ignoring what's been asked of them, but just because we are human.
We bring our own experiences, preferences and assumptions to everything we do.
Take something as simple as asking managers to have regular performance conversations.
One manager schedules monthly one-to-ones with agreed objectives and actions.
Another has informal catch-ups over coffee.
Someone else only has those conversations when there's a problem.
And another assumes that because they speak to their team every day, they're already doing it.
Same instruction. Four different interpretations, and four potentially very different experiences for the employees involved.
When we leave expectations open to interpretation, we can't be surprised when people interpret them differently.
Sometimes businesses grow faster than their ways of working do
This is particularly relevant to growing businesses, when there are ten people, everyone knows everyone - You know who to ask, decisions happen quickly and people generally understand how things work.
But then the business grows. New people join. Departments develop. Managers take on more responsibility.
And suddenly those informal ways of working aren't quite enough.
People who've been there for years know how things are done, or at least they think they do, but new colleagues haven't got that shared history, so they make assumptions or bring ways of working from previous jobs.
Before long, different teams have developed different approaches to what should perhaps be the same process.
And nobody necessarily notices until something goes wrong.
The Institute of Internal Communication's IC Index 2026 found that only 49% of UK employees surveyed agreed that the reasons behind organisational changes were clearly communicated.
Now, that isn't specifically about processes, but I think it highlights something important.
Just because we believe we've communicated something clearly doesn't mean everyone has understood it in the same way.
And unless we check, we might never realise we're all working from slightly different versions of the same message.
Consistency doesn't mean everyone has to be the same
I'm not suggesting we need a rule book for absolutely everything because I spend a lot of my time helping people understand and appreciate their differences.
Some people like structure and detail.
Others prefer flexibility.
Some make decisions quickly.
Others want time to think.
And those differences are valuable, but there is a difference between allowing people to work in their own way and leaving them to decide what the organisation's expectations are.
Take customer service, one person might be naturally chatty and enjoy building relationships and another might be more reserved and focused on getting things sorted efficiently.
But both can provide excellent service.
We can have consistency in what we do without insisting everyone does it in exactly the same way.
There's a fairness issue here too
And this is the part that really matters to me, because inconsistency isn't just about efficiency.
Imagine two employees doing similar jobs in different departments, one has regular development conversations, understands what's expected and knows how their performance will be assessed and the other rarely receives feedback and only discovers something isn't right when their manager raises a concern.
How fair is that? And what does it do to people's confidence in the organisation?
I don't think businesses deliberately set out to create those differences.
But when there isn't a shared understanding of how things should be done, it can happen surprisingly easily.
And over time, people start noticing.
Why does their team get to do that?
Why does it depend on which manager you ask?
Before long, what started as inconsistency can become frustration and resentment.
Perhaps we need to agree on a Way of Working
One of the things I've really enjoyed in my work with organisations is helping people develop a shared Way of Working.
Not a huge document full of policies that nobody reads, but something practical that people have actually had a say in creating.
What should happen when a decision affects another department?
How do we communicate changes?
What can people expect from their managers?
What information needs to be shared, and when?
And which things genuinely need to be consistent across the organisation?
Those conversations can be really revealing because often, people don't realise how differently things are being done until they start talking about them.
"Oh, we don't do it like that." "I didn't even know that was supposed to happen."
And suddenly you can see where some of the frustration has been coming from.
Agreeing on a shared approach is only the start, we also need to make sure we're actually following it, reviewing it and adapting it as the business changes, otherwise, we risk creating another document that looks great but doesn't change anything.
So, X is for Cross-Team Consistency
I don't think consistency means making everyone the same and I certainly don't think every business needs more rules but I do think growing organisations need to recognise when the informal ways of working that got them this far are no longer enough.
Because when things are left open to interpretation, people naturally fill in the gaps with their own preferences, experiences and assumptions.
And before long, you can have several different ways of doing the same thing across one business which can be frustrating for employees, confusing for customers and create unfairness where none was intended.
For me, it starts with bringing people together, understanding what's happening and agreeing which things need a consistent approach, not to remove individuality, but to give people clarity about what they can expect from one another.
So here's the question I'd leave you with.
Does your business have an agreed way of working, or does everyone simply have their own understanding of how things are done?
Because there's a difference.
And as your business grows, that difference can become increasingly important.
If this resonated, it’s probably because you’re seeing it too.
Philippa x
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