We are all in a quest for consistency.

But what if consistency isn't possible?

Today we talk about statistics, regression to the mean, and how to stop it:

1. Create a system
2. Improve your skills

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Consistency Is a Myth (But Here’s How to Get Closer to It)

I was five when my dad took me to play golf with him for the first time.

He only had one rule: if he beat me to my ball, he was picking it up.

At five, there are lots of distractions on the golf course… broken limbs, sand, water, and rocks. This early experience resulted in me loving the game.

Early on, I played in a few tournaments and enjoyed the competitive nature of it, but for the most part I just enjoyed playing casually.

But that changed when I got to high school. Because I’d not taken it “seriously” before, I had some ground to make up. So, I took some lessons. I got better, but found that in competition, my worst habits would always reemerge.

The desire to make the team meant I put pressure on myself and didn’t perform as well as I was capable of. I didn’t have the reps to perform under pressure.

Even casual golfers experience this same struggle. You’ll shoot one good round, then a bad. Then you’ll string a few together, think you’re making progress, only to shoot your worst score in years.

In golf, it seems, consistency is impossible.

But what if, hidden inside of those scores was actual consistency?

Let me explain.

In statistics, you have the mean, median, mode, and range. All 4 calculate different things.

Let’s create an example. Continuing with my golf example, here are my last 20 scores:

The mean is the average value of all possible outcomes. Cool people call it “the average.” To get the average (or mean), you add up all values and divide by the total count (number) of values. When you add up the 20 numbers above (1525) and divide it by 20, you get a mean of 76.25.

The median is the middle value of all possible outcomes. You line up your values from least to greatest and then pick the middle value. Above, the middle value (or median) is 75, as there are 9 values before and after that numbers (there are 2 values in the middle, which you’d average, but in this case, they’re both 75).

The mode is the value that appears most often. In the case above, both 75 and 79 appear 4 times.

The range is the the difference between the smallest and largest number. You take the largest number (85) and subtract the smallest number (71). Using the above numbers, the range is 14 (85 - 71).

REGRESSION TO THE MEAN

Going back and looking at the mode data, you’ll see that as you get closer to the mean (76.25), you see those scores repeated most frequently. Because it’s a small sample size the result isn’t perfect, but the principle still applies.

Looking at all possible outcomes, the most common outcomes are closest to the mean and outcomes become less common as you move away from the mean.

What this means is that when you have an outlier result (such as shooting 2-3 low scores), statistics tells us that our next outcome is most likely to be closer to the mean.

While this is used in scientific settings, it still applies both personally and to your business.

We’ll have a great outcome and assume that the positive trend will continue.

Then it doesn’t… so what happened? We had a regression to the mean.

In sports, we call this regression to the mean a “jinx.”

The golf announcer mentions the golfer has made a lot of short putts in a row and he misses the next.

The basketball announcer mentions the player hasn’t missed a free throw and sure enough he misses it.

“You jinxed them!” their colleague will say.

A quick YouTube search got me ​this compilation of Announcer “jinxes”​ with 2.6 million views.

The problem lies not in the miss, but our reaction to the miss. We often perform our best and assume that that performance will keep on.

When it doesn’t, we beat ourselves up and self-sabotage future results.

So, how do we stop that?

1. We acknowledge the extreme outcome
2. We think of ways to overcome the regression
3. When we do revert to mean, we let it go

1 & 3 don’t need much explanation, but let’s talk about 2. How can we overcome it?

In a business, this can be accomplished 2 ways:

1. Create a system
2. Improve your skills

CREATE A SYSTEM

Systems take your “worst” result and create a floor on the result. Systems look like:

1. Standard Operating Procedures to encourage consistency
2. Creating KPIs to review results
3. Regularly scheduled meetings to review the KPIs

Systems help a business stay consistent.

With the right systems, you’ll raise the lower limit, which will in turn raise the upper limit.

IMPROVE YOUR SKILLS

Even the best in the world keep learning.

Anyone who stops learning is old, whether twenty or eighty. Anyone who keeps learning stays young. - Henry Ford

You improve your skills by:

1. Continuously practicing the skill
2. Getting more experience and applying the learnings
3. Hiring outside experts to level up your organization's skills

I think most are comfortable with practice and gaining experience, but the often overlooked one is the third.

I’m currently in this phase, I’ll admit. As a scrappy “new” business, it’s easy to want to hire the younger person and plan to “train them up.”

But your pace of learning is limited by current knowledge of you and team.

You’re also limited by time. Say you commit 5 hours a week to the new skill but could hire a consulting firm to supercharge your learning. If they gave you 5 hours, it’d be like 40 hours of your actual time. By hiring them, you’ve taken 8 weeks off your learning time (minimum) and moved your timeline 8 weeks forward.

The same goes for hiring the more experienced candidate. You accelerate your learning as a business.

It’s easy to think about linear results, but what if instead we thought about step jumps? Jumping levels will shorten the time to improve and accelerate your growth.

In business, it’s easy to stagnate in a revenue or profit rut. I truly believe that most of the time it’s because of some personal limiting factor.

But, by creating systems and improving your skills through personal improvement and hiring, you can keep marching forward.

Every business is limited by the skills and systems of the individuals who are a part of the business. As we roll into the new year, it’s the perfect time to ask yourself:

How are you going to upgrade your skills and systems today, next week, and over the next year?

This is the path to unlocking growth and getting out of the regression to the mean cycle.