Do you prefer repetition or variety?
Yesterday I took the same Sunday ride route, tracking my heart rate and performance against the previous week to assess how my performance had changed. Of course, I also stopped at the same place for coffee and a bacon roll, I’m not that serious an athlete 😉 However, late last year my riding buddy and I did four entirely new routes on four consecutive weeks, each time riding into parts of London we had not been to before.
When we went riding to different places, this had a theme for the month of: “London explorations!”. When we ride the same route each time, it has a context more around performance, but also (for us) ease and flow, as we find something quite chilled about going down familiar roads and routes over and over again. To be honest, most of our context for riding is, if I think about it, “together”, as we have great conversations every time.
So, sometimes in life, we want to repeat something, other times we want variety. This can mean that, when doing things with someone else, if one person wants variety and the other wants repetition, it can lead to misunderstanding or even conflict, unless you align on a context.
As an example (not hypothetical!) of that, I can and do cook and like cooking a variety of foods, but I am not that energised by constantly trying new ideas and recipes. I tend to stick to some tried and tested recipes that I enjoy cooking for myself and others (I’m known for a mean chilli, as an example!). However, to someone who always loves to explore cooking with variety, this can (and has, this one is not hypothetical!) lead to misunderstandings when I occasionally cook for them, such as me being lazy and so uncaring about cooking. So, to address this, I’ll take time and energy to come up with something new.
To finish with some thoughts around business. Some people love endless variety, others love routine and structure. Be sure, as a leader, that you know your own preferences, as these will likely bias how you lead certain things with your people. If they love routine and you love variety, you may unsettle them if you keep changing things up, with the reverse being true. Always consider the styles and needs of your team as well as what is best for the business.