E005 / Let's Talk Consistency / Ofir Ronen & Noa Ronen
In this episode of Peer Ripples, Noa and Ofir explore the role consistency plays in relationships, leadership, and teams.
Every Sunday morning, Noa and Ofir take the same walk and grab coffee together.
That simple ritual sparks a conversation about consistency, trust, leadership, and why people need more than direction. They need to know what they can count on.
Together, they discuss how predictability reduces anxiety, why trust is built through repeated actions, and how leaders can create stability while navigating constant change. From family routines to workplace expectations, this episode explores the connection between consistency, trust, and meaningful relationships.
Takeaways
Consistency creates predictability.
Predictability reduces anxiety.
Trust is built through consistent actions, not intentions.
Leaders create stability through clear expectations and communication.
Teams thrive when they have trust, direction, and room to find their own path.
Chapters
00:00 Why Consistency Matters
08:45 Leadership and Predictability
16:00 Trust, Change, and Accountability
28:20 Reflection and Takeaways
More About Us
Connect with Ofir & Noa
https://www.linkedin.com/in/noarcoach/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/ofirronen/
Our Website
Podcast YouTube Channel
https://www.youtube.com/@PeerRipplePodcast
Noa Ronen YouTube Channel
https://www.youtube.com/@NoaRCoach
Episode Transcript:
Ofir (00:00)
Are we ready?
Noa (00:01)
Yes, let's go. So as you know, I came back from Virginia Beach. I was in a conference there speaking with leaders. And one of the thoughts that came into mind while I was singing and driving back home is about consistency. ⁓ A lot of times people ask me about what creates meaningful connections.
Ofir (00:26)
Thanks
Noa (00:26)
And I always
think about our Sunday morning routine. We have a religious, in a way, routine, the two of us, where no matter what, whether we had a fight the night before, we never have fights, but whether we had a fight before or disagreement or we woke up on the wrong side for some reason, no matter what, every Sunday morning,
we are going on a Sunday morning walk and then we get coffee together. So...
I thought about consistency and one of my kind of like new thoughts following the conversation with a few groups when they asked me those questions was about consistency. That to build relationships no matter what, there is a need to have those consistent
interactions between human beings, no matter if it's a parent and a child, dinner time, ⁓ going to a religious institution every week, all those different consistent ways of building communities, building teams, building ⁓ coupling, peering, my new verb, peering.
So I didn't prepare you for this conversation, but what people don't know about you is that you're very consistent. So with that,
Background, I will let you sit with that and tell me where you want to take the conversation.
Ofir (02:13)
The first thing that I hear from this is consistency creates predictability.
Noa (02:22)
Interesting.
Ofir (02:24)
So if it's in our context, we know what's going to happen every Sunday. People around us know what's going to happen every Sunday. When it's in a work environment, you have consistent meetings. When you have consistent expectations, the people that interact with you know what to expect and the people around you know what to expect. And it's creating a lot of positive ⁓ influence.
on the way that people interact with you and interact with each other. Because when you know what to expect, it's much easier to prepare. It's much easier to plan. And the communication is more focused.
Noa (03:10)
I would never take it into that, that perspectives. And that's why I love our conversations because I was thinking about 10,000 other things other than predictability. And I'm going to build on that with saying that uncertainty is what creates an anxiety. So when people feel uncertain, the anxiety shows up and the best medicine for anxiety is planning.
So that's what should.
Ofir (03:43)
It's thing. You're saying the same thing from the opposite side, but predictability and ⁓ uncertainty are basically the opposite of the same kind of range.
Noa (03:55)
The same range. Yeah. So, so that's what came to me when you shared that, that it removes a lot of anxiety from what is my experience with this relationship, with this system. and it's easier for me to understand where I am. And I think very much needed because
I know a lot of times the conversations about I don't know where I am in this relationship. And that's scary for me. And that creates a lot of stories in our heads, which is AKA anxiety.
Ofir (04:33)
Yeah, and going back to the other side of this range, ⁓ lot of the anxiety in a workplace happens when, A, when you don't know what is expected from you, or when every time you're being asked to do something else, it kind of keeps you in a momentum that, I don't know, what type of...
Question will come up in the meeting this week because every week I'm being asked something else so I can't prepare I can't plan so it's creating the anxiety, but it also creates ⁓ It impacts the productivity because if I don't know what they need to do if I can't plan for what I need to deliver ⁓ Then I'm not prepared or I can
try to prepare 10 different things and all of them will be shallow and half-baked instead of working on the one or two things that I know that are always being asked. And we often tend to ask for many things and change between them and priorities can change week by week in a drastic way. And it really frustrates people because they don't know what to expect.
and they can't create their own consistency in the way that they prepare for meetings and that they show up to work or the way that they show up to social interactions. If you're interacting with people that every week show up in a different way, it's very hard to know like what type of am I going to get today, right? It's going to be nice Noa bad Noa, aggressive Noa, compassionate Noa.
So it's creating a lot of anxiety from that perspective and sometimes the lack of desire to meet you.
Noa (06:30)
So definitely resonate and I can tell you that I left organization because I had that kind of a leader that you never know what to expect and that creates anxiety and it can be very toxic and it's just not healthy for you and you should probably will not be there
And definitely a leader that is not consistent. with decisions, it's very confusing for the team. And sometimes when I get the, ⁓ that gift of sitting with leaders one-on-ones and listen to them, I will communicate to them because I am in a way their partner.
to mirror to them the experience that other people have. And I will say, I'm very confused right now. And they will say, yeah, you know, it's not just you. It happens with a lot of other, in a lot of other situations.
⁓ And it made me think also consistency on the other side with leadership vision. And sometimes we laugh at the leaders, the CEOs, that they always use that same metaphor with their people and...
Actually, that's the consistency people need to see that we are going toward that whatever metaphor it is. ⁓ We are ⁓ climbing a mountain. I know that's the metaphor you were using. So I'm not creative right now with my head. But when people know that we are climbing a mountain and there is that metaphor for them, we are all going together. And the more the leader says that, ⁓ the more people
Although they laugh and they say, here they go again with their metaphor, there is an understanding, there is an alignment that this is what we are all here about. And it made me also think about another thing, ⁓ questions, that consistent question that we leader will ask in every meeting, and then their people start asking that question.
⁓ or prepare as you said come prepared to that question so that removes that anxiety that you were talking about
Ofir (08:46)
Yeah. So let's talk about how as a leader, how can you create consistency in your message and how you can help your team to bring consistency to their work, but also hold you accountable to be consistent. ⁓
Noa (09:08)
That's a lot to unpack. Where do we want to start?
Ofir (09:12)
Start with what can we do in order to bring consistency, to create consistency. And you as a less consistent person, go ahead and start. How do you create consistency in your work, in your environment, in your interactions with leaders?
Noa (09:30)
It's so funny, I wanted to pass the ball back to you as a leader. I am in a journey of consistency in a lot of different ways. Creative people, sometimes it's hard for them to be consistent. I think what I am consistent and that's how I...
That's how I approach it. I need to know my purpose. I need to have a very clear understanding of my vision of where I'm heading. And when I, I will go and talk with a lot of people and not be consistent with my thoughts and then I lock it and the moment I lock it, it's easier for me to be consistent.
because it's aligned with my values and with my why, my purpose. I always tell people it's my North Star. This is the North Star I'm going towards. And that makes it easy for me to be consistent and sometimes even to be stubborn with my consistency there.
Ofir (10:32)
What I hear from this is that it's okay to be a little bit messy when you create your ideas, when you brainstorm, whether it's with yourself or with a group of other people on what are the values that you want to follow, what is the vision for your company, for your team. ⁓ It's okay to be a little bit messy until you get there. But then once you get there, you need to stick with it.
Noa (11:01)
So the only thing I might push back on you is the values. My values are my values and have to make sure it's aligned with my values. ⁓ If I see that there is contradiction, I know I will not be able to stay consistent. If it's a group of people, yeah, we have to align together on the value, the shared purpose. I will not go on my own, but I have to come into that to want to be committed, loyal.
whatever it is we want to call it, ⁓ where I feel it's aligned by values or why the way it will go into my biggest value integrity and I can't stay there because
Ofir (11:40)
So what you're saying is that
alignment with your values and alignment with your purpose is a critical step in order to be consistent.
Noa (11:53)
Yeah, and there is a lot of messiness until you get there and I think it's okay. We all think things are so clean and perfect and they're not. We are very messy as human beings with emotions and thoughts and beliefs that we have So I think it's important to go again that peer conversation, go to different people.
⁓ One of the things I love about our partnership is that we're so different. You are the consistent, I'm the creative, you are the analytical one. I am the, the messy one. So it's interesting because when I come to you with an idea, you will say, I don't see how it works. And then it just tickles me just to show you how it's going to work or just
really enjoy those moments of not agreeing with each other, which helps me grow as a human being. So I actually surround myself with people that will push back on me. I don't like the, how we say, the yay sayers, the ones that will always say, yeah, that's a great idea. Yeah, that's amazing. No, I actually want the ones that will tell me, I'm not sure I understand. Why do you go in that direction? What's there?
And that for me works really well to get into that consistency. So that's my system. I'm not saying it's everyone's system, but I do believe it starts with values and purpose. That's for me at least. What about you?
Ofir (13:16)
I agree on the value and purpose. ⁓ The need to be consistent. I don't know if it's considered a value, but it's something that I really need the predictability of what I'm doing. The repetition in a lot of the things that I'm doing is really important. building a system around the main tasks that I need to cover.
whether it's on a daily basis, it's on a weekly basis or longer than this. I build a system around this that will force me through my calendar, through my reminders, through other ways that I use to make sure that every day at the same time, every week at the same time, I'm dealing with the same task. It's wiring my brain.
to think, it's Monday, it's 11 o'clock on Monday, this is time to do these reviews. This is time to do kind of look at what's going on with this customer, with that customer. ⁓ When you do it over time and you're doing it for a long time, it's becoming part of your habit. The same way that you don't think about brushing your teeth in the morning, you wake up, you go and brush your teeth. That's how you're wired, right? But someone wired you to do it a long time ago. It's the same thing here.
It's just building a system, forcing yourself to follow it methodically. After a while, it's becoming part of your nature and it's really easy to do.
Noa (14:55)
Yeah. And I think for me, Atomic Habits was a book that really helped me get to where for you it's so natural because for some of us it's not natural to say 11 a.m. Monday, you're going to do that. It's like, okay, it's 11 a.m. on Monday. So for me, the Atomic Habits book was really a game changer because I would take those questions of how people that are consistent behave.
and bring those atomic habits into my life that since I read that, I changed so many things in such simple way. I'm not going to go right now into atomic habits, but I really recommend to read that book. If not like my partner here, you are struggling with consistency in saying, hey, I'm going to do something on Monday, 11 a.m. and you don't. And I do have a question to you that
I'm pondering a lot right now because I see that a lot. And that's the word pivot. We are living in a new era where things are changing.
insanely fast things are moving insanely fast. And there are some CEOs that their people come to them from that place of uncertainty that they want the predictability. And the CEO are not willing to commit to even one year vision. They are like, we just going to pivot until we figure it out because AI right now, we don't know what to expect tomorrow morning.
So what do we do with this pivot?
Ofir (16:33)
I think it's really important to be able to change. Like if you're not changing, you're going backwards and you're staying behind. ⁓ Part of consistency is to reevaluate what you're doing on a regular basis. You have to do it on a regular basis. Maybe it used to be in the past, once a year, you sit in a board meeting or leadership meeting and think about what are we doing the next year? And today you have to do it every other week because...
Every week AI changes the world a little bit more. But even in this lack of certainty, it's important to find something that will remain consistent to be able to get people around something familiar and comfort and something that gives them hope in a sense ⁓ and understanding that
the leaders of the company, the leader of the family, the leader of the country, they know where they're going. ⁓ lot of running a successful team requires people to believe in a shared purpose, shared goal, shared vision. Sometimes it's believing in the leader and believing that the leader knows what they're doing and that they have the direction.
It's not always easy to explain it. And you see the most, you know, the Steve Jobs of the world, he saw probably 10 steps ahead and it's very difficult to translate this in words in a way that everyone in the company understand. And in this case, everyone in the world understand. But people believe in him. They believe that he knows what he's doing. He's got this long-term vision and he can see through all the...
small obstacles that most people tend to look for. So they worked for him and they believed in him. You see it with Elon Musk, same thing, right? People believe in the person and his ability to see forward. And even if not, all the details are available for them. And today, like you talked about the mountain, if you know that you want to climb the mountain, you know where is the peak and you know where you want to get. This is your end goal.
how to get there might change day by day based on the weather, based on the tools that you have, the skills that you have in the expedition that is climbing. But as long as people know where they want to go and they trust that the leader of the group, the leader of the expedition have this vision in their mind, sometimes that's enough. It's building trust, right? It's something that you have to build with trust with people over time. But this is how a leader can help their team to navigate through a lot of those changes.
Noa (19:18)
believing in the leader is so important. If we trust the leader and their consistent vision, ⁓ yes,
Ofir (19:26)
this trust coming from consistency is a big part of building trust. Consistency in how they communicate, consistency in the results that they're bringing, consistency in what their expectations can be a very high bar. But if it's consistent, people trust it.
Noa (19:46)
And trust is always the heart of everything. And it shows up in different ways, but in the end of the day, trust is that I'm saying I'm going to show up one way and I'm really showing up this way.
I know that when you say you're going to do something, you're really going to do that so I can trust you. ⁓ That's a good point.
Ofir (20:09)
Let's move the conversation a little bit forward. We talked about the leader and what the leader can do to create consistency. How can a leader help their team to create consistency in the way that they work?
Noa (20:28)
Yeah, I was thinking about that. And that was part of the conversation yesterday with the group we were having together. And I always ask how the leader can pass the ball. ⁓ I can give you the backpacks, I can give you the water, I can give you the map, I can give you the hiking shoes, can you climb the mountain? And how do you want to climb the mountain? What expedition you want to take there?
our people a lot of times have
better ways of getting to the top of the mountains than the ways we thought they should get there. And that's the conversation we should start having with them or they can have without us. I don't think leaders need to be everywhere and anywhere. ⁓ So it goes back for me again to those rituals as teams, the huddle every day.
the team meetings, the off-sites, the onsites, all those rituals that we need to have to build relationships in teams. And I really call them rituals. I think in every relationship there are rituals. The one-on-ones, the team huddles, I think are amazing tool to get there. What are other things you're thinking there, Ofir
Ofir (21:50)
It's coming back to trust. ⁓ It's building the trust with your team to give them the freedom to do things, knowing that you have their backs and you get the trust from them to go and make the changes. And sometimes they're like clarity. ⁓ So it's kind of going both ways, but the team that have...
the comfort, the knowledge that their leader trust them and supports them, even when they make mistakes, even if they find a different way. And by the way, maybe there are something that the way that I choose to do something is the best way for me to do it with my skillset and the way that I think and operate. They might have a different way that works for them. It's not about what's better. It's at the end of the day, does it.
get you the result that you need. And then if you allow people to get the results their own way, it's give them the ability to build their own system. Otherwise they have to adjust to your system and your system doesn't always work for them. If you set the right expectations and build the trust with the team, then they can build their own system. Sometimes it can be the same tools for everyone. Sometimes every...
team member and every part of the team might operate a little bit differently. And that's all fine, right? At end of the day, what you care about is getting the right results and doing the right things to move as a collective.
Noa (23:25)
And again, trust is that consistent conversation between two sides that you can say, okay, I feel I can trust you now to go in and do it on your own. But if there are no interactions there, it's really hard to build the trust and see what's happening there.
we are meeting with each other and having those conversations to see the progress that I can reevaluate if that person is ready or that team is ready to take the lead and I can move myself to do other things and focus on other things that I will have the time that I need to figure out next steps. ⁓ So yeah, consistency is interesting.
Ofir (24:09)
So there's a third part of what we discussed earlier. We talked about how a leader can create consistency for themselves, how they can help their teams create consistency. How can we hold ourselves and more importantly, how can we help our team to hold us accountable?
to the consistency, to the system that we're building.
Noa (24:39)
I don't believe there is one way to do things. And to have trust, you have to build relationships with your people. maybe that's where I am right now with this question. Would love to hear what you think.
I'm still processing your question.
Ofir (24:57)
Yeah, it's definitely trust and trust cannot be developed without communication and building relationship. And that's something that takes time. And it's really important when you have new team members on your team or when you come to a new team, ⁓ can't expect everything to fall in place on day one. ⁓ People need some time to get used to your system. People need time to build a relationship with you.
in order to be able to win this tour, if you start building the relationship and build a system that they see that is working, that builds trust. ⁓ And if you do those things right, you'll get the predictability that comes with consistency. Then today, these are all things that work together. ⁓ You can't achieve any of those things. It's hard to trust someone who's not.
predictable, not consistent because you don't know who's going to show up. You can trust someone if you don't communicate with them. And you can create this consistency with people, with teams that don't trust you. These are three things that kind of go together hand to hand and support each other. It's like three legs of the same table that needs to be nurtured together and built together over time.
Noa (26:19)
when you see something doesn't work for you, maybe look if there is consistency with the interactions with your people, because what showed up for me when you were talking is how do we know, ⁓ when leaders come to me and they say, I want my people to just stop being afraid to do mistakes. And I asked them, how how do they know that it's okay for them to do mistakes?
if they have never experienced with the leader that it's okay to do mistakes, they will not do mistakes. So how do we know talking about predictability? If a leader sends me to do something and I don't know how they will respond to the outcome, I might be feeling unsafe. So
the trust, the predictability, the how do I know? This is something that I don't know the answer, but it's for the leader that listens right now to ask themselves, how can my people know that I'm really serious about what I'm communicating with them right now? You can climb the mountain whatever way you want. Is it true when they will climb and get there, will you be disappointed with them? Is that what they're gonna hear from you? Or they're gonna hear...
great progress, go for it, keep going. What's gonna be the experience for them when they get there their way? And creating that awareness I think is really important and asking yourself, how can my people know I'm really serious about what I'm communicating with them right now?
Ofir (28:00)
One easy way to do it is just do it with them.
sit with them when they prepare for a meeting, work with them when they're developing in your process, whatever it is that they're doing. If you're making the mistake together, then they don't feel threatened because you're there with them.
Noa (28:18)
Okay, are we ready to move to reflection?
Ofir (28:21)
Sure. You want to start?
One key takeaway is I don't think I ever thought about consistency in that way, but Trust is a key component ⁓ in creating consistency.
It's trusting yourself when you're doing things repeatedly, trusting that you're doing the right thing that will bring results. It's trusting your team and building their trust in you so they can go and do their consistent work. So without trust, consistency cannot exist.
Noa (28:57)
Yeah, I think we created a new triangle today, consistency, predictability and trust. Yeah, that built them in the middle. think it's the relationship. So thank you to the group for the conversation yesterday. I learned so much from my conversations with other people. That's why I'm such a believer in this peer to peer.
conversation because we can't talk with ourselves or chatGPT or claude all the time. We have to talk with human beings because they have amazing brains. I just want to thank you for the predictability words today, because I, I think it's really important to understand how much consistency removes anxiety for people.
⁓ wanna invite people to stay with that thought because I think it's really important. Thank you. Thank you my consistent partner in this life. You definitely make sure we are consistent where I wanna keep us messy. So thank you for that.
Ofir (30:01)
Perfect, was pleasure. Bye.
Noa (30:03)
Cheers.
