stable ballerina

Where is Stability Important?

Stability is the state or quality of being stable – being consistent and dependable.
In this fast-changing, high-paced life, in what facets of our life is stability important?stable ballerina

To remain competitive, companies need to be flexible, adaptive and responsive to changes in their environment. People are much the same – the concept of survival of the fittest, adapt or die, come into play. You may be thinking ‘with those pre-requisites for success, how could a business or anyone ever be successful? Why would stability be a good thing?’ Here’s the thing, you can’t afford to remain static in the technology you use, the quality of products you sell, the level of service you provide because those elements should always be improving. You can, however, maintain stability in other aspects of your life.

Where we think stability is important:

1. Your values

Values are deeply entrenched and are established very early on in life or in the life of a business. They influence behaviors, attitudes, beliefs and expectations. People and businesses are associated with the values they hold because these values influence the behavior and day-to-day running of a business. If a company can’t keep a stable set of values – their organizational culture gets lost, employees misunderstand expected behaviors and the public can’t rely on a business to stay true to their identity.When a business or person can’t stay true to their values it indicates that they are either easily influenced or they are just saying things and behaving in certain ways to please others. People value authenticity from people and businesses.You may have heard the term ‘flip-flopping’ where a person changes their behavior or what they stand for as they please. You never know what to expect from these types of people or whether you can trust them – this is a concept known as cognitive dissonance, a topic for another day!

2. Routine

Earlier on during the month, we have spoken about breaking out of your comfort zone and trying new things. This is essential to keep life exciting but a routine makes you feel safe and gives your life purpose. For example – to have an emotionally stable child, a routine needs to be established.A stable routine gives your life structure and makes you feel in control. Human beings don’t handle uncertainty well and as unsettling as uncertainty and instability are for children it can be just as unnerving for adults and receiving members of the public.Businesses have routines in the way that they conduct themselves. Clients of a business can rely on a business with a stable routine because they know what to expect in terms of processes and best practices because these routines are habits of the business that people become familiar with.

3. Promises you make to others

To remain reliable and trustworthy, you should only make promises about things you are in control of. A promise you make is a commitment you make to someone else and yourself. Fulfilling that promise gives you a sense of achievement.It is essential to remain stable in your ‘promise keeping habits’ to increase your reliability and trust amongst others. If you can consistently live up to promises you establish stability in your commitment behavioral patterns.

4. Performance

Maintaining a consistent level or standard of performance is essential for success and credibility. If you’re an athlete you need to perform at a certain level to qualify or be kept on a certain team and if you are a business you need to show a consistent standard of performance. This doesn’t mean you should stay stagnant – stable growth and improvement in performance are also healthy and easy to predict – this is super handy for investors and venture capitalists. Rapid improvements and unstable performance make a company unreliable.
 
Customers of DataRapt’s products are able to rely on the fact that DataRapt’s products are very stable; in fact across all the released versions of our products we have encountered and corrected fewer than 0.5 bugs per 1000 lines of code.

These are the few places we feel stability reigns king. What other suggestions do you have?