3 Standards

3 Standards

3 Standards from renowned leadership thinker Fred Kofman, as told by tech leader extraordinaire Mike Gamson, is our favourite framework for leaders to instill specific practices into a company’s culture.

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What’s 3 Standards?

Created by management thinker Fred Kofman and championed by SVP of Sales Mike Gamson throughout LinkedIn for many years, 3 Standards provides a clear 3-step approach to instill a new practice into our team or company’s culture:

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  1. WE SET THE STANDARD: we define the behaviour we want our team to adopt. This could be how we prioritize our time and resources, it could be how we communicate, it could be how we show up for one another and follow through on our commitments.
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  1. WE DEMONSTRATE THE STANDARD: we as leaders need to manifest the explicit things that we’re asking of others. To walk the walk and lead by example to show we’re serious.
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  1. WE HOLD OTHERS ACCOUNTABLE FOR THE STANDARD: we recognize others for walking the walk or address behaviours that don’t align with the expectations we’ve set.

As Mike shares in the video, early in his tenure as a sales leader at LinkedIn, he made the difficult decision to part ways with a top-performing sales executive. Despite consistently exceeding revenue targets, this leader's approach undermined the how they treated others that Mike had established as non-negotiable for his team. This example demonstrates what “non-negotiable” really means - even exceptional results don't justify compromising our core standards, and we as leaders must be prepared to make tough decisions to uphold them.

When to use 3 Standards?

3 Standards is about instilling practices into our team or company’s culture. Therefore, here are a few examples, all focused on different aspects of organizational culture.

  1. Meeting culture: setting standards around preparation, punctuality, and participation.
  2. Feedback practices: outlining how and when we expect to offer and receive input.
  3. Collaboration: defining norms across channels, response times, and tone.
  4. Scaling decision-making: documenting who & how we make decisions; perhaps with RAPID.

To pick a real example that blends 1, 2, and 3 above, a leader might:

  • SET the standard that feedback is expected to be given within 24 hours of key presentations
  • DEMONSTRATE this by consistently providing timely and constructive feedback themselves
  • Hold others ACCOUNTABLE by recognizing those who follow this practice and coaching those who don’t

Overall, 3 Standards is helpful whenever we want to take something from implicit to explicit: every company has unwritten rules, but if we have a practice or expectation that we want others to follow - including newbies - then getting explicit is key.

How do we use 3 Standards?

John:

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James:

Jj

John:

Something about following your offsite earlier this year when you were fairly early into your role

James:

My favourite part of 3 Standards is how much it connects back to several of the other Blueprints we’ve published:

  • The best way to Set the Standard is to write it down and then to share it over and over again, David Gergening The Message: we’re sharing the standards so often that we’re sick of saying it; only then it it fully sinking in and others will follow it.
  • Both Mike Derezin’s 5 Step Reinforcement and The Support Continuum are helpful if instilling the new practice is going to require more meaningful change management.
  • Finally, defining This Meeting Will Be Successful If to begin meetings is a practice I adopt everywhere I work, with the added benefit that it often gets adopted organically without top-down pressure required because it’s so simple and makes so much sense.

John:

Jj

James:

Jj

Want to learn more

WANT TO GO DEEPER ON 3 STANDARDS AND RELATED FRED KOFMAN FRAMEWORKS?

Fred has published on this exact 3 Standards topic - simplifying it to Define > Demonstrate > Demand - across these 2 articles:

For LinkedIn Learning subscribers, Fred has 4 courses; here are 2 we especially recommend:

Finally, here is James’s favourite ever business book, Conscious Business, with lessons that extend well beyond just the professional realm:

WANT TO GO DEEPER WITH MIKE GAMSON?

Across his various executive role, Mike’s LinkedIn headline has always been “Passionate about investing in People.” To share what he’s learned, he’s published ~25 articles over the years here; a few favourites we’d especially recommend:

Finally, at the risk of embarrassing Mike, James wrote a long-form article about what he most appreciates about him as a colleague and leader:

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