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Random Rules Stifle Innovation

Hey, everybody, I’m super excited to be here with you. And our topic today is how random rules stifle innovation. And this topic is really near and dear to my heart because I’m kind of, you know, have a dominant, charming, sometimes leadership style. And I kind of like to be in charge. And I like to be in control. And I like to plan things. And so, I actually have realized I have kind of exactly the right personality to make random rules. So, if something goes wrong, here’s what goes through my head when something goes wrong, I think to myself, Oh, I better fix that once and for all. And that’s all fine, except that sometimes I apply rules to onetime events. And the problem with having too many rules is that it starts to constrain the organization unnecessarily. Like we all deal with constraints.

So, one constraint I would say, in my business is most people work nine to five, I’m not going to call my potential clients on Saturday morning and have them want to talk to me, that’s actually like a world constraint of my business. But if I had a rule about that, and I said, Oh, we never talk to clients on Saturday morning, what if there was somebody you wanted to talk to me and I was willing, the rule would constrain me in a way that isn’t natural.

And so, I just am not a big fan of rules these days, I really want us to think about how we can respond to most things on the ground as they happen. And in a really flexible rule, automation is actually a whole set of rules. So, if we’re going to do something with a set of rules, then automation is a great place to constrain it in that way. But that’s a whole different kind of thinking.

What random rules do is as soon as you make a rule, as a leader, you’re in charge of that rule, you can’t walk away from that rule, you become the enforcer of that rule, your time is taken up managing that rule, people will come to you to tell you that somebody is breaking the rule. And unless it’s super important, it’s probably not worth having the rule in the first place.

The other thing that happens is it stops other people from solving the problem in creative ways. And this is where it really stifles innovation. So first, it takes up your time. Second, it keeps people from being able to try whatever they can think of and it takes the decision-making straight into a hierarchy. If you have a rule, the rule can’t be changed without you. So, no matter what the conditions are, you’re stuck in the loop as a leader and you’re not empowering the people below you to act because you’ve constrained them with a rule.

So, the only time that I think that rules are super useful, is when you want to create a constraint. So, for example, I’m a small business like, you know, 10 years ago, when I first had staff in my business, I learned a couple of things. One is like people wanted to know, because they had such a friendly relationship with me, they’d be like, Hey, can I get my paycheck early? And then I didn’t actually write you know, I signed the paychecks, but I didn’t actually prepare them.

And so, what I realized is there was a whole lot of dialogue that it took in order to process somebody’s payment early. In that case, I actually made a rule that just said nobody gets their paychecks early. And that constraint actually was useful because it kept people focused on the task at hand. And we weren’t creating a whole series of expensive and time-consuming exceptions. So, we had a rule, but then we were thinking about changing the rules. So I had to make a second rule to validate the process. So that was a good use of a rule.

On the other hand, if someone says, oh, could I get a day off for this or for that, we don’t want a rule that says we can never have a day off because it doesn’t work for people. So, we want to handle things on a one-off basis. In most cases, around time off working from home, especially, you know, this year, we want those to be one-off so that we make decisions about the conditions at the moment that we’re making them, we can’t have best practices when things are changing all around us.

So, when we’re innovating, we’re in a period of intense change. And the more we constrain people about how they’re going to solve the problem, the less chance we have, at really solid, great mind-blowing innovation. So, ditch the rules, think to yourself, is this something that’s really a problem? Is it a repetitive problem? That’s the question you should ask before you create a rule. It’s a repetitive problem, that I can use less of my time as a leader, and useless time for the people around me with a rule, or is this me just trying to fix things with a rule, fixing things with a rule is never helpful to innovative flow. Have a wonderful week and go experiment.

 

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