In my previous post I alluded to the steadfast application of outmoded rules that my amateur survivors upheld. Is this not true for many managed corporate departments as well? Rules upon rules set forth to mediate corporate behaviours and outcomes. I think that the rules are for the sheep, set by the shepherd, and both destined to be bound together.
I believe that innovation considers a few rules to some extent. It might dip its toes into the rules pool or tentatively skirt at its edges but modern innovation doesn’t linearly follow prescribed norms. Also, for me, in the corporate sphere at least, rules determine behaviours. An ideal set of boundaries will bear acceptable manager/subordinate behaviours. When do these rules go too far to shape human activities? It is very important to note that rules are not set by a faceless corporate building; they are set by people. Perhaps by infallible people, or perhaps by vindictive ones. Perhaps through a committee (so praise/blame cannot be apportioned) or perhaps by individuals. This post attempts to contrast how rules applied to me as an accountant by differing senior managers from various reporting departments yields remarkably chequered outcomes.
I once worked for a company who had a rule that you had to reverse park your car. They said they are the head office for a mine and wanted to align behaviours with the remote site. The site might have an emergency evacuation and a reverse parked car makes an easier getaway. The office though had a demarcated area for emergencies and the parkade was to be locked down. The manner of a parked car literally made zero difference in an evacuation scenario and therefore I consider the head office rule to be weak.
Another time I worked for a manager, who had only one rule: delivery. Period. My job was to deliver reports and stated tasks and he didn’t care how or when it was done as long as on deadline day I delivered what was asked of me. He would provide me with support if needed but I operated largely independent. I could exercise whatever discretion I saw fit and his faith and trust in me was backed by the fact that I was a professional with sufficient qualification to do my job appropriately. My ideas were not constrained by business hours. If I wanted to I could work for 5 minutes in a day and leave the office, and if I had slacked I might need to work weekends and toil long into the midnight hours prior to a deadline. He did not care about the hours put in as long as the job was completed. Sounds like a dreadful manager doesn’t it?
This manager got the best out of me though. He once asked me to innovate the manner in which we report. I would slowly wake up in the morning at 9 with an idea and iron out details in the shower. During breakfast I would pensively look at the trees outside my window and ponder potential pitfalls. I would take a leisurely drive to the office in silence and think about my action plan. Once at work I would order these in an achievability hierarchy and pause often to wrap my mind around the tasks. I would take frequent “breaks” outside in the sun all the while decrypting the task at hand. This is not what I would consider “real work” as no excel sheet was opened. In the late afternoons I would begin experimenting with those tasks I laid out in my mind’s eye. If by close of business, the experiment failed, I would try a different approach. Long after everyone had left I would be at my desk trying, trying and trying. Eventually I would succeed, I knew it. I just needed to figure it out. This manager gave me that space to work in; he equipped me and guided me because a win for me meant a win for him and his department. It might have meant less wasted effort down the line, more productive use of time and future benefits to all those that would come after him or me. He had the foresight to understand the benefits of innovation even in disciplines unfamiliar to innovative concepts.
My success in one realm brought my fame into the spotlight of another manager seeking innovation in his department as well. My reporting lines had changed overnight and I was tasked to bring success to another. This manager was different though. He loved them rules. His department had established its corporate relevance through the uniqueness of its brand of bureaucracy. Swaddled with red tape protocols I was tasked with operational mandates as well as positioning strategic improvements. This was a mountainous challenge but nothing that could not be overcome. I tried repeating the mantras that brought me victories earlier. Pensive thinking, reflection, leisured drives, experimentation et.al. But ideas were quickly dismissed, and guided support dried up. Innovation was a misnomer for efficiency in the existent tasks to be performed. The department had already established its boundaries and were not willing for these rules to be questioned; they merely needed a candidate who could productively operate within this framework. The contrast in beliefs was that I thought perhaps we don’t need to do 10 journal entries, whereas their thinking was how can he do those ten quicker.
It is not that I’m a lazy worker, but can we not eliminate wasted effort? Are 10 necessary, can 10 be condensed into a few, what happens to those ten, who depends on 10, why are we doing them? The answers to these stake its claim for relevance, and thus satisfy its corporate purpose. Without any merit of relevance we are occupied with “busy work”. No quantum of speed can warrant any degree of significance. Another flawed rule was that business ideas need to be contained within business hours. Therefore employees of the department were ordered to timeously clock in promptly at 9 and must clock out at 5. I use the word “clock in” in mockery as these were white-collar professional degreed employees that were subjected to the 9-5 mentality. On several occasions a brilliant idea flashed through my mind at 16:30. That meant I would have 30 minutes to conduct my experiments, test my thesis and deploy my ingenuity to drive departmental success. With dwindling support and time constrained backing, the idea was usually shelved for the next day, which invariably arrived with its own set of immediate and urgent fires that needed to be put out.
And the once brilliant vision began its hasty decline into a cul-de-sac where it was quietly strangled. After numerous repetitive rehearsals that amounted to nought, one quickly learns to either have ideas earlier in the day or not have them at all. And so glorious be that day, when a lemming is born. A rule was fastidiously applied that shaped a behaviour resulting in a detrimental consequence. A poor manager sees a rule being applied that result in “correct” behaviours but misses the uncosted and unforeseen benefits. What does that employee’s KPI look like to that manager? If you come in early, output as expected and leave on time are you highly rated? How have you effected a step change to your department? How have you shifted into a higher gear when you are running one gear at its limited rpm?
These types of managers are around us. Their habits good or bad are a part of their own ideology as well as those they attempt to instil it into. They are layered in organizations and have evolved their methods through experience and repetition. As have their rules book. Too few rules and anarchy might reign, but too many means that productivity is hampered by the bureaucratic red tape. The key is knowing what you need to deliver, who you are working with and what traits are best suited to marry solutions to problems.
A really good manager will know exactly the type of person you are and apply a style that best suited to extracting the best out of you, the individual. A poor one applies a blanket principle to each of his underlings as he believes that the similarity of tasks means that the personalities are similar and therefore a uniformed rulebook applies to all and sundry.