Tag Policy

People or Policy?

Steve Keating Leave a comment

Businesses must have policies! They need a set of procedures that help their employees know what to do in any given circumstance. Those policies and procedures also help provide a consistent experience to their customers. Until it doesn’t.

I’m all for policies and procedures when it comes to “things” like how to do the books, how to mix some exotic coffee drink (it’s all exotic to me) or how to answer the phone. “Things” are best done with some consistency.

There should also be policies when it comes to people. My preferred “people policy” is to not have a policy. The last thing I want to hear from a customer service representative is the policy of whatever place they are working at. That’s bad business.

What’s worse is when someone in a leadership position attempts to “lead by policy.” Every single person is unique and the only policy that fits everyone is to have no policy. I’ve never met anyone who was smart enough to develop a policy that “fit” every individual they might encounter. Trying to squeeze every person into a “one size fits all” policy is demoralizing to the people who don’t fit.

A leader can certainly benefit from some guidelines. They can use past history to help determine their actions but leadership is about people and every person is different. Policies and procedures tend to lock a leader into a decision. People who lead by policy look at a situation and apply the logical procedure in the same way they did the last time they faced a similar situation. They will apply the same procedure the next time they face the situation.

That would be fine except for one little problem. Leadership is about people. People are far more emotional and far less logical than those “things” that work better with consistent policies and procedures.

That is one of the major challenges of leading.

Authentic Leaders care for the people of their organization more than they care about the policies of their organization. They apply the “rules” of the organization unfairly but they apply them equally unfairly to everyone. They think and act with unquestioned integrity. They know that the best thing they can do for the organization is to take care of it’s people. They show their understanding that not a single policy or procedure is more important than the people who implement them.

They know that what is right is sometimes unfair. The do the right thing anyway. They take each individual person’s circumstances into consideration. If there is no policy or procedure that fits then they make a new one that will.

Before all the HR professionals and lawyers reading this go nuts on me let me say this. I understand the need for employee handbooks and policies. I get that rules matter. I’m not advocating for anarchy in the workplace. I understand the danger of making up policy on the fly. I can only hope you understand the danger of not.

People, both employees of a business and the customers of that business are individuals. Believing that you can precisely fit all of them into some predetermined policy with a “close enough” attitude is a recipe for failure.

When it comes to building, engaging and motivating your people “close enough” isn’t enough. Authentic Leaders put their people before their policies to ensure a perfect fit.

Do you?

Ask Why When Considering a Policy

Steve Keating 10 Comments

“In matters of principle, stand like a rock; in matters of taste, swim with the current.”  – Thomas Jefferson

I’m going to give everyone who ever made or implemented a policy a break. I’m going to say that every policy-maker had the very best of intentions when they created whatever policy it was that they created.

The policy or in some cases rule, was intended to prevent a current or potential problem. Maybe every policy has prevented a problem but there are a whole lot of policies that fixed one problem and created seven more.

Too often policy-makers consider only the consequences of NOT creating a policy and pay little attention to the consequences of creating one. What’s more, they almost never consider the consequences of the consequences of creating policy upon policy.

Just so we’re clear, I’m a big believer in the need for policies and processes and measurements.  Organizations need to have guidelines and those guidelines should absolutely be followed whenever possible.

When an organization’s policies are based on principles they should be rock solid, they should not flex. If they are really based on principles there can and should be no exceptions to the policy.

When policies are based on opinion, on trends, and on convenience, they should be incredibly flexible. 

Sometimes an organization’s policies will have “been on the books” for so long that no one remembers why the policy was even created. The “need” for that policy may be long gone but the policy persists, blindly enforced by those who have survived the need.

Things change, markets changes, people change, circumstances arise. When “stuff happens” organizations must be nimble enough to adjust their policies on the fly. Employees must be empowered, really truly empowered, to make a snap decision to adjust a policy. That empowerment is even more critical for customer-facing employees. 

Too many well intended policies have the effect of building walls between a business and their customers. Some well intended policies even make it harder for customers to do business with a company. The company’s policy-maker just couldn’t see things from a customer’s viewpoint and as a result, a wall-building policy was developed. 

When a policy is created by someone who will not be directly affected by the policy the odds are overwhelming that the outcome will be less than desirable. 

When a well-meaning employee of that business tells a customer, “unfortunately, our policy says….” you can bet that interaction will end badly for the customer. Organizations that find a way to make their policies work for the business AND the customer are the organizations that thrive.

Policies that separate an organization from their customers will eventually separate the organization from their profits. 

Policies need to be revisited from time to time. Some need to be reaffirmed while others need to go away. Just adding new policies every year is a poor business practice. Here’s an idea: cap the number of policies allowed to exist in your organization. Before anyone is allowed to add a new one, find one that no longer applies and send it to the trash heap of bad business bureaucracy. 

Remember, the more policies you have in place the more paralyzing your environment becomes for your people who have, or had, a bias for action. Never allow a policy to be implemented without asking WHY the policy is needed. After you’ve asked why, ask why again. If there is no absolute need for the policy then there is no need for the policy at all. Policies are great but like everything else in life and business, moderation is a key to success.