Rules often penalise the obedient, the innovative, and leave the disobedient
untouched. They tend to be written to create the illusion of order without
peace or personal commitment to improvement.
Travelling recently, I listened (with the rest of the carriage) to a passionate conversation between two strangers in which one explained how she, "hated her job, boss, and company".
She had joined the company as a temp a year ago and despite being a graduate was not now permitted to join the graduate scheme. Why? Because the company
found it hard to retain staff at her level and had instituted the rule to
avoid losing people.. In a similar stroke of "management by daft rules", it
had also decided that only 10 people from her department of 200 people could
take a day off at the same time..
Where was this young woman going? For a job interview of course! How did she
get her day off? By lying and saying that she was ill.. for the job
interview the following week she was planning on saying that her grandmother
was ill..
People do what they want. Her company could have focused on the reasons that
people were leaving rather than making a rule that they couldn't leave -
it's just an idea but the evidence bears it out. Let's recognise the
limitations of rules and that they are often used as a substitute for
communication, planning, negotiation, and performance.
Elsewhere, a UK school has managed to throw off almost all supposedly
essential structure in the school day. No traditional lessons and no
homework. The results for the pilot students were startling with an increase
of 6 per cent in Maths and 12 per cent higher in English!
The head teacher, Patrick Hazelwood explained that, "The teaching team had
to learn to think as one. We had to make sure that each new curriculum theme
had a central story and thread, despite being taught by different staff." In
Making the News, for example, pupils are taught the history of communication
between people and animals. They cover everything from cave painting and
hieroglyphics to classical story-telling and satellite communication. "All
elements of the subject help to explain and make sense of the bigger
picture," says Hazelwood. "There are one-off lessons in which pupils have to
do specific tasks such as consulting a dictionary, but maths, French and
German probably appear quite often. The emphasis is on learning how to think
and take responsibility for the learning process." (see this article for more.
This is not just a one off success or just for students who are already
succeeding. It is universal. Work to create something that people want to do
with the people that are doing it and they will do it better and happier.
