The TWO Most Important Management Rules
In managing a workforce, whether it is engineering, design, or construction, there are TWO rules that should govern the actions of all the people involved. Although the bulk of my experience is in the engineer/construct marketplace, one suspects these rules can be applied in every business.
The two rules are simple:
- There must be rules, and
- Rules are made to be broken.
THERE MUST BE RULES
Clearly the first rule is practiced throughout industry. Rules can be as simple as setting the starting and ending time for the work day, or as complex as a set of procedures for preparing, checking, and issuing engineering documents. Most of our society is governed by rules. Some of them have been considered serious enough to be expressed as Laws. Others are more subtle and may be addressed as simply good etiquette.
The principle is simple: Rules provide predictability and regiment to an otherwise disorganized effort.
The second rule, however, is more controversial. This second rule is the rule that provides the opportunity for every company, every organization, and every society to excel beyond the ordinary. The second rule is NECESSARY if an organization wishes to progress and learn from its shortcomings.
RULES ARE MADE TO BE BROKEN
Before one can implement the second rule, one must fully respect and understand the first rule. Every rule has been developed over time for a reason. For instance, everyone starts work at 8 am in an organization where communication and teamwork are required to execute the work function. An assembly line requires workers at each station working in sequential order to complete the assembly. One person missing makes the entire assembly process come to a halt. The organization, hence, has a rule that ensures everyone is on the assembly line.
In every case it is far more important for the workforce to understand the REASONS for a rule than simple to memorize the rule. We are surrounded every day by organizations that train their people on the rules without providing them with the intellectual building blocks to truly understand the reasons for the rule.
Each rule is typically driven by cause and effect. The rule has been established based on reasons. It is also expected to cause specific RESULTS.
The workforce must truly understand the REASONS for a rule and the expected RESULTS. This understanding provides them with the ability to BREAK the rule when the REASONS are not specifically valid or the RESULTS will not be those expected by the rule.
A rule is often predicated on assumptions. If the assumptions that were the basis of the rule are not valid, then the rule is often not valid!
In today’s business world, and for that matter society, we often emphasize the first rule and fail to recognize the second.
Businesses that operate under the first rule without the second end up with a distorted sense of accountability. They hold the employees responsible for operating under the rules without providing them with the freedom or responsibility to achieve the expected RESULT. The employee or society is not asked to UNDERSTAND the purpose of the rule and the RESULTS are often mediocre or, in some cases, counterproductive.
The following are some simple examples that may help to illustrate the point.
EXAMPLE 1
The Print Room requires that all drawings are submitted for copying and distribution by 3 PM every day. This is the RULE. The intent of the rule is to minimize print room employee overtime and provide them with the opportunity to operate in an organized, predictable fashion.
The workforce is presently preparing a set of construction documents for issuance to the field for construction. The schedule indicates that they must be issued this Friday in order to be in the field on Monday morning.
In preparing these documents, the design workforce fails to complete them by 3 PM. No one informs the print room that they are behind schedule nor suggests that the print room rule must be broken in order to meet the project needs. Consequently the print room doesn’t start issuing the documents until Monday morning.
The result is a schedule date missed, additional costs to the construction effort, and/or a change order for construction delays.
The rules were followed and the results were mediocre or counterproductive.
The workforce followed the first rule, but was not empowered with the SECOND rule.
EXAMPLE 2
The procedures for estimating an engineering project is that each department prepares an individual work hour estimate and these estimates are totaled by the project manager in preparation of the proposal. In the case of one proposed project, the bulk of the design work is electrical and mechanical, with a minor amount of structural and civil work.
Each department prepares the estimate including the structural department and the civil department. The estimates are totaled, the proposal is submitted, and the work is lost based on proposed cost.
In the follow up, the marketing department determines that the competition had far fewer structural and civil costs because their proposal planned on combining the drawings for civil and structural on one drawing instead of multiple drawings proposed by your firm.
The first RULE was followed, but no one suggested that the RULE could be broken to the advantage of the client and the engineering company by combining the minor discipline drawings into one.
The rules were followed and the results were mediocre or counterproductive.
EXAMPLE 3
The site rules for Quality Assurance require the piping superintendent to provide Quality Assurance with a schedule of the welding to be performed on a given day. Prior to insulating this welded pipe, Quality Assurance is required to sign off on the welds.
Upon completion of a set of critical welds, the piping group waits around for Quality Assurance to inspect and sign off on the welds. The welds are completed at noon. The insulators are staged to begin insulation. No one from Quality Assurance shows up until quitting time.
The Rules were followed and the results were mediocre or counterproductive.
Conclusion
The examples used above are deliberately obvious and non-controversial. The writer has used the above set of TWO rules throughout his career to empower the workforce and remove the often used excuse of “simply following the rules”. The writer has added one more caveat to these rules: When a rule is to be broken, inform one’s supervisor before hand or be fully prepared to defend your action afterward.
The writer could have used some far more controversial examples to illustrate the point but these examples may have overshadowed the principle. The second rule, RULES ARE MADE TO BE BROKEN, truly forces management to BELIEVE in the rules, and provides some creative and exciting opportunities for the workforce to improve both their environment and the work product.
Let is suffice to say that a workforce that is not both empowered and accountable is a mediocre workforce and the product, although predictable, is equally as mediocre.
Before one empowers a workforce to “break the rules”, one must make sure that the workforce truly understands
- The REASONS for the rule AND,
- The Accountability associated with breaking the rule.
If one can train a workforce to work within this expanded role, the results can push the envelope and expectations, and redefine the work environment.
