Making Rules Work

When people talk about rebels, or rebellious behaviour as a negative, I find it so amusing. This is of course because conforming has always been a personal challenge. I wish I knew why, then at least it could have been less painful growing up – struggling to conform, follow the rules, fit into the system.

I am very aware of the risk of how this could sound. In my view a rule, for the sake of having a rule, has just never been something that you have to follow. It is optional. As you can imagine this mindset leaves plenty of room for failure.

During the school holidays my Grade 1 child had a homework project that he had to complete. When I asked him on his plan to making this happen, his reply was: “Don’t worry mom, it is optional.” I think not.

Being able to manoeuvre rules and systems to work for us, is a skillset I often see (or the lack thereof) with clients. For some people it comes very naturally – spotting opportunities for creativity in spite of (or because of!) the rule or system limitations. Please note: I am not advocating doing illegal stuff, not at all. I am wondering how you get people to see the rule/box and then work with it to such an extent that it starts working for you.

My IT guy has figured this out. In database design, if the current rules are not serving the developer, they simply create a new rule that will do the trick. My kids have tried this with our family “rules” as well, creating addendums to the norm. This is in the form of very cleverly worded qualifying circumstances and subsequent consequences.

Some very successful businesses base their whole business model on the weakness of another’s rule, law, contract, system, etc. The limitations of the box we all so desperately try to fit into. I applaud these guys (or most of them at least.) A display of the creative human spirit at work, fantastic!

Motto Model: http://goo.gl/cNnpy and Motto Individual Assessment: http://goo.gl/UhC7V

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