On Rules

We made everyone complete a course on tailgating: don't hold the door for someone without a badge, not even a colleague. When we ran short on entry passes, we asked people to let each other in. After that, everyone held the door for anyone else. What stuck was not the course, but a lesson that rules are optional.

Every rule teaches something, and sometimes that lesson is unintended. Force a password change every ninety days, and people don't become more secure. Summer2024 becomes Summer2025.

Rules that aren't enforced teach even more. When a rule is broken without consequence, you learn that rules don't matter, and that whoever sets them can be ignored. A meeting scheduled for 9 sharp starts at 9:07. Within weeks, everyone plans for 9:07. The people who arrive on time are punished with waiting. The next rule the organizer announces won't carry the same weight.

It's not just the specific rule that teaches, also their number does. By rule number one hundred, it is impossible to comply with everything. People give up and focus on not getting caught. Worse, they stop thinking for themselves. Judgement is no longer their responsibility, since everything is prescribed.

The real benefit comes when behavior is discussed, and agreements are challenged and evaluated. Rules are a byproduct of those discussions. They make culture legible to newcomers and catch the people who would otherwise be left behind.

Culture is what a group does when no rule applies. Rules are the floor for when it fails. Keep rules few, and let the conversation carry the rest.