Reinventing Rules Together
Being in charge is a difficult thing. As a leader you need to create, explain and enforce rules without offending anyone or adversely affecting productivity. This can seem to be an almost impossible task, however, there is a strategy to help any leader cope: have the people who will be following the rules make them themselves!
Rule-Making Workshops
A workshop is a great way to create an environment where employees feel their concerns are respected and considered. However, as the person in charge, you'll still need to make sure that their decisions are aligned with corporate interests.
Step One: State the Problem
Make sure everyone understands that this workshop is to address one issue and one issue only. Make sure that the issue is clearly stated in as simple a way as possible. For example, pretend that the problem is that the production area of the office is too messy. Don't say that the whole office is messy but don't go into details of the copier being left on or trash not being emptied or food creating a mess. For step one simply state the production area of the office is a mess and then give everyone involved in the workshop time to focus their thoughts on that specific problem.
Step Two: Brainstorm
Turn this into a two-step process. Encourage everyone participating in the workshop to brainstorm on their own ideas to solve the problem. Explain that you're giving everyone time to consider the whole problem by themselves and to really make sure that their solutions fit the problem at hand (this should be about 5 minutes).
In the second part of the brainstorming process everyone gets to present their ideas out-loud and one at a time. As a leader this is a great time to do some subtle nudging. For example, paying everyone a cleaning bonus may go over well with the employees in the workshop but you know corporate will never approve it.
Other possible solutions could be:
- No printing after 5pm (so the room will be kept clean after hours).
- Friendly or funny flier reminders to be clean.
- Rotating cleaning schedules.
- Cafeteria space to keep people from having to eat in the work area.
- Creating print quotas to encourage people to waste less paper.
Step Three: Categorize
Once you've identified all the potential good ideas try to classify them. Possible categories for our sample problem could be worklife, printer usage and incentive/penalties. Under the worklife category go the solutions friendly fliers, cleaning schedules, no meetings after 5pm and cafeteria space. Under printer usage you'd put no printing after 5pm and print quotas. Under incentive/penalties you'd have cleaning contests and messiness penalties.
Step Four: Discuss
Have a group discussion where you make clear the goals of corporate, in this case that the work room be kept cleaner. At this point you can also discuss the problem in a bit more detail than in step one when you just stated it as simply as possible. By this step you can discuss other concerns that employees have, that a print quota could have negative consequences on their productivity or that a messiness penalty could be bad for morale. By the end of the discussion every category from step three should have one rule that everyone thinks will work. For worklife let's pick cafeteria space, for printer usage let's pick no printing after 5 and for incentive the cleaning contest.
Step Five: Create an Elegant Rule
An elegant rule is the same as an elegant solution, it must be clearly and easily stated and understood. Once you've discussed the problem and identified the best possible solutions then change them into elegant rules.
- The food rule could become; food may only be consumed in designated cafeteria areas.
- The printer usage rule is almost done, but a loophole may need to be added so that productivity won't suffer. Something like, no printing after 5pm unless you've obtained prior permission from your project manager.
- The incentive rule could be more difficult but remember, keep it simple. Decide only what's absolutely necessary and then leave further details up to one designated person. For example, cleaning contests will be held every friday and coordinated by the office manager.
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