10 Cultural Practices # 2: Managing to the Exceptions

CREATING RULES AND POLICIES TO MANAGE THE EXCEPTIONS

Any time you have a group of people working together, someone will do something that seems very stupid and way out of line. When this occurs, managers are confronted with a basic dilemma of how to deal with the problem. Of course, this becomes the most visible demonstration of a manager’s skill at dealing with an employee performance issue. Once the issue is resolved, the next question is how to ensure that this will never happen again. Creating a new rule or policy that you believe will ensure that this exception will never happen again sends a message to all the other team members that they are not trusted to be smart enough to know this was stupid, and now mutual trust takes a hit. Over time, if every employee bad action turns into a new rule and/or policy, the culture will spend all the time on preventing stupid behaviors vs. on valuing good behavior. Trust will fade away and compliance will deteriorate passion. Deal with the exception but don’t make everyone pay the price for 1 stupid exception.

READ MORE =THE IMPACT OF MANAGING EXCEPTIONS WITH NEW RULES AND POLICIES