PolicyPlop

Policy does not dictate behavior.  Culture does.  Quite a few who hold leadership positions in organizations conclude that policy (or rules or regulations or tightly defined protocols) somehow trumps culture.  Nope.

What are the effects of pervasive policy plop?

• De-energized team members (usually, many of the best ones)
• Letter-of-the-law compliance as opposed to spirit-of-the-law manifestations
• General resentment by team members that compliance rules were written for ALL to address the sins of a few
• Team exasperation at the deficit model message - "you'll only get/do it right if we demand that you get/do it right"
• Ubiquitous hunker-n-hide syndrome --- it's just easier to take the minimalist route, to stay off the radar, to not push boundaries, to not press for improvement

Not a lot of upside to policy plop.

If the time we spend on developing, writing, communicating, monitoring, and enforcing policy could somehow be spent on improving organizational culture, what a Merry Christmas we'd ALL have (throughout the whole year!).

Stop the PLOP!  (Or, at the very least, reduce it a little.)