A bank employee hung a pencil drawing of one of his children on the wall of his office. It showed a dog and a train. Or maybe a horse and a train. It’s hard to say. It would seem, what’s wrong with that? What happened next, we tell in that material prepared on the book “Department of Common Sense.
Forbidden?
One day, returning from a multi-day business trip and opening his office, this man discovered that his child’s drawing had an urgent “Alert: Code Red!” style warning written in large block letters.
“You are in violation of group policy. Office desks should be left clean and all personal and work items should be put in the desk before leaving work. Be kind and stick to the group policy in the future.”
The bank employee became enraged and in doing so was completely confused. What is the company’s reasoning behind such actions? Would displaying drawings of children cause employees to start posting darker, more hallucinogenic things on the walls? Or is it a privacy issue? Could it be that a child’s drawing on an office wall is seen as a display of intemperance in an industry known for its caution and prudence?
It turns out that there is no rule prohibiting employees from putting up their children’s drawings in their offices.
But the fact was that virtually all the bank’s employees were convinced otherwise, so much so that it became an unofficial corporate law. Ironically, many bank employees who thought this rule was ridiculous said, “I knew it all along, but I never bothered to check. And those who genuinely believed that this rule really exists, explained, “I had the strange feeling that it couldn’t be, but I didn’t want to say anything.
Curiously enough, everyone ignored common sense.
Signal
The
same investment company had another problem: A wealthy elderly client, who had remained loyal to the company for decades, forgot to pay the monthly account maintenance fee. Because of this oversight, the bank rejected several of her checks – I might add, they were payments related to a celebration she was hosting for her seventieth birthday – thus embarrassing the woman in front of her friends.
The bank might as well have accused her of fraud.
Where is the common sense as well as the respect that the company should have shown to a 70-year-old customer who had used its services for almost forty years? What kind of signal of “customer care” could the blocking of their accounts send?
Compliance
Around the world, “compliance” has become an excuse to protect the status quo and keep the organization the same. Do nothing – or follow common sense. Along with the legal department, the compliance department has become a scapegoat to justify the lack of change and innovation in organizations.
“There’s no way the compliance department will approve this,” the company often says. Or, “The legal department will definitely say no.” We’re talking about a lot of silly laws that we unknowingly adhere to without even thinking about why they exist in the first place, because we’re too afraid of the consequences of not following them.
As a result, fear permeates the entire organization.
The more employees fear making even a single mistake, the more fear builds up in their heads and the more wary they become. Does anyone want to fail, look stupid, be humiliated or punished, or lose their job or reputation?
Many organizations have rules of obscure origin that everyone adheres to because – well, because that’s the way it’s done.
When, by whom, why? Almost no one knows, as organisations rarely have a centralised database of all their rules and policies. At the same time, if you violate them, you can be disciplined and even fired. It’s like walking on the beach knowing there are unexploded mines buried under your bare feet. No one knows exactly where they are, but everyone agrees that you should look under your feet.
Compliance breeds fear – and destroys common sense. What’s more, cultures based on fear inhibit progress and innovation, so they don’t promote anything good at all. Yes, managers justify their existence: someone has to demand that employees meet deadlines, budgets, productivity and key performance indicators. Often managers achieve this by threatening subordinates with punishment. But when our minds are paralyzed by fear and anxiety, we are unable to function at an optimal level. Just the opposite, we perform better in an environment where we feel psychologically safe.
According to the book Common Sense Department.
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