Thursday, 17 January 2013

The Obedience of Fools


Back in the 1980’s I was working at Midland Bank in Barking. The Security clerk there at the time, a chap by the name of Norman Evans, was wont to say “Rules are for the obedience of fools and the guidance of wise men.” Norman would normally be provoked to say this when he had been asked to do something with which he didn’t agree, or where he felt there was some unnecessary bureaucracy involved in whatever he was doing. Either because I was struck by the perspicacity of this remark, or simply because I heard it so often, it stuck in my mind and over time it became something that I found myself thinking or saying when I encountered something that made no sense to do or was needlessly bound up in red-tape. At the time I first heard it said I didn’t realise that Norman was quoting Douglas Bader, the RAF fighter pilot who despite losing both of his legs in a flying accident in 1931 went on to take part in the Battle of Britain during World War Two.

It would be wrong to look at Bader’s maxim and take it as synonymous with the idea that rules are made to be broken. Rules are made for good reasons but what tends to be forgotten, both by those who make them and those who apply them, is that they don’t always fit every circumstance.  I look at this way; look at the rules, look at the circumstances; does applying the rules to the circumstances ensure a fair and appropriate outcome? If yes, then follow the rules, if no then examine why that is and act accordingly.

A well known but often misused expression relating to rules is that “the exception proves the rule” which is often used in the sense that for every rule there is an exception, but rather it is that the circumstance quoted which is exceptional, i.e. outside of the rule. For example, “Parking prohibited on Sundays” (the exception) "proves" that parking is allowed on the other six days of the week (the rule).[1]  So, to belabour the point further, the exception we are examining here is where we have an established rule, but because of the circumstances we believe it inappropriate to apply it; this may often be because applying the rule will create an outcome contrary to that which is intended or desirable.

Perhaps we can distil this a little further. There is no substitute for common sense. Sadly common sense is a quality that is in increasingly short supply these days. Indeed my view would be that many organisations positively discourage it and try to replace it with procedures (rules by another name). I was once involved in a meeting on the subject of dealing with customer queries in which we were discussing the types of queries that might be raised. These had been classified into various types, and for each type we had a workflow, that is to say a process by which having answered a series of multiple choice questions the person dealing with the enquiry could be guided towards the necessary actions to take to resolve the query.  We had one query type called Miscellaneous, which we needed in order to cover all of those enquiries that didn’t readily fit into a specific type. Because of the broad spectrum of potential queries falling into this category there were no procedures, no workflow, in short nothing to guide the user as to what to do. “How,” I was asked by one of the senior managers present in the meeting, “does the user know how to resolve these queries?” I replied that they had to use their experience and judgement. “Oh dear,” came the response, “we can’t have that.” And we couldn’t have that because this didn’t fit with bringing in someone with neither experience nor judgment, straight off the street, plonking them down in front of a computer and letting them get on with it. The idea today is that there can be a procedure or a rule to fit every eventuality but this isn’t so, there are events and situations that haven’t previously occurred or even been considered and in these it’s necessary to apply judgement to common sense to arrive at the right outcome.

Now I’m not going to blame the organisation, nor the manager from my example for wanting to pursue this particular course as it seems to be the way all organisations work these days, but let’s apply it in an analogy. If you had a problem with your car, or merely needed it serviced, would you be more comfortable with this being dealt with by Joe, who has twenty years experience in the motor trade and has serviced thousands of cars, or Fred who has never seen under the bonnet of a car before, but knows how to follow procedures? Yes, I know that twenty years ago Joe had no experience either and had never seen what goes on under the bonnet of a car but back then Joe probably did an apprenticeship and was trained by someone with knowledge, experience and common sense. Joe didn’t replace the gearbox on a car on his first day at work with nothing more than a set of procedures to follow. If he did, how comfortable would you be driving that car away from the garage?

All too often, and I’m sure you’ve experienced this at first hand as either a “victim” or someone who has had to sort out the unholy mess that has accrued as a result, rules get applied and the outcome is that not only is the issue (whatever it might be) not resolved but that matters actually get made worse. What can happen in these events is that the matter escalates, a complaint gets made and someone more senior within the organisation reverses the decision, often having to compensate the complainant financially (either voluntarily or because an industry ombudsman gets involved) and all because someone applied the rules without using any common sense or discretion.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not bashing big business here, nor do I subscribe to the idea that the customer is always right. Believe me, I know that customers can be unreasonable, unrealistic and opportunistic. I do however subscribe to the principle of treating customers fairly; sometimes the fairest thing to say to a customer is “no.” This is where common sense, discretion and experience are invaluable. Sadly these days I think that I’m of a rapidly shrinking number of people who believe this. 

One day I truly think that I’ll ask the question, “Whatever happened to common sense?” and back will come the answer, “It was abolished in 2013.”


[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exception_that_proves_the_rule

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