Breaking rules and redefining standards

By Adetunji Adeleye

TO some people, being professional means a deep understanding of the standards in a field, and adherence to them. To others, it means almost the opposite, that is being so good that you can make up your own rules, and get away with it. If you are in the latter category or perhaps just an aspiring rule breaker, then you should know that rule breaking has rules of its own. Successfully smashing standards requires three factors: Knowledge, power and tolerance for risk taking.

According to T.S. Eliot, a world renown psychologist, it is not wise to violate rules until you know how to observe them. The more knowledge and skill you have in a given situation, the better able you are to break a rule successfully.

Every profession has ethical standards and best practices that must be critically adhered to. At times in a real work environment, projects, assignments and responsibilities giving to employee call for initiative to be applied with zero tolerance for mistake. How do you navigate trouble waters without getting fired? It takes knowledge to break rules successfully and break new grounds. For example, the world renown neurosurgeon, Professor Ben Carson of John Hopkins University in the United States, used Experimental Medicine to separate first siamese twins in history. Though the method employed by him was not without critcism but because of the success recorded and new ray of hope his medical breakthrough has given to many siamese twins both born and unborn all over the world, his contributions to the field of Neurosurgery had become acceptable.

Sergio Zyman is a world renown marketing icon and Chief Global Marketer for Coca-Cola International, Mr. Zyman introduced a new coke to reposition his company in the market not minding how his board of directors would feel if his effort should fail. He was credited as the marketing man behind the most disastrous product launched since the Edsel. Even though, he left the company wounded, he never took them to court. After seven years in consulting, he was reappointed and he became the miracle behind the success of modern coke.

According to Roberto Goizueta, Chief Executive Officer, Coca-Cola International, Sergio Zyman is a product of a change in our thinking. Zyman took the risk, broke the rules and repositioned our brand and that is why I put him in charge of the world’s most valuable brand.

Mr. Goizueta goes on to indict corporate America, including his company for becoming uncompetitive by not being tolerant of mistakes. The moment you let avoiding failure become your motivator, you are down the path of inactivity. You can stumble only if you are moving.

The rapid change that drives business today calls for unconventional thinking, action in the face of uncertainty and occasional stumbles. Bureaucracy in our organisation has killed innovation, creativity and initiative among employees because of the fear of breaking rules whereas there is a measure of rule breaking that is critical to breakthrough in our workplaces.

Employees must note that if their skills are still in the apprentice stage, they must not try to play revolutionary, their attempts will come off as dumb arrogance. Stick to the rule or else you will get fired. The second rule for breaking rule is that the more the power an employee has in a given situation, the more casual he can be about breaking rules.

According to Publilius Syrus, a social philosopher, a rooster has great influence on his own dunghill.

Within the corporate world, top executives are usually a lot more casual about their company’s rules than the people below them. The big bosses were often involved in making the rules in the first place, so they know just how arbitrary, or at least adhoc, those rules are. Also, of course, they are less likely to get in trouble for breaking rules, so they can afford to be more casual about them.

Outside the workplace, the effect of power on rule breaking is often more subtle, but it is still a factor. Likelihood to break rules with an existing client is based on how much power you have in that particular situation, such as your perception of how much the client needs you, and how painful it would be for them to replace you. For instance, in a situation where you are the only one handling a particular brief for a company and the company has no department or anyone else who can handle it for them. In such situation, the company has handed you more power in your business relationship by making you the only one and this realisation can make you to be more experimental in your work for them. In essence, in breaking some conservative design rules and having a little more fun with the work. As it turned out, the more wild your work got, the more they would like it.

The point is that the more the power shift in the relationship, the more the freedom to break rules in the course of one’s assignment.

Disorderliness in workplaces is a function of too much freedom. Workplace freedom is good if all the employees are matured enough to handle it with care in order to bring about positive development in their organisation. Freedom to act in the execution of one’s given assignment can lead to creativity, innovation and exploits in a given workplace.

The last rule for successful breaking of rules without getting fired is that you must have a high tolerance for risk taking. According to Walter Lippmann, a seasoned administrator, the man who will follow precedent, but never create one, is merely an obvious example of the routineer.What he thinks is the heavens above him is nothing but the roof.

In today’s workplace, employers want employees with high level of risk tolerance which can positively add to the bottomline. Bill Gates, who regularly tempts failure at Microsoft, likes to hire people who have made mistakes. Says he: ‘It shows that they take risks. The way people deal with things that go wrong is an indication of how they deal with change.”

History is littered with heroes who failed for taking risks and later redefined the destines of their organisations for breaking rules. For example, Jack Welch, former Chief Executive Officer, General Electric, once blew up a pilot plastics plant that he managed in 1966, and he was held responsible for design flaws. Notwithstanding, he went on to redefine standards and re-write the entire history of his company to be rated in the Guinness Book as the all time industrial colossus.

Babe Ruth, who hit lots of home runs, broke the major league record for strike outs of 1,330, said that it is smarter to make bold moves and miss sometimes than to consistently hit singles. Tales of resurrection notwithstanding, some people view failure, risk taking or rule breaking the way they do cancer. They see rules breaking as devastating, terminal and too ugly to discuss.

If breaking rules just makes you nervous in general, then you are responsible to risk-averse for an unconventional approach. On the other hand, if you never break any rule, then you are doomed to forever be just a follower treating life as some kind of a franchise deal where someone else provides all the structure, and you just fit yourself into that pattern and go through the pre-ordained motions. Breaking a rule always goes with taking risk of getting fired and can take you to the top; if your motive is right. Decide if this is what you want to do.

As a professional, breaking rules for common good of all may be acceptable but in a situation whereby you do it for your parochial selfish interest, you will be doomed for life if you are caught.