{"id":2179,"date":"2016-02-16T17:21:54","date_gmt":"2016-02-16T22:21:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/flevy.com\/blog\/?p=2179"},"modified":"2016-01-08T17:37:38","modified_gmt":"2016-01-08T22:37:38","slug":"what-happens-when-the-rules-cause-chaos","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/flevy.com\/blog\/what-happens-when-the-rules-cause-chaos\/","title":{"rendered":"What Happens When the Rules Cause Chaos?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Editor’s Note: Jim Cucinotta is a very senior executive, with over 20+ years of experience in leading sales, marketing, and operations teams. \u00a0He is also an author on Flevy. \u00a0You can\u00a0view his firm’s business\u00a0training guides\u00a0here<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

* * * *<\/p>\n

\"chaos_theory\"As a manager, you are governed by a set of rules, norms, and cultural standards that help guide your business decisions.\u00a0 And for the vast majority of times, these standards help form the right way to handle a work situation.\u00a0 The rules protect both the employee and the employer.<\/p>\n

But what happens when the rules actually cause chaos?\u00a0 Must you follow them to the letter?\u00a0 Are you obligated to ignore them?\u00a0 Will your superiors support you if you make the right decision, but it falls against the norms?<\/p>\n

These types of decisions happen every day and many times you do not realize it.\u00a0 How you deal with your employees\u2019 attire, workplace interactions, and \u201cfree time\u201d activities may all be in the gray area of your company\u2019s published guidelines.\u00a0 Your guidelines may not cover tweeting, posting, or shopping at work.\u00a0 Or dress down days, telecommuting, and other \u201cnew\u201d things in the workplace.<\/p>\n

If you are a stickler for the rules, you may be running into a huge dilemma- how do I manage a situation without the safety of our corporate policies?\u00a0 Even if you are a maverick, how do you manage the situation without some guidelines? \u00a0Failure to act will certainly cause issues, but how do you maneuver?<\/p>\n

The answer is actually pretty easy:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Involve your team<\/strong> (including HR and your supervisor).\u00a0 For dress down days, discuss what people can wear when clients are coming to the office versus an inventory day.\u00a0 Working from home is a great perk, but everyone needs to be available between normal work hours.\u00a0 Posting your lunch may be an acceptable activity, tweeting your opinions about a co-worker, not so much.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n
      \n
    1. Create guidelines that are fair<\/strong>, consistent with your normal policies, and are steeped in common sense.\u00a0 For instance, is it reasonable to wear running shorts to work?\u00a0 If you work for Nike, maybe, IBM, not so much.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n
        \n
      1. Explain the basis behind your decisions<\/strong>, it will help your team when the next vague crisis takes place.\u00a0 People crave consistency, explaining your decisions helps them understand your logic.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

        Managing situations inside of your company\u2019s policies is hard, managing situations outside of them is even harder.\u00a0 But by being inclusive, smart and transparent, you can help create policies that others will follow.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

        Editor’s Note: Jim Cucinotta is a very senior executive, with over 20+ years of experience in leading sales, marketing, and operations teams. \u00a0He is also an author on Flevy. \u00a0You can\u00a0view his firm’s business\u00a0training guides\u00a0here. * * * * As a manager, you are governed by a set of rules, norms, and cultural standards that… What Happens When the Rules Cause Chaos?<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":78,"featured_media":2180,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"neve_meta_sidebar":"","neve_meta_container":"","neve_meta_enable_content_width":"","neve_meta_content_width":0,"neve_meta_title_alignment":"","neve_meta_author_avatar":"","neve_post_elements_order":"","neve_meta_disable_header":"","neve_meta_disable_footer":"","neve_meta_disable_title":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[408],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2179","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-management-leadership"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/flevy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2179","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/flevy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/flevy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flevy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/78"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flevy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2179"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/flevy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2179\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2187,"href":"https:\/\/flevy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2179\/revisions\/2187"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flevy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2180"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/flevy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2179"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flevy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2179"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flevy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2179"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}