We Don’t Need No Stinkin’ Procedure!
Near the end of the courses we teach in organizations we encourage the attendees to find and complete a small performance improvement project. Generally, people are pretty happy to have an opportunity to improve some aspect of their work environment and take this assignment on with enthusiasm. We have seen some absolutely wonderful, high impact projects come from this. The course attendees feel reinforced by their success as well as the encouragement they receive from their peers and bosses. In other words, we have at least temporarily created a work environment where people want to do projects that add value to the workplace.
Yet, it never fails that senior leaders, hoping to maintain this momentum, decide that the best course of action is to create a standard procedure for doing projects. Because nothing says, “let’s give this all we can!” like an 8-page procedure.
To illustrate why this won’t work, let me provide an example from one of our client sites. A woman who recently took my course decided her project would be reducing unnecessary and redundant paperwork and was going through each set of paperwork on the site and creating a leaner, and more useful solution. She had eliminated a lot of stuff already, saving them time and money, and she was everyone’s hero for doing so. After all, no one wants to enter in the same expense three times. One of the site leaders said that they had never seen her so motivated. I would hate to see that spark of enthusiasm squashed by trying to make her fit what she was doing to step-by-step a procedure.
Procedures don’t motivate people, consequences do.
They didn’t need a procedure, they needed champions who would continue to encourage and support their efforts. They needed a little time each week to work on making improvements. They needed to create a community of people at their workplace who were highly committed to behavioral science and continued to talk and learn about it after I left.
A lot of times, people say, “that sounds too hard, wouldn’t a procedure be easier”. It is hard to sustain BMT or any large-scale initiative, but it’s the only way to create a lasting shift in the culture of your organization. Writing a procedure is easier, and it is also easy to file it away and never look at it again.
It’s what your people do and say everyday that matters, no matter what is written in your procedures.
Nicole you said “Procedures don’t motivate people, consequences do.” and that got me to thinking. So, I have dumb question to ask. Don’t we need procedures that are balanced with expected consequence to help us remember what we did to get that result? I think motivation is about energy and direction, which are strong reasons for why we engage in certain behaviors. A procedure is an antecedent that is also designed to promote a behavior that will produce a expected consequence or result. If the procedure is in balance with the expected consequence then we should observe a stable happy environment. Right?
David, you are on the right track. Antecedents that are linked to consequences are going to be more effective.
One of the challenges with creating procedures is that rules add threats to the environment – do this or else. So, we only want to create rules when we are willing to enforce them and when they are necessary to enforce. Most people find choice and flexibility reinforcing in most situations so we don’t want to remove that reinforcer if it isn’t necessary to do so.
I find that as a student in OBM, rules (and the behaviors that follow) can frequently have unintended consequences.
When the procedures are created without thought of the consequences that will maintain it’s execution, typically things fall apart.
What I don’t understand is it sounds all well and good for us to say this but why do the majority of U.S. businesses struggle to not micromanage and make every last desirable outcome filled with procedures?
What consequence or consequences cause this behavior for an organizational standpoint?
Good question, Michael! I think it stems from a lack of understand what drives behavior. In addition, antecedents are faster and easier in the short term than having to identify and apply the appropriate consequences.