Potholes & Pitfalls: The Keys to Steering Clear Policies
It’s winter here in Northeast Indiana and that means snow, ice, and POTHOLES. You can be just driving along minding your own business and ‘ka-chunk’ you hit a pothole. If you’re lucky, it may have just rang your bell a little bit… if you’re not lucky you’re looking at damage to your vehicle. Potholes are annoying and frustrating… and sometimes completely avoidable. You just have to know what to look for.
The same goes for pitfalls in your operational policies. They’re annoying and frustrating but also many times avoidable. Here are my most common pitfalls that can be avoided when it comes to policies.
Making a sweeping change based on a temporary emotion: We’re all human, which means sometimes we react to what’s right in front of us. When we react with a policy based on a situation that has hacked us off, it’s not necessarily an effective one. For instance, if you receive a customer complaint because employees are socializing instead of working… you might be frustrated and want to implement a ‘no socializing’ policy. But the question is, how effective would that be really? What, you want a policy where employees never talk to each other and build comradery? That’s probably not what you actually mean. But instead, take a moment to find a way to communicate the expectation of customer service.
Lack of follow-through: One of the things I ask all clients when they come to me with an issue is, “what are you actually willing to do about it?” You see there’s nothing worse than having a policy that has no recourse. Maybe you made it out of an emotional decision (see above) or you realized the recourse you want to follow isn’t exactly sustainable. I see this with business owners that are frustrated with behavior, so they want a way to lay down the law (i.e. terminate a troubled employee). Well, that’s along the same lines as being grounded for life. Have your parents ever grounded you for life? Yeah, how’s that working for you?? I’m not saying there aren’t instances where immediate termination is necessary, but that’s the exception rather than the rule. So making sure that you can follow through with the recourse is key.
Not communicating or socializing a policy: In my corporate life, I worked at a HUGE international company. Which was awesome, until it wasn’t. One time it wasn’t awesome was when an auditor found a policy that no one knew about. And that’s bad news. What happened was that this policy was developed, approved, and implemented without any stakeholder communication. So not only were we not following the policy, but we didn’t even KNOW about the policy. When, we, as the stakeholders got together, we looked at the policy and realized that it wasn’t sustainable to adhere to. This is why when you start to develop a policy, it’s important to understand the impact it has on the stakeholders and also ensure that you communicate the existence of the policy. We do this through communication, which is communicating that the policy exists but socializing the policy, which is getting active feedback and communication about the feasibility of the policy.
Making changes too frequently: This is very close to the first point, making a change based on a temporary emotion. This also leads to making frequent changes based on reactions. There’s nothing worse than constantly changing a policy, this leads to a lot of confusion and non-compliance. Instead when you have a new policy, live with it for 90 days. Anything that comes up, make a note—is it something that you missed? Or is it just a fluke? Then at the end of the 90 days, you can make any adjustments (if necessary).
Hopefully, avoiding these policy pitfalls will help you navigate success in your organization! Follow Plan-It Documents on Facebook or LinkedIn for more tips and tricks.
