Kill Stupid Rules
Every team has tasks, responsibilities and routines that they maintain despite the fact that they provide little value.
These tasks have become the status quo for so long that nobody has questioned whether or not they should be done in the first place.
Let's change that.
"Killing stupid rules" is a great way to boost effectiveness while also driving engagement. Using this language also adds some levity and excitement to it.
People love the idea of removing bureaucracy but few teams or organizations ever follow-through with it. Prove that your team is different.
Today, I'll provide a couple of recommendations for doing that…
Call the Meeting
Before you pull the team together, provide them with a heads-up on the purpose of the meeting so they have time to put some thought into non-value tasks. This can be as simple as "in the next meeting, I want to spend time talking about rules and tasks that are getting in our way. Come prepared to discuss some examples".
You may get a little push-back here. I've seen some teams so exhausted from empty promises that their immediate response is "I don't have anything to suggest".
Assuming your team has nothing to kill is a mistake. All teams have these tasks laying around. If your team is not identifying anything, it's a sign that their hesitant to believe that this is going to result in any real change.
Brainstorm
When the meeting comes, you want to spend a good amount of time brainstorming all the rules that cause challenges, frustration and difficulty. Make it clear that nothing is off the table. It doesn’t mean it's definitely going to be scrapped, but it's important to understand what rules the teams sees as stupid.
The "start, stop, continue" framework may be helpful here. It's essentially a model where the team identifies work they want to start doing, work they want to stop and work that needs to continue. If you want more specifics, there's plenty of guidance available online.
Assess
For the items that are raised, think critically about why the tasks or rule exists. "This is how we've always done it" is an easy red flag.
My go-to example is reporting. Most teams have some report that they either generate or work-from despite the fact it provides very little value. Asking clarifying questions can help identify opportunities for low value work. Who looks at this report? What do they do with the results? What decisions does that support in the broader organization? What would happen if nobody looked at the report?
I have, at times, had employees stop running reports to see if anyone would notice or care. After a few months, I retired the process. Nobody ever challenged it, but if they had…I would mention that it was retired because nobody was asking or processing the information. Citing the fact that it went months undetected should be sufficient evidence that it was of minimal value.
On the spot
You need to kill at least one, ideally a couple things during this meeting. If you don't, the exercise will be seen as pointless and another well-intentioned empty promise.
Killing on the spot is really powerful but some tasks will take more consideration or additional approval. There are also things that must be done for legal or regulatory reasons that obviously can't be stopped. Rules or tasks that don't have a hard requirement and are within your sphere of influence are the easiest to kill.
Forgiveness over permission
If it's not a hard requirement, it's often better to ask for forgiveness than seek permission.
Asking for permission from others will usually result in a "don't kill" decision. The reason for that is that it likely doesn’t cost that decision maker anything to maintain status quo. Because the status quo doesn’t cause them friction, it's safer to keep it going as opposed to risking any potential fall-out of a task stopping.
You need to use some judgment here, but if it's not likely to break anything critical…make the call yourself.
This Week's Action Items:
Give advanced notice of the meeting's purpose.
Brainstorm with an open mind, nothing is off-limits.
Identify the top tasks to eliminate.
Eliminate at least one, ideally more during the meeting itself.
When appropriate, ask for forgiveness over permission.
