The Policy Paradox: Why More Rules Create Worse Leaders

We've all heard the complaint, nobody wants to work anymore.

Honestly, Josh, I'm tired of hearing it because the truth is usually a lot tougher to swallow. People do want to work. They just might not want to work for you.

Ouch. That hurts. But that's exactly why we are taking the stage at the Cozy Big Summit on October 15th, right here in Cleveland.

We're leaning into the uncomfortable stuff. We're talking about how to find the right people and more importantly, how to manage today's workforce without losing your sanity or your culture.

If you're a business owner or leader looking to innovate and grow, you can't afford to miss this. We're going to help you move past the excuses and start building a team that actually wants to be there.

It's time to think big. Join us at the BIG Summit on October 15th. Let's fix the leadership gap and get your business back on track.

Head over to cozy.org for more information and to grab your tickets.

We'll see you in Cleveland.

Some of you may take this as a surprise, but there may have been one or two policies named after me.

I'm not surprised.

The problem is, is so many policies are given a name like the Josh policy, and we write them because Josh screwed up or Josh did something that someone didn't like. And now the rest of the company has to suffer.

Uh-huh.

Have you ever seen that?

Yes. Yes. I've also seen it in like sports, like all of the sports. Sports rules that are written that are Cleveland-based are all because we did something horribly stupid. So yes.

For those of you here in Cleveland, you know exactly what we're talking about. You do. We're going to talk about policy. Stay tuned. She's the CEO.

He's the marketing and operations guy.

If it's broken, you need—

The Business Fix.

How was Europe?

It was wonderful. That long vacation that I told everybody I was taking, I took it. We had a great time. My team didn't need me at all.

No, which I mean, when you mentioned that when you came back, you're like, no, they didn't. I'm assuming they were relieved that you were gone.

They were perfectly happy that I was not there. And then they were excited that I came back, but they did not call me or need anything.

That's amazing. Which is fantastic. Yeah, that is a testament to the—

It takes several weeks and no one, like I come back and I'm like, what's going on, Alice? She's like, here's like, we had a 15-minute download. And like, Julie had like a 20-minute download because she asked like a couple questions about Europe. But I mean, that was, that was it.

Yeah. So how was Europe? I mean, was it, it was a good vacation?

It was a good vacation. We had a great time. I think that at one point in time I texted my husband who was not with me, he, because I was with our kids and he was doing something else. I'm like, I never have to do this for this long with our children ever again. He's like, good, me either. So we loved our kid, we love our kids, we have a great time. But like, maybe one week at a time, maybe one week, maybe like 4 days. Maybe we don't ever need to take them to your, like, they can take us to Europe, but like, we just kept saying like, when they would ask about things, I'm like, did you pay for the trip? Did you pay? Like at one point in time, Caleb's like, why am I sitting here on the airplane? I'm like, because you're going for free. So you don't get to be bougie. You have no budget.

Right, right, right. Go out, mow some lawns and come back and we'll talk about it.

Correct. So he's just saying like, how can I fly first class? And I'm like, well, first of all, we did— none of us flew first class, but you know, go get a job. Okay. So he's like, Dad, can you teach me how to trade? Because of course, you know, married to a day trader. And so he's like, no, not yet. 14-year-old, no, you cannot learn how to trade.

No, that sounds like a bad idea.

Yeah, doesn't it? Yeah, my kid who can hack his school system, yeah, no, he doesn't need to know how to trade yet.

No, he definitely does not.

Yeah, what have you been up to? I mean, you had a giant round, you crossed state lines and country lines.

Yeah, a friend of mine and I, we rode around Lake Erie, which is a cool trip. Trip. Um, I talked with a lot of people about it, and we did it on, on the motorcycles, separate motorcycles. Nice.

Not a bicycle build for two.

No, no, no. Um, but yeah, no, it was interesting because I, like, I post about it online in a motorcycle group, and they're like, man, that had to be a great couple of days. And I'm like, no, no, it was one. Um, 720 miles. I literally pulled out of the driveway at 5:00 on the dot, and I pulled in the driveway at 9:45 PM. And the next day I was completely useless. It was a great adventure. Plenty of great stories from it. We've like, like the 401 across Canada, it's flatter than this table. And we fought a crosswind for 2 hours. Ooh. Right. Just blowing us all over the road. And I'm like, well, this is not fun. But once again, it's the stories and it's why we, it's why we love it. There were no rules made by this ride either though.

Oh, nice.

So there's no new rules. Okay, good. There's no new policies.

We didn't have any international incidents while we were in Europe. We may have maybe picked a fight with someone on an airplane, but we were good.

And all I can go back to is the scene with vegetable lasagna on Seinfeld when you were mentioning like the trip and how you and Steve were sitting separate.

Yes.

I thought of like Elaine and Putty in some cases, like the 3 or 4 times they broke up and got back together on the trip. And I thought, I wonder if those arguments are happening on the trip.

Maybe. I love it.

That being said, we talk all the time. Getting back to business. Yeah, you're off vacation. I'm back from my— Yeah. Consistency is what builds your culture. The model, what you mandate, those types of things. I mean, today we're going to, we're going to, we're going to flip to the dark side of that because there's so many people that feel culture like they, they think they're building culture and all they're doing is they're creating a ginormous War and Peace-sized dusty binder. That, like, I feel— I always feel bad for the people in HR because they have to lift this thing.

Yeah. Or they have to download it, or they have to upload it, right?

They have to download or upload this. And at that point, you just— I mean, you just click the upload button, you go home, and then you come back tomorrow, and sometime after lunch it's done.

Very much.

We talked before about, like, emotional reactions and pulling some of the emotionals out of it, pulling some of the emotion out of it. Because you and I both know leaders write so many policies as emotional reactions to problems, or they buy that generic templated handbook to cover their assets.

Uh-huh.

But then they make the one-off exceptions because they want to be nice, or they see a quicker way around it and they just— so, yeah, we're going to cover Like a policy with exceptions isn't a policy, it's a suggestion. We're going to cover some of this today. And I feel it's so important because so many people have this rulebook. I'm going to talk about like how they need to just— I don't want to say light it on fire, but they need to— they need to go through their rulebook with a paper— with a shredder handy. Yeah, because that— don't burn the whole thing. There is good stuff.

There's stuff that you have to have.

Correct. Like the thing that I like here is we, like my notes say, we've got a dusty 50-page handbook. That's nothing. I feel like that's the introduction. Yes. That's the foreword.

That's the who we are.

Correct.

Yeah.

Right.

That was built by marketing. Yes.

Correct.

Correct.

The big who we are and why you should care, which we know you're going to ignore because it's 50 pages. It's in a forgotten Google Drive folder. It's in the drawer. It is. Part of what I like to call in the office the dust collection system because it hasn't moved in so long. CEOs and HR departments in so many cases, like, take this thing so seriously and they draft this with all the, the love and care of like Stephen King writing a novel.

Yes.

Markedly less interesting. They put it out there into the world and by day 2 it is completely ignored.

Yeah.

Why? Why? Why does this happen?

Well, I think there's a lot of reasons, but I think the first is, you know, a lot of times handbooks are written from fear and they're not written from leadership. You know, someone did something ridiculous one time and instead of having a direct conversation with that person, the company now writes a policy for everyone.

I am surprised you didn't look at me square in the eyes. And I know you're reading that.

It's true.

You, you are the guilty person.

Yeah. I mean, but that's why you wind up with that 50-page handbook that reads like it was written by a lawyer and one very tired HR person in a conference room. It's also why I think large corp— it's not I think, it's why. It's why large corporations usually have a significant handbook, because they've had a lot of people that have done those one-off policies. That have given them those one-off lawsuits. And now they're like, we have, we have a 500-page handbook. But listen, and I will tell you, I mean, I run an HR company.

I mean, you like documentation.

I love documentation. I love a good handbook. I mean, I do.

Is that what you read at night?

Yes, I do. I'll read handbooks. I mean, I believe in policies. I believe in documentation. I believe in clarity. So the problem, though, is when we confuse having the handbook with actually leading. Ooh. Yeah. So, I mean, the handbook should not be a juncture for every bad thing that has ever happened in an organization as it relates to people. All right?

We need to—

It's not a diary? No, it's not a diary. It's not a disaster log. Okay? So, we have 3 Ps for handbook: purpose, practice, and protection.

Ooh, like those.

Yeah. So, first piece that comes in is purpose. And when we talk about purpose, we're talking about the policy. So, like, why does the policy exist? What is the purpose? All right? Is it protecting people? Is it creating fairness? Is it helping those managers make consistent decisions? Is it helping employees understand expectations? Or did we write it because Bob abused the PTO policy in 2017 and now everyone is being punished until the end of time? So that's the trap. First is purpose.

Damn it, Bob.

I know. That's it. So we've got purpose and then comes practice. And so if the policy says one thing, But leaders do another, the policy is dead on arrival, right? Employees do not follow the handbook, they follow what leadership tolerates.

100%.

And you said it at the beginning of the podcast, and we say it all the time, we model what we mandate. So as the head of the organization, as the CEO, as the business leader, as the manager, follow your freaking handbook, all right? As the manager—

I love how angry you get about this.

'Cause this is 90% of the problems that we get called in on, Josh, on the HR side, are because people did not follow the policy. Policy that they created. It's not because they didn't have a policy. It's because they didn't follow the policy.

I get it.

So I mean, I'm just trying to save you money. All right? So as the manager, when someone comes to you, part of your job is knowing what the guardrails are. And employees like guardrails. So what does the handbook say about this? And how do we make sure we're being what we want to see in the organization? That's the key. So we're going to practice it. We model what we mandate. So we have the purpose. Why do we have this policy? We practice it. We do the things that we're supposed to do. And then finally, This is protection, and this is really more about the policy. And a good policy should protect the business, and it should also protect the employee, and it should create, dare I say, clarity and not confusion. We've got fairness. We're not creating fear. We're giving clear expectations for everyone. No one should fear the handbook either. Like, it's not—

Yeah.

I feel that. There are times that people are like, oh my gosh, what's that?

When the handbook comes, when they see the handbook come out, you almost, you hear the, the, you feel the room darken.

Yes.

And then, then you hear the ominous music start to play in the background.

Well, it is. And I think the problem with these giant handbooks especially is that employees don't see them as helpful. No. Experience them as something they sign once during their onboarding and never saw again until someone gets in trouble. So like when you see the handbook, you're like, oh, "this is bad." So, I mean, and if the only time people hear about a policy is when it's being used against them, don't be shocked when they don't trust it, when they're like, "Oh, I don't want to talk about the handbook. I'm not going to do that." I mean, I know I don't. I don't trust things if I don't hear about them regularly. So, policy should be living tools, not dusty documents. And if your handbook only comes out when someone is in trouble, it's not culture, it's evidence.

It's funny, like the handbook thing is, I have this visual in my head of it being like, kind of like you said, being used as a weapon.

Yeah.

And it's literally the cartoon that comes up in my head is someone getting walloped upside the head with a handbook instead of a phone book.

Yeah. It's the anvil that we're throwing at people.

Yes. Yes. Someone just grabbed— I mean, they grab onto it with both hands and just swing.

Yeah.

Yeah, that it's just not the right way to go. Now we talk like we talked in The Nice Leader Trap about how dangerous it is to want to be liked. Yes, the good old Michael Scott syndrome. I want everyone to be afraid of how much they love me.

Now, how do—

like, how does a leader's habit of making the, you know, just this once exception to the HR policy, like How does that completely rot the team's sense of psychological safety, fairness? I mean, we've shot consistency at this point.

Yeah. So it's where the nice leader becomes dangerous because just this once almost never stays just once ever. And leaders do this with good intentions because we want to be kind. They want to be flexible. They want someone— they want to help someone out. It's just, I just feel bad for this person. But if the exception is not thoughtful, documented, and available under the same criteria to others, it's going to start to feel like favoritism. And it starts to feel like favoritism because it is, and that's an inequity tax. So if your team starts asking, "Why did they get that exception? Why was I told no?" And then there's the other one, like, "Why does this rule apply to me but not them?" I mean, heaven help you if you're making those exceptions for the brilliant jerk. Like, you just, I mean, you might as well just, you know, pave the way for everybody to leave you.

I mean, and we've unlocked the door for you.

Just run. I mean, and once employees believe that the rules are subjective, psychological safety is going to start to crack. And so, again, as a definition, psychological safety means people understand what to expect. It doesn't mean that there are no rules. It means that rules are fair, they're predictable, and again, they're applied consistently. And so, we have the ability to speak up in an organization when we have an issue arise or even when we don't think the rules are being applied evenly. So, let's go back to purpose, practice, and protection, right? If the purpose of the policy is fairness, but the practice is favoritism, the protection disappears.

Yes.

Yeah. So that's where your high performers and your quiet superstars are going to start quietly checking out, not because they need everything to be perfect, but because they can see the inconsistency. Reliable people hate inconsistent leadership.

Your culture isn't what's printed on a poster in your lobby. It's what your team does when you aren't in the room.

And for larger organizations, that culture is usually the first thing to fracture during high growth. If your mission statement feels like a ghost town, you have a culture problem.

That's where The Business Fix on the Road can help. We help leaders fix the people stuff so they can get back to the business stuff.

From keynotes to culture consulting, we bring practical, fluff-free strategies to your leadership team that real clarity, accountability, and results.

Stop managing by hope.

Book us for your next event, conference, or team meeting at businessfixpodcast.com.

You know what I'm going to say?

Yep. Go ahead.

If I'm walking into a shitstorm, I want to know which way the wind's blowing.

Yes.

If I have no idea which way the wind's blowing, I am leaving the shitstorm.

Yes. And nothing makes a strong employee lose trust faster than watching leadership bend the rules for a favorite, a star performer, or the person they're afraid to confront. And this is where leaders confuse that flexibility with inconsistency. Flexibility says, we have a clear process for exceptions. Inconsistency says, well, it depends on who you ask, what mood I'm in, and whether I want to deal with conflict today or not. Those are not the same thing.

If you don't like the answer mom gives, go ask dad.

Go ask dad. And I will tell you this, if you want, as a manager, If you want to be liked so badly that you stop enforcing standards, you're not being kind, you're creating confusion. So get over yourself, all right? Your decision-making when it comes to making exceptions should not have to be read by your team. They shouldn't have to read it like a weather pattern, all right? Favoritism is flexibility without fairness.

I have to say this just because it's me, the get over yourself.

Yes.

No one likes you anyways.

I know. You know what I mean? Right, but so many bosses, they're like, I want to be liked.

No, they don't like you anyways. They really don't. They really don't.

And even if they do like you, they're not going to like you the way that you want to be liked. So just stop it.

Correct.

Go make friends somewhere else.

At least try.

At least try. I mean, this is not, you are not going to make friends, you don't make friends with your subordinates. It is a different dynamic. And if you got promoted, be prepared to make that dynamic change. We've talked about this before.

A few times.

A few times.

From the strategic and legal standpoint on this, those unenforced policies that are on the books but not necessarily, like I said, enforced, do those create more liability for a business than having no policy at all?

Yeah.

Like, how?

How? It's expensive. It's really expensive.

I'm assuming in a legal sense, you said it gets expensive.

It does, because written policies create expectations. When you write something down, You are telling employees, regulators, attorneys, and anyone else who may review your practices, this is how we operate. So, if your handbook says one thing, but your actual behavior says another, now you have a gap, and that gap is where risk lives. This is where your insurance, your employee practices liability people are like, woohoo, this is why we have a job. So, this is why I can say, you know, policies are a double-edged sword. It's exactly right. They're like, woohoo, this is me. So a clear enforced policy is protection. A written ignored policy is exposure. So for example, if your policy says overtime has to be approved in writing, but managers routinely allow people to work unapproved overtime and never correct it, you may have created a past practice, but in plain English, your real policy is becoming what you actually allow, not what your handbook says. Oftentimes when we're dealing with an employee issue and it's like they call us and we're like, well, what does your handbook say? Well, it says this, but this is what we did. We're like, okay, what do you normally do? Oh, well, we normally do what we don't want to do anymore. It's like, okay, well, for an HR person, that is terrifying.

Oh my gosh, yeah.

Because I mean, this is where those HR people start drinking more coffee. They start blinking a lot when they're dealing with some of these issues because it doesn't matter how good your HR department is. When your leadership is inconsistency, it voids all of your policies. And that's why we got to go back to practice, purpose, and intention. So this is why practice matters just as much as purpose, because you cannot write your way into compliance if you lead your way into consistency. Yep. You don't lead your way out.

No.

Does that make sense?

No.

You can't write your way into compliance if you don't lead your way into consistency.

Yeah, I love that.

Yeah. And from a strategic standpoint, you've got those unenforced policies, those damage your culture. All the time because employees start to learn that the handbook is fake. The rules are negotiable. Oh, well, you know, there's that document, but we never follow it. I signed it, but does it really matter? Because we don't follow the PTO plan, we don't follow the overtime rules, we don't follow the exceptions for, you know, I mean, we have a no-shorts policy, but, you know, Janet wears like shorts all the time. Like, what? We have— we're supposed to wear closed-toed shoes, but, you know, Bob wears flip-flops. I mean, so The handbook becomes the doorstop. It's not something that we're actually using, and that's bad for morale. It's bad for accountability, and it's bad for legal defensibility.

That's the one that I think is going to shock a lot of people, is that the same book that you think is covering your butt can be the thing that exposes your butt.

Well, it absolutely can. So before you add another policy, because I know that's the other part, is you're like, oh crap, I just need to add some more policies and everything will be better. No. Here are things I want you to ask yourself before you like go to start adding another policy. Number one is, are we actually willing to enforce this? So if I say I have a zero tolerance on people on their cell phones during the day when they're working on the employee shop floor, do I really? Are we sure? Because your best worker may be like, just make sure. I mean, are you going to enforce it? Can our managers explain it? That's a big one.

Oh, huge.

If you can't talk about it and you can't explain why this policy exists, you may have a problem. The next one is, Can our managers explain it? But then can our employees actually follow it? Is that possible? And then after that, it's does it protect the business without punishing the 99% of people who are doing everything right? And if the answer is no to any of those questions, don't write it yet. Take a break because a policy you won't enforce is not protection, it's pretend protection. We can't write our way into compliance if we're not going to lean our way into consistency. We have to make sure that we're, we're leading our way into compliance and we're leading into consistency.

I want to go back to the manager's explain it thing.

Oh, gosh. Yeah.

Because you and I have talked about this, like the way our personalities are. If there is a rule and we understand why the rule is in place and why, like, why that exists, you and I will follow that like it's a commandment.

Correct.

It may as well be in stone. This is— I will live and die by this rule.

Yes.

If you don't explain it to me and just tell me that this is a rule and I think it's baloney feathers, I will treat it as such.

Exactly, exactly. And if you act like it— like, if you don't pay attention to that rule, I'm not paying attention to that.

No, no.

So if you tell me that we, we have a strict rule that we end work every day at 5 PM, but everybody's working till 7, I'm working till 7. Like, you You've got to make sure that you've got explanations as to why. Why don't we push this button? Why don't we do this? Why don't we wear this? Why don't— I realize that there are times as a manager, you may feel like you're parenting a toddler because they're, why, why, why, why? It's important to be able to explain it. And because I said so doesn't work.

When you said the wear this, I mean, it goes back to the episode about Casual Friday that The Office did. Every piece of clothing in there is the reason why there's a dress code.

Yeah, that's it. And I know, I will tell you, I mean, from, from a perspective with— at AUI, we had the longest dress code ever for the longest time, and it was so stupid. But it was because so many people had done so many things, and we're like, what? And so finally it was just like, please dress appropriately. If you need a definition, please ask us, but like, please dress appropriately for the season.

Yeah. And you'd see the like people coming in in flip-flops, and I do not want to see that.

Or not wearing shoes at all. Like, there's other— I mean, we've had organizations that we have to work with and had the conversations with employees. They're like, you have to wear shoes. Well, it's not in my handbook. You have to wear shoes just in general from a health and safety perspective. It doesn't— I understand that you may not think you need to wear shoes, but I'm telling you that different states and in the union mandate that you wear shoes to work. You have to wear shoes. Thank you. So yeah, so Josh, I know you hate operational bloat. Yes, you love lean machines. So how do we operationalize this? How does a leader audit their existing rules, prune the dead ones, and build accountability in a system that actually sticks without micromanaging people or going insane themselves?

Well, the insanity part, I've got bad news, you're kind of late there. You are a little bit late, like probably like 30 years later.

I mean, but as you're gonna— you're gonna take a weed eater to somebody's handbook, what are you gonna do with it?

100%. So to me, like, get out the pruners, get out the big pruners. To me, one of the things that I like— so many people, they have a tough time differentiating between what's an SOP and what's a rule.

Yes.

Oh, you're so right, because they, they think they're kind of interchangeable, and they are very much not. The SOP is like how we get it done. The, the rules are just do this or you're outside of the boundaries. Yes, very different things. The thing that so many people fall into is what I like to call the cop trap. Oh yes, people rely on the rule book to create culture and dictate behavior, and you force managers to act like cops and treat treat every employee like a suspect the whole time.

Oh gosh, yeah.

Like they walk around like I've seen— I've worked at places where they're walking around trying to catch you doing something wrong.

Yes. Or a referee, right? A whistle.

Yes.

I'm a red card.

I'm one of your top salesmen. Why are you concerned? Like, why are you looking to make sure that my phone stats are up to par? I'm here to like—

I'm hitting the numbers.

I'm, I'm far exceeding like the bell curve. I'm over way over here on the right-hand side. To this? Like, what— why are you concerned that my phone time is just a little bit less than some others?

I'm efficient, right?

I mean, when you have that, you have zero psychological safety. No one is going to come to you about anything because you're the cop. I mean, unless you're in stranger danger. Yeah, no one's coming to you. No, no. I mean, if, if the in so many cases I have been in companies where you walk around and you can tell the culture is snitches get stitches.

Yes. I've seen those organizations too.

I've seen this. So to me, it's looking at SOPs as enablement rather than rules for enforcement. So that, that's the first thing. And that's— you have to make that differentiation there to say this is an SOP or this is a rule or policy. The SOPs are designed to enable the team to succeed. Show them the runway. A rule, by definition, is designed to catch them failing. Mhm. The rule that I want to talk about here is speed limits. Everyone, in many cases, like when you're driving, there's people that I pass on the freeway that are doing 50 mph, and they are not safe drivers even at 50 mph.

Yeah.

There is times where I have done maybe slightly more than the posted speed limit, and I am still very safe. Once again, that is a rule instead of the, like, hey, look, we could probably have an SOP for this.

You're talking about somebody who just came from the Autobahn. I'm totally— let's talk about speed limits.

Right, exactly, exactly. I only ride like that sometimes. So to me, like, an SOP is the map while the rule is barricades. So The SOP is gonna provide the how-to that's gonna give your team that confidence to execute things and give them the ability to do it with speed and precision. It's that clear runway. It is the guardrails. It is not the speed limit. It is not the helicopter overhead. It is not a cop every 50 feet. It is guardrails saying, here's the lane that we need to stay in. A rule in so many cases, and I know you've seen this, is the reactive fix. We had a speed bump once, And so— or we had an issue once and we want everyone to slow down because we had this one issue one time. So we installed this giant speed hump. And if you don't know what speed humps are, you need to look them up on YouTube because they are hilarious to see cars going down streets at 50 miles an hour hitting a speed hump and going over them like the Dukes of Hazzard.

Yep.

Don't do that to your employees. Don't take the guy that's got his brand new Corvette Corvette that's just going to drive down the street. He may be going a little fast. Don't make him jump his Corvette.

No. And you've got to tell them why if you're going to do anything.

100%.

Don't secretly do it.

Put up enough signs. Give people some warnings. With that, when you rely too heavily on the rules, the thing that I always like to see with this is you turn the workplace into an obstacle course where everyone's walking around. I mean, what was the Was it Wipeout? What was that show?

Yes.

Wipeout. I mean, you've turned— you've now— now you've turned your process into Wipeout where they're just trying to avoid the spinny thing that's going to knock them into the water instead of making it a smooth runway where they're like, hey, if I just took 2 steps over here, I'm able to do this. But they've got to have the guidelines to be able to do that. To build that high-performance culture, you have to stop policing behavior and start enabling, like, convert those restrictive thou shalt not.

Yes.

Into clear and empowering here's how.

Yeah.

Once again, here, and give that here's how limits. But it's a here's how, it's here's the direction we'd like to go. With that, you're going to get that movement in unison is what I like to call it, is when you build a culture where everyone's moving in, in unison, there's this clear logical. There's these shared SOPs. Everyone knows what they are. It's not a bunch of rules. It's not like— it's not the— it's not the police. It's definitely not the police. The example I like to give about this too is I played soccer 30 years ago. World Cup just ended recently, and The number of, like, if you watch soccer and the premise of soccer, ball in goal, no hands except for the dude.

Yes.

That's soccer.

It's really simple.

Correct. Look at all the rules now.

Oh my gosh.

Right.

Yes.

This is and this isn't and this is, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Put ball in goal, no hands except for the dude.

Yeah, and half the time they don't even know what the rules are.

Correct.

Unknown, unwritten, we just made that up rule.

Right.

I'm like, what?

This— I mean, the rule book should not be that thick, but it is. Put ball in goal, no hands except for the dude. That, like, that is your SOP. Yes, that is how that happens. And once again, as you do that, you'll see the teams start to work together towards that instead of it just being the one dude that is trying to do the one thing. Having a good culture around this prevents the issues and it, it, I guess I don't want to say it polices it, but it prevents those issues because everyone's moving in the same direction.

Yes.

If you've just got a bunch of rules, people are going to do what they can to work around that. Yeah. I was, as a, as a teenager, I was supposed to be off the phone at 10 o'clock. Ask my parents how that worked. Right. I mean, people are going to find ways around it. So if you get them to move in unison, yes, now you've got something that's going to work. Other than like my— like, I was a handful. It— like, trying to police me was not an easy job. The fact that my parents are 81 and still have any sanity left is just a tribute to their resiliency.

Yeah, I would say so.

Right, right. We've only worked together for a couple of years and I'm wearing on yours.

Yeah, I was a joy. I did all the things I was supposed to do all the time, right? I kid, so, right?

Yeah, no, I, I may not have been. So to me, I, I never got in trouble trouble. I got in mischief. A lot of mischief.

A lot of mischief is—

but once again, it's trying to police that, whereas if there's a culture where you're, where you have everyone moving towards that common goal, it becomes so much easier. So now, how do we decide between the rule and the SOP? First one, you, you touched on this is this actually procedural? Is this a procedural runway that enables velocity, or is this just a restrictive speed bump? Is this just a, hey, we need to narrow this down through this funnel? Is this an administrative constraint? I mean, do you need to hire— like, once again, do you need to hire more cops for this?

Yeah, it's purpose. Yeah, right.

Like, if you need to hire more cops for it, then it's probably not procedural. It's a rule.

Yeah.

If it will work within the flow of things, if it works to contribute to the flow of things, then it's an SOP. No sandals is not an SOP.

No, that's a rule, right?

The fact that we said that in unison just shows that culturally we think alike, Chrissy Myers.

And again, you must wear shoes to work. I'm just going to keep harping on that.

The other thing is, is do we know why this rule's here? I call this— and once again, we're picking on Bob— The Bob test.

I love this.

Bob didn't do the 3— the thing 3 times, so we made it a rule. This does not work because once again, you now have to police this. Making it a company-wide rule because one person failed to execute is the laziest kind of leadership. And you're like, I'm taking control of the situation. No, you're giving control of the situation to the handbook.

Yeah.

Handbooks don't control things.

No, there are guardrails.

How— like, so with that, when you see those issues, address the individual failures with the— the sweaty 10-minute conversation instead of punishing the entire staff. Because we've all been there. We've all been in that meeting where we're like, great, we've got a new policy because Bob did the thing. We've all sat through those meetings. It sucks because you're like, why? Like, he's the one that screwed up. Why am I paying for this? But like, I would wear shoes, they'd be vented, but I'd wear shoes. Now we've got to wear steel toe and all this, like, right?

We got ruined for all of us.

Ruined it for all of us. Yes. Bob needs to know about the problem. Not everyone. Let's go back to the mistake or pattern episode too. If it happens once, forget about it. I even spelled it in my notes.

I did.

Does it look like I got that right?

It does. Good job.

If it's a procedural reason, if it's something that fits with procedure, if it's broader reaching, then yes, it's probably there.

Yeah.

The last one. Does this have a measurable downstream value other than I don't have to look at Bob's feet? Let's be honest. You did not start your business so you could spend your days buried in HR paperwork or Googling how to handle employee drama.

That's why I started Clarity HR. We're your fractional HR team, giving you real people, real support, and real solutions. Whether it's compliance headaches, hiring struggles, or just needing someone to take the people stuff off your plate, we've got your back.

So if you're ready to stop using duct tape and hope as your HR strategy and finally get some peace of mind, head over to clarityhr.com.

That's clarityhr.com. Simple, clear, and here to help.

I'll give you a few seconds to go to the website while we get ready to get back to the show.

I mean, some people might say that's enough, but I understand where you're going, right?

As, as I said that, the look of 'I'm gonna throw up' on your face was, was pretty good there. Every step in an SOP policy has to have like in an SOP has to have that measurable downstream value.

Yes.

If it doesn't, then why is it there? I mean, this is one of the first things and this is when you can go through and just start tearing pages out of the book. If it doesn't offer downstream value, get rid of it. And suddenly your manual can go from like something that people can look at. Like before this, it was probably the TL;DR.

Mm-hmm.

Like, yeah, I'm going to sign this. I haven't the foggiest idea what's in here. Too long, didn't read. Hey, sign.

I mean, come on, you send the onboarding and they sign it all back and you get it in less than 15 minutes. They never read the handbook. No one's ever read it. Create a quiz. You create a sign in the middle of the handbook that says, if you come back to me with this, I'm going to give you a candy bar. Like, I mean, there's a reason why college professors hide information in their syllabi. Oh yeah, yeah, they just— they want you to read it.

The candy bar thing, I'm, I'm gonna look for that next time. If you give me something to read, I fully expect it to have that in there. The other thing is is if the— and this is our favorite explanation for everything— we've always done it this way. Once again, I feel like this is the episode where I'm gonna make Chrissy throw up. Here's the other piece to that, is the, the zero expectations versus standard adaptation. You talked a lot about this, Chrissy, on the like, just this once is never once. It never is. And I laughed really when you said that because we both know I've made exceptions. And I'm like, well, we'll do this once. Yes. A week.

Forever. I mean, that's human nature. I mean, we do it like we do it in our relationships, our personal relationships. We do it with our kids. We do it with our pets. Like, oh, it's just fine, they'll just sleep on our bed one time. Um, yeah, no. Yeah, no, totally get it.

It, that as soon as you say that, it's, it's done. As soon as you say it's just once, it's— you've given everyone— you have to say this applies to everyone. Yes. All the fine. As soon as you do that, the small deviations in your SOPs work the same way as those policies. If you let it deviate, guess what? You are actively training your team that the rules are optional. Feel like we're in, what, what, Whose Line Is It Anyways? Where the rules don't matter, the points, or the points don't matter. There's, right. I can't remember it, but it was good. It's that very short leap from skipping a CRM entry into ignoring safety standards or HR policies. Yeah, it's It once again, it's, it's, it's the gateway drug. Yeah.

And they're like, oh, is it really that big of a slippery slope? Yes, it is. Yes, it is. Sorry, you can call me the fun sucker, but yes, don't do it.

Just this once is the gateway drug. And I'm old enough to remember the This Is Your Brain, This Is Your Brain on Drugs ad. The, the other thing that sometimes we get is we will get a client that wants us to bend our process. Yeah. Yeah. And this is a big thing. And this is something that so many companies don't address because they're like, oh, we'd love to have a new client. Are they actually the right client? And this is a huge thing that you have to ask if they are strategic fit, but like require a custom route. This is not an oral communication. This is not oral instructions. This is not, well, we change this for this customer. We use what I like to call copy-paste change. I cannot do the alliteration the way you can. I'm going to leave that to you. For podcast hosts, for like every podcast that comes into the studio, there's always something that's a slight bit different.

Always. Because that's—

yeah, 90% of them are the same. But there's that, there's that one or two instructions that are different. We duplicate those SOPs so that way when it's Client X comes in the door, we've now we've duplicated for them and we change those 2 or 3 steps for them, making sure that it still fits within what we do with, within our wheelhouse. Yes. But then we call that SOP, but we give that SOP the client's name. This is Bob's, or this is Bill's SOP. That way there's still an SOP for it. It's not, hey, we're going to ignore it for these people. We've rewritten it for someone else. Yeah. Now, granted, 90% of it was the exact same stuff. And that's why we just copied and pasted the new SOP. Yes. But this client has their own SOP. Once again, it gets filed in the active library with everything else. So you can see it and you know it. This is the steps that so many people miss. It's not a shadow workflow. No. Well, and this is a step that they may copy and paste, but then they don't put it with the rest of the stuff.

No. And then it's like, oh, well, this person knows exactly what to do. That's how you get a brilliant jerk unintentionally, because they know what all of the the extras are correct.

It's hanging on the wall next to the machine instead of with the rest of the things.

Exactly.

Put it with the rest of the things. If you forget that step, you once again, you've destroyed all of this because you're no longer consistent. You have to be consistent with it. With this, star performers, you talked about them. Yeah. What do you do? Do when your biggest, best, highest revenue producer refuses to log their activity in the CRM or follow up on the SOP?

Oh gosh, that's favoritism trap with a spotlight, right?

So I mean, because it's your most visible person doing it.

Because in the minute you let your highest producer ignore the rules because they bring in the revenue, the whole team is going to learn that values have a price tag. Rules matter. Oh yeah, I like that. So rules matter even when there's a star. So, and I get it, when leaders, they're scared scared to do this. Well, if I push them, they'll leave. And I'm just— I tell you, if your business is held hostage by one person refusing to follow the rules, the problem is already bigger than the CRM issue that you have. So I mean, and from the HR seat, it becomes a fairness issue. From the CEO seat, it becomes a culture issue because everyone is watching you with this person.

And if you don't do this right, yes, you have destroyed anything you have built.

Yeah. And so I mean, the question is really simple. Is the policy actually necessary? Sure. Right. And if the CRM entry or the handoff of the SOP protects the next person, the client experience, reporting, accountability, then yeah, it's absolutely necessary. So this is again, purpose, practice, protection. Purpose, the rule exists because the work impacts other people. Practice, everyone follows it, including the star. And protection is the team is protected from one person's ego or exception. So if they're truly brilliant, they can follow your process. And if they refuse, I mean, they're not brilliant. They're becoming a risk. You said that as such a smartass.

I did. If they're truly brilliant, they're smart enough to follow the process, Bob.

I mean, do you think, I mean, these are conversations that I think our clarity team has daily with organizations.

I've had these conversations with managers before too, where it's literally, it's like, I know they make your day easier, but they're actually making it harder because downstream you're doing 10 times the other work. Yeah. They just do it with a smile.

Yeah, so what about you? What do you do? I mean, I was a smart aleck, but what do you?

I mean, Coach Correct Cut. Yeah. I mean, really, if you tolerate the brilliant jerk, like breaking that workflow standard, once again, it's no different. If someone broke, if someone breaks it, it's broken for everyone. Yes. This is glass.

It takes forever to fix it.

Correct. This is glass. This is not like, well, it's just broken for them. No, it's broken for everyone. Um, yeah, just totally one of those things. One thing that I find interesting is like the, the handbooks as culture or handbooks as legal shields. I mean, yeah, building a human-first culture, can you do that with a handbook written by corporate lawyers? And to me, it's the documents and rules aren't like— don't create culture. Like documents can support a culture and they can give you reference to what things should be, but action on those things is what actually creates the culture. Culture is the result of how you implement things, not what's written in your handbook.

Yeah, I completely agree with you. I mean, a handbook doesn't create culture, but it absolutely reveals what leadership is willing to enforce. Oh, yes. I mean, we can't build culture with a handbook alone. I think the problem too is when handbooks sound nothing like the company.

Money, right? Have you ever gotten a warning by a cop and slowed down?

I mean, for 5 minutes. I mean, I'm married to her, right?

But, but you, you get what I'm saying there is if they let you off with a warning, you're like, okay, I'm, I'm okay. I mean, you're not going to speed away, but no, like, I'm good. But if, if you get a ticket, if there's actual consequences to it, you slow down for at least a month.

You do. Maybe. I mean, maybe.

Mostly, I mean, you might, you might make a decision.

Oh, I will tell you too, when your handbook reads like a hostage note from corporate legal, nobody wants to follow it. No, I mean, there's disconnect there if it's written in legalese.

Yes, no one can read it.

No, it needs to be something that you can understand. Now, I am also not telling you to throw out your legal review. Like, we're not treating— we're not treating our handbook like jazz and it's always improvisational. No, I did not say that. That is not the message.

It's not like Whose Line Is It Anyways.

No, policies should— they have to be legally sound, but they have to be understandable. They have to be human-readable, right? To the average person, not the person that— I mean, unless you've got a team, unless you're a law firm and it's all written for a lawyer, fine. But most of us are not law firms. So it has to be written so the average person can understand it. Your average worker, their average level of education, you've got to make sure it's able. And it—

I mean, and too, if you employ a bunch of lawyers, then fine, that's fine.

But most of us don't. So I mean, a handbook should do 3 things. It should explain expectations. It should It should create consistency and it should reflect the company's values. That's it. Simple. Yes.

Key takeaways from today for me. The first one, run the why the hell do we have this rule cleanup. If— take— just take an hour on Friday, delete 3 useless policies or outdated SOPs and let your team know. Don't just delete them. Let your team know. Yes.

And that's why I say and tell the team What changed and why? Okay, it's not just—

if you don't say why, Chrissy are gonna— Chrissy and I are gonna ignore it.

Exactly. Well, silent cleanup is still invisible leadership. Nobody's gonna pay attention if you don't tell them.

The other— this is the other one: look in the mirror, damn it. Yes. Um, don't— not to be like, oh, I'm so pretty. If your team is chronically bypassing a rule, guess what? It's probably because you are. Yeah. I mean, 9 times out of 10, that is the thing. If you bypass something, the team will too.

Yeah, you did it. And so we standardized the exception before we approve it. Oh yes. Yeah. Because an exception without criteria is favoritism waiting to happen.

I need a pillow. This is another pillow. I seriously, we are going to have to come out with like the Business Fix merch is going to be pillows and t-shirts that have Chrissy-isms on them.

It's fine with me.

To me is stop the panic policy cycle. Michael, the next time someone makes a mistake, do not write a company-wide policy. Have a talk with that person. Have a talk with the offender.

Yes, agreed with you. I was going to say correct the person before you punish the population. So I think we were in absolute agreement on that last one. Like, don't make 99 good employees live under one policy written for one bad decision.

Don't send gen pop to solitaire— to solitary. Yes, because you had one person do a screw-up. Oh, with all that, I mean, this has been, this has been a big one. Yeah, there's like, I think people have a lot of homework to do. They do. I do too, because this is one of those things where as I was going through stuff, I like, as we're writing this episode, I'm like, oh yeah, there's that one.

Yeah, we just reviewed all of our stuff right now. I'm like, I'm so glad we did that.

So you could come into this with a clean conscience. I feel good about ourselves We're recording this episode in the evening and I just realized I have a very late night ahead of me. That all being said, no matter what time you're listening or watching, thank you. We both appreciate it. We've been like truly glad to have everyone along on this ride. We've got a ton of new people recently and some fun. 100%. The comments that we're getting. Yes. The stories that we're getting. Are just wonderful. I mean, some of them are horrifying. They are. But it makes us realize that what we're doing has meaning. And we are so glad that we're able to connect with you about that. The next episode, we're going to talk about when transparency backfires because we are all about being transparent. I can't wait. But there are times when I may have been slightly too transparent on things. Do us a favor, hit businessfixpodcast.com, have us as speakers. Yeah, we're, we're excited. We've got a few gigs coming up that we're really excited about. Also, do us a favor, take care of yourself. If you can, take care of someone else too. We will see you very, very soon.

If you're a small business owner navigating the world of marketing or looking to establish yourself as an industry expert, you already know the power of a great podcast.

But getting it all right, from the sound to the strategy, can be a headache. And that's where Pedal Stopper Productions comes in. We're the team behind The Business Fix and Chrissy Myers' Better Business for Small Business Leaders podcast.

One of the things I love about what you do, Josh, is that you're always willing to help out, and part of that is with your free 30-minute no-pitch podcast consultation.

That's right, 30 minutes of our best tips, tricks, and podcasting basics. Absolutely no strings attached, just podcasting insights to help you crush your goals. Visit pedalstopperproductions.com to book your no-pitch today. That is pedalstopperproductions.com. And now back to the show.