Respectful Language: How to Write Policies That Treat Your Employees Like Adults with Lewis Eisen

One of the most foundational tools your organization has is its policies and procedures. They set parameters and expectations and can help you avoid costly mistakes and even accidents. But would it surprise you to know that how your policies are written can have a huge impact on your corporate culture and even how your employees feel about the jobs that they do? And that's what we're talking about today on Experience Leadership.

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Welcome to this episode. My guest today is the one person that can make policy writing fun. Lewis Asin. We will be putting a spotlight on how to write policies that use respectful language in a way that doesn't make people feel that you don't trust them. So, stay with us. If this is your first time with us, I'd like to say welcome. If you find this episode valuable, I'd love it if you would check out our past episodes. Tons and tons and tons of value. And feel free to let me know what you think by leaving a review. I just want to thank you for investing your time with us. I know that that is our number one biggest commodity these days. Now, I know that a lot of policies are written in response to problems. Someone does something that you feel is inappropriate, so you might post a sign addressing it. Almost a commandment like, thou shalt not, and then fill in the blanks. For instance, thou shalt not leave the back door unlocked. Thou shall not put away the cash floats without rolling the coins. Thou shall not leave the toilet seat up when using the shared washroom facilities. The difficulty is that as much as you might think, there, I've communicated. What your employees get is a feeling that you think that they are inept, irresponsible, and that you don't trust them. So that brings me to Our Question of the Day. So, think about the last time you posted a new policy or procedure. Was it well thought out and strategic, or was it reactionary and born out of frustration? And yes, yes, the sign you just posted in the staff room counts. Go ahead and share your experience on your favorite social media channel. Make sure that you hashtag it #ExperienceLeadership. So we can be part of the conversation together. As I mentioned, my guest for this episode is the leading authority on the use of respectful language in corporate policies. Lewis Assen has worked as a lawyer, an IT manager, a business consultant, and a government policy writer. He is the author of the international bestseller, How to Write Rules That People Want to Follow: A Guide to Drafting Respectful Policies and Directives. It is now in its 3rd edition and available on Amazon. Welcome to the show, Lewis. It's so great to have you.

Thank you, Marc. Delighted to be here.

Maybe you can start off by telling us a little bit about how you serve your clients.

I actually run workshops is what I do. I bring people in. People who write policies, they're usually frustrated because nobody's been trained. So, they've said, well, I don't know what to include, what not to include. I don't know the tone of voice. And so, I run workshops that show the people who write the policies what very simple formula, what goes in, what doesn't go in, and how to say it so that people will not react.

And so, are you dealing primarily with human resource departments? Are you dealing with leaders?

I'm dealing with corporate service areas mostly. So, that could be anything from HR to finance to IT, security, facilities support, anybody who's making rules for the employees in the organization.

And for the organization as a whole.

For the organization as a whole.

Okay, fantastic. I think this is such a fascinating topic. We've not talked about policies and procedures on this show before. And when you and I connected, I just got all giddy with how important this actually is when you think about it from the aspect of kind of the manager on shift who has to quickly solve a problem by writing a policy. They're not really thinking too much about how it's interpreted. Their only objective is to make sure a certain behavior happens or a certain behavior stops happening. Why do you think that this is such an important topic today?

You know what you said that we're not paying attention to how it's heard, right? And then, when we complain that people aren't following this rule, we just get more frustrated and we put in harsher words. And the reason I think it's important is because we're all looking for people. We're trying to hire. We want to attract the best people. You can't afford to be flippant anymore. There was a time when management could speak harshly to its employees and maybe repercussions weren't as great. That's not the case anymore. You can't afford that.

Yeah. And to that point, I mean, we've seen a huge shift, I think, in the last 30 years from different management styles. This idea that way back in the '80s, we were hiring people for their hands. And then we ebbed into kind of the knowledge worker age where we wanted their hands and we wanted their brains. And now more than anything else, what we want is we want their hands, we want their brains, but we also want their hearts. And you cannot connect in a heartfelt way with your team if you're being harsh and reactive and downright disrespectful.

Absolutely. You know that example you gave at the beginning where you write a policy because you're frustrated?

Yeah.

The goal is to have people look at the policy and say, I really like that policy. I wish everyone had that policy. People can read that frustration. Nobody's gonna look at that frustration and say, oh, I wish everybody had that.

Yes. You know, it's so funny because I've been in restaurants where I go into the washroom and they might not have a staff washroom, and then there's a sign on the mirror that says, all employees must wash their hands after using the washroom. And then you go, I wonder how much of a problem this is if I'm gonna be eating their food. And even I was, I peeked into the stockroom of a, of a grocery store and there's a big sign on the wall that says, if you put boxes here, you can start looking for a new job. So can we talk a little bit about the consequences of reactive policy writing?

You know, I guess there are 3 areas. Can I show you an example?

Sure, absolutely.

If I could.

Yeah, absolutely.

Attending an imaging clinic. This was the first I hear from this imaging clinic as a customer, and I get this message. My doctor made the appointment. And I'm like, why are you yelling at me? Like, you're already setting up a confrontational situation, and oh, you're threatening me with a fine for not canceling on time. And you know, I thought, look, maybe somebody just kind of got carried away. And I went into this imaging clinic, and this sign was on the wall everywhere. If you don't have a confrontational culture at the beginning, you have one. Once you put that sign up.

Yes, yes, I could see that. And so for those of you who might be listening to the audio podcast, you can jump onto YouTube to see the examples. But Lewis is showing us an example of one of those zero tolerance posters that we see in doctors' offices that says, the use of profanity, verbal threats, or any acts of aggressive behavior towards our staff will not be tolerated. In these situations, police will be called and legal action taken.

And so, it's yelling at you. So, it's doing a number of disservices. One, aside from how it's making me feel as the person reading it, you're not doing your own business any favors by doing that because you're making it look like everybody in your organization is primed for a fight.

Right.

Like they're walking around with their fists clenched, ready to punch if you get out of line. Like, why? You know what? I'll go down to the place down the street which doesn't have this issue. You just announced to me the problems you have.

Yeah.

And also, if we assume that we write policies because we want to see a result, I highly question the effectiveness of this policy. Do we really think that somebody who's about to go ballistic on the staff, steam coming out of their ears, is going to look at this and go, oh my goodness, they don't like aggressive behavior. I guess I better change my approach.

And to your point, I mean, if people want to test whether or not that is a good way to proceed. I would suggest they go face to face with somebody, preferably their spouse, who is having a tantrum, and look them square in the eye and say, look, just calm down and see what happens.

Yelling will not be tolerated.

Hold up a little sign. Yelling will not be tolerated.

That's it. So we have 2 ends here. One is we have rules we would like followed. If the rules are not followed, we have a problem. The other is if we're doing things that is putting people off, and we don't expect to be doing, we don't intend to be doing it, that's a problem.

Yeah.

So, putting off your employees means that they'll end up resisting passively, actively, or leaving when what you want them doing is championing your rule. And if it's customers we're talking about, they just leave. They vote with their feet.

Can I push back just a little bit? Is it championing the rule or championing the objective?

So, if the rule is well-worded, It's going to list the objective.

Okay.

That's a fair question. So, if our objective is to have a nice environment to work in, that's the objective. That's what the sign should be. We cultivate a polite, respectful environment.

So, having a policy that says, we demand that all employees come to work with a positive, open attitude, is not gonna make it happen.

That's about it. You know, beatings will continue until morale improves. Right?

Yeah, I joke that, you know, policies are written to address the lowest common denominator, usually in reaction to someone's bad behavior or bad choice. What are the implications on the corporate culture when we— and I'm putting this in quotes— manage this way?

Well, good question. And I, I'm going to use the same example I had here.

Sure.

As a person walking into the clinic and seeing the sign, and I look at this and I— sign says, you know, they don't want profanity. And I think, I'm a good person. They didn't write this for me. This rule isn't intended for me. It's intended for other people. So automatically, I'm shunting it aside. Okay. As a person coming in, and that's not something you want.

Right. And so, you know, to that point, I might come in to that doctor's appointment. I have no intention whatsoever of being rude to anybody until I'm there 3 and a half hours in and my needs are not being met and nobody seems to be listening to me. And then stuff is happening, and that policy then doesn't work. Which, you know, I had way back in the '80s, I read, uh, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, and Stephen Covey quoted something about, about if mores are strong, rules are unnecessary. If mores are weak, rules are ineffective.

Okay. I don't know if I'd go that far.

Okay.

As Stephen Covey, I think the point of the rule is to help people get their job done. They want to know, should they go right or left? And if you say, in our office, we go right, that helps them get their job done. And that's so in situation X, we go right. In situation Y, we go left.

Gotcha.

That's fair. That's a rule to help people.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's really interesting. And so, this objective-based rule thing is no longer a, we have to get outside of our frame of mind on how we're writing these rules. would like to uncover maybe some best practices on what it takes to write really good rules. And we'll get to that right after this.

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I am speaking with the foremost authority of respectful policy writing, Lewis Azin. Before we go much further, I know that this is going to be something I'm sure we're going to be triggering a lot of people. And I know that people are going to want to reach out to you. How can people get in touch with you, Lewis?

Through my website or LinkedIn. Best way.

Okay, and that's Lewis Eisen.

Website is lewiseisen.com.

Yep.

Perfect.

Or LinkedIn, Lewis Eisen.

And we'll make sure to keep the links in the show notes as well. Let's dig into some examples you have and discuss why they're problems and some of the best practices that we could start adapting.

For sure. So, here's an example of a typical policy that you might see. at an organization. This looks kind of familiar.

Yep. It is prohibited for any employee to use or manage a social media account that is not approved by the office manager.

So every policy is an announcement of an organization's values. And this policy says what we value is control. We control things. That's what our value is, right? We have no idea why they want to control. Is this about customer quality? Is this about consistent experience, reputation management? We have no idea. This just says we're in charge. We're controlling. So when people ask, well, how would you, how should you word things generally? And actually, you use the power of the present tense. There. Simple, straightforward present tense statement. It just is. There's no must. There's no shall. There's no will or should or may. It just is the way we do things. Our office hours go from 9 to 5. Now, there are going to be people that look at that and go, that's kind of wimpy, isn't it? And there are other people who are going to say, that might work well for sort of touchy-feely organizations. That's not going to work in a serious organization that has serious things at risk like health and safety and hospitals and whatnot. But you mentioned I'm a lawyer by training. And to my mind, when I looked at what are the most serious rules we have in our society, They're the criminal rules. Okay, so how are criminal rules worded? Do they say murder is prohibited, no exceptions will be made, it is absolutely not tolerated for people to kidnap other people? That's not how the criminal rules are worded. If I can show you an example, this one comes from South Dakota. Look at that. It's just in the present tense. Any person who starts a fire or causes an explosion is guilty of arson. They're just telling in the present tense. There's Texas. A person commits an offense if he intentionally or knowingly abducts another person. I've done a survey of every single penal code in the United States, and 80% of them use this present tense format. Okay. I'm pleased to say, being Canadian, that in Canada, 100% of our criminal codes use that. Here's a Canadian example. Every person who commits robbery Is guilty of an offense. Now, I'm proud to say that's 100%, but that's kind of cheating really because we only have one criminal code for the entire nation. But even so, and this is not a North American phenomenon. Here's an example from the United Kingdom. A person is guilty of theft if he dishonestly appropriates property belonging to another. Same with New Zealand, same with France, same with a lot of places. So, Marc, we have a very absurd situation in this country. The most serious laws for the most heinous crimes are worded more respectfully than a lot of the policies that come out of our organizations. We talk more nicely to criminals than to our colleagues or to our customers.

Wow, wow, there's a goosebump moment. Now, to your point, you've mentioned about a policy being wimpy and stuff, and I Again, you know, I have never been trained in policy writing. I hope that the stuff I've done in the past has been respectful. But to that point, I know that when it comes to occupational health and safety, where life, limb are at risk, that, you know, people putting policies together, for instance, you know, there was an episode in Ontario back in, I think, 2007, where a 16-year-old took out a floor washer. He was doing polishing, doing something on the floors in a store on off hours. And because he didn't check the cords, he got electrocuted. And so then, they came up with a policy that all electrical equipment must be inspected prior to use. How would you turn that around to make it more respectful as opposed to more command and control?

Actually, a really easy way to start with the word we. We inspect all our equipment before letting our employees use it. How about that?

Right. Yeah. And take it a step further. You can even use it for the identity side of it. I mean, if you really wanted to kind of create, like, there's this whole idea in leadership now about gamification and about, you know, how do people know they're good people? And so, you know, it could be something, our best employees check our electrical equipment before using them.

Absolutely. So, you know, the, The issue is that we should always be able to have mandatory requirements. I'm not suggesting that things shouldn't be mandatory for safety, but you can be strict without being rude or without being discourteous. Thing is, people reach for this word must because they say, I'm making a rule, so I need to use the word must.

Ah.

It's kind of a historic thing. I think we heard this from our parents. Sit up straight, please. Stop fidgeting. What we learned is that rules should sound bossy. If I'm telling you what to do, it should sound bossy. But that's not the case. So you can take any strict rule and reword it into a descriptive statement that sounds more polite. Here's an example. Instead of, you must be 65 years of age or older to apply for this benefit, individuals 65 years of age or older are eligible to apply. Whose benefit is available to individuals 65 years, or you qualify when you are 65 years of age or older. There are 2 separate attitudes being shown here. On the left, the one that says you must be 65 years of age is a bouncer standing at the door pushing away anybody who doesn't— isn't eligible, who doesn't qualify. And it's, uh, I'm in charge, don't come in unless I allow you to. approach. On the right where we said this benefit is available, that's somebody inviting you in. Hey, are you 65? Come on in. I have something for you. Hey, are you 65? We have something you may want. It's a whole different approach. The rules can be just as strict but worded more politely.

You know, and that's resonating with me right now because I just went on to something, a software upgrade, and the upgrade, there was a, a new subscriber price and then an existing user price. And when you click the new subscriber price, it tells you, you must be a first-time user of this product to qualify. And I thought, you know, who am I then as a repeat user? Who am I, chopped liver?

Yeah. And in terms of companies don't realize that we do pick up those signals as users. There's no reason that we need to be sending those, you know, sort of the handout instead of the open arm signal when we're talking to people.

Yeah, yeah, I can see that. The first rule that I'm getting of policy writing then is to start looking at it as being, let's write it in the present. And if you can't write it in the present, then you're gonna have to revisit it. The we, starting off with we or starting off with a team identifier of sorts is probably a good step to start your policy.

Absolutely, because you are no longer distinguishing between the people making the rule and the people who have to listen to the rule, especially something like this says, you know, employees must wear masks in the store. Well, everybody had to wear masks in the store. Why are customers must wear masks? You know, employees must wash their hands. If you want a sign that just says, you know, please wash your hands directed to everybody, do that. Incidentally, Marc, the sign on the bathroom is not the policy. So, the policy somewhere in an original document says, we're going to remind our employees to wash their hands. That's our policy. And then, we need a sign that does that. But signage and policy are separate.

It's interesting because, yeah, and I can absolutely see that because what's interesting is if you were to go into that restaurant and actually look at their policy manual, They will have food handling policies. They will have health and safety policies. None of it will tell the operator that you must remind the staff to do it. They might have a requirement for training that, I mean, anybody who works in a restaurant in Alberta must be food safe certified. That's their provincial rule. Now, whether or not that's the actual word, using the word must, I'm not sure. I'd have to check it, but—

Likely.

Yeah, likely. But to your point, When you say that when somebody posts something on a wall, they are assuming the policy of we must notify our staff on what the behavior should be even though it's not written anywhere.

Absolutely.

Because I've never seen a policy ever that says we must notify people through signage.

Yeah. So, and Joe, this is a very technical point. But when you pass or approve a policy in your organization, There is a record-keeping requirement that says you have a document. It's got the rule and you signed who approved it and the date. That document is the policy and everything else just informs people of the policy. So, can we inform them in a way that's much nicer if we do have a policy that says we're going to call the police if somebody gets out of hand? That could be our policy and we don't actually need to tell people in advance. I mean, what are people going to object? Oh, you didn't tell me you were going to call the police. I don't think so.

All right.

But generally, the policy is that official document where we make our decision and everything after that is comms. Okay? And both of them need to be respectful.

Yes.

Yeah.

How does one, as organizations try to figure this out, and obviously, there are different levels of leadership within an organization. Where somebody might, you know, a floor supervisor, a junior manager, a supervisor is, you know, I'm going to make sure all the rules are being followed. And they go out into the world, into their world, doing what they think they should be doing because we have a policy for it. Is there, from a leadership perspective, a mitigation vehicle that people could use to be able to judge severity and that sort of thing so that we know that as we're moving forward, We are being respectful. We are trusting. We are not carrot and sticking people to death.

So, a number of organizations, you probably have more experience with this than I do, have grades of offenses. On some offense, you might get a note in your file. If you have a different type of offense, you might get spoken to. Other offenses, you may get docked pay. So, working within these grades of offenses still is important and not to have everything is a firing, right? That's the first thing. But the second thing is that an organization really needs to distinguish between its rule makers and its rule enforcers. You know, we have speeding rules in this country. And the people who sit in the municipal office deciding how fast we go on the roads, they don't enforce the rule. The people who enforce have the tools, the training, and the authority to do enforcement. That might be some kind of internal disciplinary process. It might be an audit and evaluation, a monitoring group. The people who do enforcement have tools, training, and authority to do enforcement. And if you simply give that job to somebody who doesn't have the tools, training, and the authority, all they can do is yell. All they can do is get mad. And that's the frustration that comes out in the writing that you see.

Yes.

And they're the ones who are typically going to the bosses and say, we need a policy on this because they keep doing this. So, we talked to a couple of principles about policy writing. Are there any other principles that we should be adhering to when writing policies?

Yeah, and one more I think I'd like, and that is you can't control other people. All you can control is your reaction to what other people do. Okay, theaters learned this a long time ago. When you buy a ticket, it doesn't— like a concert, it doesn't say, don't be late, you loser. It says, we seat latecomers at the first opportunity. That's the policy. This is not about forbidden activity and punishment. This is about how we handle a situation we're not crazy about, right? That is a much more respectful policy to put forward than just to tell people, don't be late.

And to your point, I think I went to a concert, an orchestra, and it said that the doors will be closed at this time. That's all it said.

So, that's all it says. And you're an adult. Govern yourself accordingly. All right? And it's far more fair for you as an employee, as a customer to be treated as an adult and to be able to make those decisions than to feel that somebody's nagging you to be on time.

There might be people who are consuming this podcast right now thinking, oh my goodness, I wish the people I worked with were adults. It seems like I'm constantly having to nag them to do stuff. What would be your advice to them? What would be your advice to them?

So that's not an uncommon problem. And there are cases where people really just aren't listening and people are looking for loopholes and people are trying to get out of them. And from my point of view, that's not a policy writing problem. There may be a leadership problem. There may be a teamwork problem. There may be a number of culture issues going on at that organization. People who say, I'm not going to do it unless I see the policy. That's not a policy writing problem. Those are employee problems and they need to be dealt with in a totally different way from just writing the policy stronger. Policy is good when it's clear what you want. Office hours are 9 to 5. That's it. It's clear. Policy is good. Now, if we have people who are not accommodating for some rule, for some reason, let's deal with that. as an HR, as a culture feature. That's that. I throw that back to people like you. Say, this company is having an issue. It's not a policy writing issue.

It's not. It's a communication issue. It's enforcement. It is time to have conversations with your employees. And it can result in disciplinary action and stuff.

Right. But if you have a toxic workplace, you've seen organizations with a toxic workplace.

Oh my goodness, too many.

You cannot fix that toxicity By simply writing another policy.

No.

Or even softening the policy.

No.

We have to fix the toxicity first. Then we can, yeah.

When it comes down to policy writing, how much input do you think that the team themselves must have?

Oh, I would generally say that the team should have it, but the input, if it's done in a certain way. So, there's a difference between a standard and a policy. Can I bend your—

Sure, please.

Arms for a minute?

Please.

Let's say you wanted your kid to clean the room. And you could say, I want you to make your bed, put the clothes away, clean the floor, etc. Do this, do this, do this, do this. That's policy stuff. But a standard takes the look at what does it look like when it's done right? What does a clean room look like? A clean room has a bed that's made. The clothes are in the closet. The floor is clear. When you set a standard, you can then take that standard and shop it around to all the different groups at the organization and say, Is there any reason you can't meet this standard? And some of them will say, no, this is great. We absolutely can do that. And some of them will say, oh, this is going to be hard for us. In which case, you can come back and say, well, how about we meet that 50% in the first year and get to 100% in the second year? Like instead of changing the standard, we set a standard for what good looks like. And how we engage other people is what does it take for them to meet that standard?

I love that. That is a really good definition. To your point, again, we're talking policies are different from standards are different from the communication side of what we're doing. I love being able to make that distinction because I think they cross over so much that we actually confuse which one is what. Right.

And procedures as well. You mentioned procedures before. A procedure is simply a set of steps with a beginning and an end and a sequence. A recipe is a procedure.

Sure.

Right? And so, add 2 eggs. You don't have to say please. You don't have to. It's just straightforward instructions. Add the flour, stir, add 2 eggs, et cetera.

Yeah.

If you need to lead people and be very strict, a procedure is the place for that. People want to be led by the hand through the steps. That's what a procedure is for. On top of that, we have a policy that says we're going from here to there. That's our policy.

And we follow this procedure.

And we're going to follow this procedure. And in the procedure, that's where you can— once people have bought, okay, we're going to go from here to there, and I like this standard, I like what there looks like, they're happy to follow the procedure.

Yes. Yeah. Because again, it's a tool that they get to use so that they're not flailing and learning through osmosis.

Exactly.

This is fascinating. I'd like to get into some cautionaries about how people might be able to start looking at their policy manuals now and making that change. I'd like to talk about a little bit about some of the dos and don'ts. And we'll get to that right after this.

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Thank you.

That's marchaine.com.

Welcome back! I hope you are getting tons and tons and tons of value from today's episode. As you can tell, Lewis and I are super passionate about today's topic. If you belong to an organization that maybe could use our help, or you might be planning a leadership retreat, a training, a leadership training, or a conference, Why don't you drop us a line? We'd love to explore how we could be of service to you and your people. Lewis, you have a couple more examples of the good, the bad, the ugly.

I do. I do. You asked about dos and don'ts. So, the first do is be positive. Look at this. Overtime is not available without the approval of a supervisor. Overtime is available with the approval of a supervisor. They're exactly the same thing. But One is withholding a benefit and one is offering. Now, if you don't want overtime, you don't care. But if you do want overtime, you're going to look at the one on the left that says it's not available and go, oh wonderful, a hurdle. Gee, I have a hurdle to climb over. Whereas if you look at the one on the right, overtime is available with the approval of supervisors. All right, they're offering me a benefit. They're trying to help. So, rule 1, be positive. Take the negatives out and word it in the positive. Don't tell me, don't leave information blank. Tell me, fill out all the information. Or tell me, we send the form back when it's incomplete.

Okay.

As opposed to saying, the form must be completed before submission.

Absolutely. Tell me, don't tell me you must do this with your software. You must be using Windows this or Mac version this in order to run. No, tell me this software only works on this version.

Gotcha.

Just plug it into the positive.

Something else that I really found as you were saying that was the intentionality of the objective is really clear.

Basically, you are being informational rather than instructional. You are informing people about what the right thing is. And there's an assumption there that people have positive intent. That is, you don't walk in assuming everybody's going to be looking for loopholes. Sure, there are people. If you don't have a policy that says you may not burn down the office, somebody's going to come and say, I didn't know that wasn't allowed. But that's a toxic attitude and we don't want to feed that. We want to write our rules for the 99% of people that really want to help the organization.

And I have to say, I really love that philosophy because again, we're falling back onto some values. Your values of I believe that everybody's going to come to work and do the best for this organization, for the team, and so on. Rather than I'm writing rules because I'm afraid people are going to steal from me. People are going to not use their time. I mean, before you and I got onto the call today, we talked about specifically, we talked about how at the onset of COVID all of a sudden, all these policies went through and a human resource manager was now kind of empowered to find control systems so that we can see what people are doing when they're working from home.

That's right. The people who complain, for instance, that they absolutely need to distinguish mandatory from optional requirements.

Yes.

This is really easy to set mandatory requirements. Why don't we put an asterisk before every mandatory one or put it in a different color or put it on a different section of the page or say all requirements are mandatory unless otherwise? There are a ton of ways we can indicate mandatory requirements. That's easy. What's hard is giving up the, I'm telling you what to do.

Right.

Because you need to know that I'm in charge and I'm giving the rules. That's the hard part to give up.

Yes. And that is checking the ego at the door. It's not about you as the leader, right? It's amazing. Like, there's so many different kinds of value aspects that we've talked about on this show that apply to all what we're talking about today. Do you have any other cautionaries or to-dos?

I have lots and I can't summarize them really quickly. I think when I talk to people about their policies, we do start back at the values for sure.

Okay.

What is your organization about? Are you, you know, about— and that's why it's so important to have really good values. Are you about excellence? I can have all kinds of policies support excellence. But if you have a policy, like I know one organization had a value that went, make awesome things. Okay, this is not a value. And it's very hard for the policies to derive from that. But if your organization has been properly set up with values and strategies, the policies follow, right? Necessarily. And if people buy into the value, they will buy into the strategy and buy into the policy. And if they don't, you can have an adult discussion on why this policy does not achieve that value. But if you're just simply about, you must because I said so, we can't have an adult discussion about that.

Right.

So brilliant. So many different things come to mind as people will want to work through this, I think. The component, the one cautionary, the one thing that to me is just blatantly clear is that it's really important for us to take our emotion out of what we're trying to do and be more strategic in our thinking.

Absolutely.

Try to find out why do we feel the way we feel. Like if that mop keeps being put there and you've told people not to do it, are you upset because people aren't listening to you or are you upset because that's causing a challenge? And then figure out how you're going to entice the proper behavior. And I've said it time and time again, what gets recognized and rewarded gets repeated. So, when people are doing the right thing, being able to recognize what they're doing right is a bonus.

So Marc, I'm going to ask you about that mop. What's the reason for that mop? What's that about? What value is this that we're preserving here that we have a mop rule?

Yeah, who knows, right? It could be a safety thing. It could be that the fire code says that this wall has to stay clear because if it's filled with smoke, the fire department needs to be able to follow along the wall.

So, if you have a situation, a company where you have a lot of statutory imposition, the value that you need to promote and that your policies follow is integrity. Integrity says, we did our job and we did it by the book. We didn't cut corners. We did what we needed to do. And we're prepared to stand behind it and be proud. And if keeping our place safe is one of the things that we do and want to stand behind, then our policy is we're going to take every step possible to keep our place safe. And that's what you want people to say. I love that policy. That's great.

How?

Show me the procedure. And in the procedure, There will be a step that says, put the mop away.

Love it! We did have a question from Murray who's asking, thoughts on legalese? Drafting your policy in as legal terminology as you possibly can muster.

Yeah, no, I don't ever recommend that actually. Interestingly, once we cornered a lawyer and we said, why do you have all your policies coming out in legalese? He says, well, I don't do it. But it's because people write in pseudo-legalese. And so, we have to correct it to real legalese. So no, do not write your stuff in legalese. Write it so that it's understandable.

What is your philosophy about handing your policy manual over to lawyers?

So, the job of the lawyer— it's a good question, Marc. The job of the lawyer is to tell you what risks you are opening yourself to with this policy. And that's the question to ask. If I adopt this set of policies, What risks am I opening myself to? And then, the decision on do I accept those risks, that goes back to management.

Love it. That again, thank you for that clarity because I had no idea that that is the primary role of taking something over to an attorney.

Absolutely. You have to ask the right question. So, don't ask, do you like this policy? Right?

Yeah.

And don't ask, do you think it's a good idea? The question is, If we adopt this policy, is there any exposure for us? What risks are we taking? And have we complied with our statutory obligation?

Love it. Lewis, this has been an absolute— I knew this was going to be a great conversation, and I knew that we were going to have a lot of fun doing it. As we wrap up, do you have any last thoughts about today's topic?

Let's all be nice to each other. I mean, really.

It's so clear. It's so easy. It's so easy.

Bottom line. Yeah. It really is the bottom line.

And you said you went to my website and you saw my tagline about daring people to lead with love and kindness first. And I know that there's some people who really poo-poo kind of that mentality, but really at the end of it, what you just said, be kind to one another, figure out ways, can I communicate with kindness? I don't intend and expect people to go to work and start hugging everybody and everything, but being able to respect one another and being able to be kind and intentional with your kindness, I think, is the key. Lewis, could you remind everybody one more time how they can get a hold of you?

You're welcome to hit me through LinkedIn. I'm always happy to meet people there, or through my website, lewisisen.com.

And to get your book, Lewis, it's on Amazon?

It's on Amazon or Barnes Noble chapters, SmithBooks, any of the booksellers around.

And just remind us one more time of the title.

It is called How to Write Rules that people want to follow.

Love it.

Guide to Respectful— I think you can probably see it over my shoulder there. Oh, there it is.

Yes.

Yeah. Guide to Respectful Policies and Directives.

Lewis, thank you so much again. This has been brilliant. I really appreciate you being here, sharing your knowledge, sharing your passion, your expertise. It was a whole lot of fun and I hope everybody got tons of value. If you have questions about today's episode, or you'd like a complimentary 30-minute brainstorming session with your team, with Lewis himself, feel free to book yourself on our calendars. My online calendar is on the link down below. It's the one that's marked meetwith.marchaine.com. As always, I am at your service and I If you haven't done so yet, why don't you go ahead, subscribe to this feed, follow me on social media. We have tons of really good value on this, on this podcast. And I'm blessed to have experts like Lewis each and every week in bringing us into the light with new information, different philosophies, and that sort of thing. So thank you so much for joining me today. My name is Marc Haine. I hope that you stay safe. I hope you stay healthy. And I hope you dare to be the exception.

Thank you for joining us this week on Experience Leadership. Make sure you visit marchaine.com for a full directory of available episodes. While you're at it, if you found today's content valuable, please share it and tell your friends about the show. As Marc says, knowledge is power, but only if you share it. Be sure to tune in each week for the newest episode. Please stay safe, stay healthy, and dare to be the exception.