Episode 109 

In the previous episode, we discussed several factors that go into leadership decision-making. Today, we are entering the core part of our adventure. We will discuss our dilemmas one by one, starting with Process vs. Flexibility. Should we stick to the rules all the time, or should we bend or even break them whenever we see fit? First, let’s travel four decades back in time. 

Serpukhov-15: Soviet nuclear early warning system control center 

In the chilling darkness of the early morning hours on September 26, 1983, deep within the confines of a Soviet bunker, a drama of potentially apocalyptic proportions began to unfold. The setting was Serpukhov-15, a nerve center of the Soviet military’s early warning system OKO, and the man at the heart of the story was Stanislav Petrov, a lieutenant colonel in the Soviet Air Defense Forces. Suddenly, the calm was broken by an alarm. The system was indicating an incoming missile from the United States. A moment later, four additional missiles were reported, all coming from the same launch site. The standard procedure in such a situation was clear: report the attack to superiors, who would likely order a retaliatory strike. However, Petrov found himself in a quandary. The system was relatively new, and he had reservations about its reliability. 

Moreover, it seemed odd that the U.S. would launch only five missiles in a first strike instead of thousands. With these doubts in mind, Petrov made a risky decision against protocol:

he declared the alarm false and resisted informing his superiors. As he waited for the consequences of his decision to unfold, the tension in the bunker was palpable. But as time passed, it became clear that Petrov’s instincts had been correct. There were no missiles. The alarm had been triggered by a rare alignment of sunlight on high-altitude clouds and the satellites’ orbits. In the end, Petrov’s decision to break the rules and trust his judgment prevented a potential nuclear apocalypse. 

Perspectives 

We might look at the Process vs Flexibility dilemma from two perspectives. The perspective of executives and top management is how complicated the process should be, how many rules we need, and how much we have to go into all the details and corner cases. From the other end of the leadership scale, if you are a team leader or manager of a few people, the dilemma is instead whether you should follow the existing process and rules to the letter. 

Process 

We have processes for a reason. They provide structure and a degree of consistency and predictability in an organization. How soon should we gather feedback for a new employee? How should we log work time in the system? What’s the list of our responsibilities according to our contract? How can the yearly educational budget be spent? How do we differentiate between our people’s formal seniority levels? Can we work entirely remotely, or must we be in the office one day a week? Can we get a raise outside a normal yearly cycle? Is there any yearly cycle at all? How often can we go for a beer integration with a team? How much time can be spent on 1-on-1s? 

Flexibility 

On the other hand, we can’t codify everything. There will always be some corner cases that will escape our process. There will always be situations in the shade of gray. Or situations where the literal application of the process doesn’t make much sense. We might compare the Process vs. Flexibility dilemma to the Control vs. Autonomy tradeoff based on trust level. The more we trust people, the less process we need and the more autonomy we can grant. And autonomy is one of three main drivers of people’s motivation along with mastery and purpose. 

Rules are for others 

In a 1981 research paper, Ole Svenson found out that, on average, 80% of drivers describe themselves as “better than average”—a statistical impossibility that was later repeatedly replicated. The phenomenon is known as illusory superiority, which is a cognitive bias where we overestimate our qualities and abilities compared to others. This is especially important for our perceived honesty, ethics, and law-abiding behavior. To protect our self-esteem, we can come up with explanations for our actions that seem to be contradicting the rules. In our minds, the rules exist mostly to keep others at bay – we are honest by default. We see a car parked wrong – the driver is breaking the rules. We park a car wrong – well … we had to, we were in a hurry, the space was limited, the neighboring car was too close, it’s just for a moment, it’s not a big deal, others do it so I can do it as well, etc. You get the gist. Also, keep in mind that bending the rules subtly and repeatedly can lead to disastrous results in small and seemingly almost harmless steps. 

Too many rules lead to pathology 

If rules are too complex, restraining, or annoying, people will find ways to circumvent them or waste resources just to fit them. Consider an example of a company’s educational time budget. If you only allow people to log time on internal events such as webinars and talks about a certain technology, some of them will likely join certain webinars that are not interesting or helpful for them just to be able to log that time in a timesheet and do something else in the background as otherwise the hours pool might be lost. If you allow this time to be spent on self-study, most people will probably find some interesting and useful courses or conference talk recordings. Some of them will cheat and just log it without actually doing anything useful or even brag about spending an educational budget on prolonging a vacation or preparing dumplings for Christmas. I heard a story about people standing up to 4 minutes or so at the exit from the office waiting to swipe their badge because the system counting time was working in 5-minute intervals. They didn’t want to get robbed of their time! That seems like a waste of human resources, doesn’t it?   

Organization is not software 

One might naively assume that everyone should comply if there is a formal process or rule for something, and people signed a contract with a clause about following all procedures in the organization. It should be simple – there is an algorithm, a set of instructions and processors are supposed to follow it to the letter no matter how big the system is. That’s how it works in software, right? Yeah, but an organization is not software (and even in software, we often don’t know why something works or doesn’t, do we?). People are complicated beings that don’t follow algorithms for many possible reasons. Organizations add a layer of complexity to that, much as distributed systems add complexity to the computer world. Information and rules go unnoticed, ignored, or contradicted. Changes are difficult (we will have an entire episode about it). Unofficial local rules that override global rules emerge – unspoken, unwritten, and somewhat tribal. A leader, especially with a technical background, might feel lost in all this. 

Formalities 

All this potential rebellious flexibility might seem tempting. However, we are usually constrained not only by our organization’s internal rules and processes but also by external organizations such as our clients or partners. Breaking some seemingly harmless rules might have dire formal consequences, such as contractual penalties. We have NDAs, GDPR, various other regulations, usage of AI tools in commercial projects, etc. For instance, we can go for a workation in Greece, but if you cross the border to Turkey and open the laptop, the client’s data is leaving the European Union, and it has legal implications.  

Perhaps most importantly, we are working within the boundaries and requirements of the labor law. For example, there are some specific regulations regarding delegations, and those can affect in-house company rules regarding spending educational budget to fly to a conference depending on the type of employment – whether it’s a regular employment contract or a b2b contract between our organization and a contractor, a pretty typical setup in Polish IT. Sometimes, it might be quite annoying from our industry perspective because labor law has some constraints that are usually designed to protect employees who are in much weaker positions compared to employers than is the case with IT. For example, in Poland, you are technically forced to take at least two weeks of continuous vacations – a countermeasure for an employer who wouldn’t want to agree to let you go for two whole weeks – a somewhat typical vacation. But what if the employee prefers several shorter vacations instead? An artificial constraint is in play.  

Culture eats process for breakfast 

So what to do now? Dear leader, you must be entirely confused by now. Peter Drucker famously said that culture eats strategy for breakfast. The character, attitude, competencies, common sense, and integrity of people in the company are more important than a plan drafted by executives. Even the best strategy will not hold up if people executing it don’t share a proper culture. It’s similar to processes and rules. It’s important to follow the intention of rules and processes, not follow them to the letter. Understanding intentions enables leaders to improvise in all the corner cases not covered explicitly by the process. Or, sometimes, consciously bend or break the rules if needed. Good understanding requires good communication, trust, and common sense. It doesn’t mean we don’t need reasonable processes and rules – they should complement good company culture. From time to time, though, trusting our gut feelings over procedures might save us from a nuclear apocalypse.