When Managing to the Dysfunctional is Personal

You can read the personnel policies or handbooks of some organizations and tell they were written with one or two people in mind.

At some point, management became focused on keeping Jack, Maria or Harold from getting away with something. Their energy would have been better spent crafting rules that would not alienate the 98 percent of the employees who are doing a good job.

The experienced manager knows that:

• People will fool you. [So what if you're fooled on something minor and the job gets done.]
• People will goof off. [Most of us work in bursts, not in a constant flow, and it can be hard to distinguish goofing off from establishing good working relationships.]
• People won't memorize the rules. [Too many rules are a danger sign.]
• People will mock authority. [If this remains within some reasonable limits, it may even be a healthy activity. Excessive deference to authority can produce even worse problems.]