rules

rules of engagement is important to an organization or to a relationship. my new organization’s management just got back from an outing in langkawi. one of the key outtake is that we need to have new rules of engagement. after distilling few thoughts, we came up with more than a couple. for sake of quick reading, i will highlight two.

one, all our discussion moving forward must be ‘sugar free‘. by that, we mean no sugar coated feedback or information. tell it straight. tell it honestly.

two, learn to ‘pick a good fight‘. it means that if there are issues that we feel strongly about, debate seriously and robustly. no hard feelings.

for the first rule to work, people need to change. they need to feel safe to deliver bad news. bosses must resist the urge to ‘jump’ (aka get upset) every time they hear bad news.

truth hurts. would you rather have your staff lie to you or tell you the truth? get upset and your staff will never tell you the sugar free version anymore. you will command your ship based on painted reality. sooner or later, you won’t see the iceberg in front.

for the second rule to work, people need to change as well. they need to be able to ‘remove’ themselves from the discussion. its not about them. its about the issue.

an organization will not grow if people take sides and take it personally. i repeat, its not about them. its about the company. get over it and move on.

in my view, for any relationship or organization to work, we need the rules of engagement clearly stated. if the rules are not clear to either party, the relationship will not be sustainable.