The art of… raising to the Purpose of Management

In the Netherlands a number of large governmental institutes are literally shaking on their grounds. The 'toeslagenaffaire', dealing with the after-effects of producing gas in Groningen and recently the court ruling on wealth tax, just to name a few. For who is not familiar with those examples, the 'toeslagenaffaire' concerns a scandal (later ruled unlawful) in which tax officials wrongly accused thousands of parents of fraud, plunging many families into debt by ordering them to repay childcare allowances. The investigating committee chairman, Chris van Dam, called the system "a mass process in which there was no room for nuance", with more than 20,000 working families pursued for fraud before the courts, ordered to repay child support benefits and denied the right to appeal over several years from 2012. The other examples are similar in impact and magnitude.

Every time the outside world (journalists, researchers, ...) seem to dig into the performance of an institute (by means of 'WOB' requests) a new 'unjust' pops up. Mostly, for us, common people, uncomprehendable. Why, you may wonder? Unfortunately I do not believe there is a simple answer to this, but to me it is certainly time to reflect on some possible causes management issues...

In the Netherlands we just love procedures and rules, written in big capitals! If we find some purpose or new objective, we immediately translate this to legislation, a new set of rules and/or procedures. We like structure and guidance in our work and execution. And more importantly, it takes care of justification. It does not appeal to your own responsibility if you execute the defined process. Who got fired doing this?

Unfortunately, it is nearly impossible to cover all aspects of the original purpose in mostly black and white legislation, rules and/or procedures. There will always be loopholes, impossible to ultimately catch in a procedure. Also, the execution is mostly done in a delivery unit of some sort, far apart from where those rules were originally prepared.

Does the execution team still have the understanding of the original purpose? Is there an incentive to do so? In my view there is none. And I even would say 'in the contrary'! Most managers have been taught from their initial steps into a management role that compliance, proof of work and (over-)achieving 'agreed' quantitative objectives are the most important values.

Many managers do not challenge WHY certain rules are what they are. They just take them for granted. Some may think that the people involved in making them know what they are doing or wonder why you would stick out for something that was decided for you...

Then there are two categories that do take an interest in the reasoning of rules; understand the 'why'. The first category seeks the absolute outer limits of the rules. They realize that in some cases those rules simply do not work. And if they don't, they will bend the rules just enough to find a better outcome using their common sense while still feeling confident they can justify if it comes to explaining them to superior management.

Finally, there are those who openly challenge the rules if they are unjust to decisions you have at hand. One option is to take the decision as you feel is needed, record your 'defence' and 'ask for forgiveness'. The second option is to fight the system. In that case I think you should be very selective in choosing your battles: fight the ones that worthwhile fighting for and you can win.

The latter differentiate leaders from managers. I do not want to stimulate rebellion behaviour, but I do want you to realize that as a manager you can never walk away from using your common sense. Ultimately, all decisions are your personal responsibility, also if all alarm bells ring...

Leadership concerns the interaction of follower and leader. You decide how to balance and take the real purpose of management into account. If purpose and execution do not match, then leadership also concerns breaking rules...