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> There are several factors which tend to sprout normalization of deviance: > First and foremost is the attitude that rules are stupid and/or inefficient. Thi

by imh 8y ago

> There are several factors which tend to sprout normalization of deviance: > First and foremost is the attitude that rules are stupid and/or inefficient. This is a great reason why to try your hardest to avoid implementing stupid rules. When some rules are stupid and become ignored, other rules lose their power.

ubernostrum 8y ago
If you think the world doesn't contain a large number of people whose attitude is that they are smart enough to decide what to do for themselves, and all the rules are made by stupid people, you have another think coming. And blaming the rules for the behavior of those people is not the correct position. (see also: why the only thing many HN users know about G.K. Chesterton is the fence thing)
- imh 8y ago
  I'm sorry you read that into my comment, but that's not what I meant to imply. I simply meant that there's a balance to keep in mind when making rules.
joe_the_user 8y ago
Well, out of context, in the abstract, tediously checking every single condition with a list may seem "stupid" to someone experienced in an activity. In the context of flying, where a careless error can result in death, this tedious checking has a very logical explanation, one that I assume most pilots are aware of. More broadly, I suspect that a lot of rules exist specifically because what seems obvious and natural in a situation gets you in trouble. But by that token, such rules can't help but appear "stupid" but also can't and shouldn't be avoided.
donbright 8y ago
Does it also mean you should try your hardest to obey stupid rules? Since you may not realize whether it's stupid or not until you have more experience than the person who made it?
pitt1980 8y ago
I think it's also why there's real value in investing time to explain the rules and why they're important and understanding that even over just 2 layers of bureaucracy its really easy to lose an understanding of the why behind a process --------- Part of that is that its quicker to just rely on the institutional power "I'm your boss, do it this way because I tell you to" "My boss told me it needs to be this way, and I'm your boss, and the bs flows downstream, so do it this way" uses fewer institutional resources, but that comes at the cost of no one actually knowing why things are being done the way they're being done, and no one understands the costs of deviance from the processes being implimented ------ and in lots of instances, the benefits to deviance tend to be higher than 'we get to take off a little faster' lots of times what we measure people on tends to be in conflict with the processes we want people to follow, so we even incentivize people inventing little shortcuts around the processes we want people to follow
fanf2 8y ago
Rules are organizational code. Be prepared to fix them when you find out they don’t work as well as you thought.

by imh 8y ago

ubernostrum 8y ago

If you think the world doesn't contain a large number of people whose attitude is that they are smart enough to decide what to do for themselves, and all the rules are made by stupid people, you have another think coming. And blaming the rules for the behavior of those people is not the correct position. (see also: why the only thing many HN users know about G.K. Chesterton is the fence thing)

imh 8y ago
I'm sorry you read that into my comment, but that's not what I meant to imply. I simply meant that there's a balance to keep in mind when making rules.

joe_the_user 8y ago

Well, out of context, in the abstract, tediously checking every single condition with a list may seem "stupid" to someone experienced in an activity. In the context of flying, where a careless error can result in death, this tedious checking has a very logical explanation, one that I assume most pilots are aware of. More broadly, I suspect that a lot of rules exist specifically because what seems obvious and natural in a situation gets you in trouble. But by that token, such rules can't help but appear "stupid" but also can't and shouldn't be avoided.

donbright 8y ago

Does it also mean you should try your hardest to obey stupid rules? Since you may not realize whether it's stupid or not until you have more experience than the person who made it?

pitt1980 8y ago

I think it's also why there's real value in investing time to explain the rules and why they're important and understanding that even over just 2 layers of bureaucracy its really easy to lose an understanding of the why behind a process --------- Part of that is that its quicker to just rely on the institutional power "I'm your boss, do it this way because I tell you to" "My boss told me it needs to be this way, and I'm your boss, and the bs flows downstream, so do it this way" uses fewer institutional resources, but that comes at the cost of no one actually knowing why things are being done the way they're being done, and no one understands the costs of deviance from the processes being implimented ------ and in lots of instances, the benefits to deviance tend to be higher than 'we get to take off a little faster' lots of times what we measure people on tends to be in conflict with the processes we want people to follow, so we even incentivize people inventing little shortcuts around the processes we want people to follow

fanf2 8y ago

Rules are organizational code. Be prepared to fix them when you find out they don’t work as well as you thought.