“We have a work hard play hard culture here in our organization. We expect that when people are here they are working hard but we also understand the importance of balance. That is why we do not expect our people to work late every night or on weekends. In fact it is our policy to have our people leave by 5 or 6 pm every night.”
How many of you have said something like this to your people or heard another leader say something like this to you? It sounds great doesn’t it? Sounds like a place everyone would want to work. So why is it that despite making a “policy” like this, oftentimes people at organizations continue to work well into the night and all hours on the weekend to get their work done. Why do they ignore the “policy”?
There can be a number of reasons for this – lack of efficiency, too much work for one person, etc. However there is on other reason that needs to be explored – the “unwritten rules”. Unwritten rules can become a more powerful guiding force than the written rules. For example if a leader makes the statement above, but then proceeds to email his team members at 9 or 10pm every night, and on weekends, he/she will ultimately be undermining the “policy”. People will ignore the written rules in order to adhere to the assumed expectations of the unwritten rules. In this case, “If my boss is emailing me at 9pm, that means he/she is working. If my boss is working then I probably should be working and showing him or her that I am working.” And you can see how the written rules get undermined.
As a leader it is important to remember that our people learn from our attitudes and behaviours so we need to be extra careful that these are also lined up with our words.
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