Unchallenged Assumptions = The "Ties" that Bind

Tom's story -

In a small town, an old man watches the circus setting up tents and unloading their animals for the night. He watches as huge stakes are pounded into the ground. Then, elephants are unloaded from their wagons and each tied to an individual stake. This same man is back to watch as the circus prepares to leave town. He sees a man approach each elephant and instruct it to pull up the stake to which it is tethered - which each does before getting back on the wagon.

The old man approaches the trainer and asks, "The elephant can obviously pull up the stake. Why doesn't it pull it up and run away?"

The trainer explained, "We start tying them to these stakes when they are tiny elephants. They tug and tug, but cannot move the stakes. They learn that they cannot move them. Even after they have grown to ten times the size of the little elephant they once were, they still believe they cannot move the stake. They assume they can only pull them up upon command of the trainer."

This story came to be my way of Tom Moss, a PSG Network member and grand citizen of the world. It reminded me of work I was involved with a number of years ago with a state revenue department. As part of a larger project of work, we held several small group discussions across departmental lines. One question we asked was, "What are the unwritten rules around here?"

I still remember some of the unwritten rules that surfaced. They ranged from minor to major. Here are three examples -

• "Our audit plan always goes after the 'cash cows' - large multi-state companies. We know they'll always have something wrong because of our different states' laws. Sometimes, we just camp at their sites year round. It looks good for us on our audit reports."
• "We never comment on the law. We just administer it."
• "We must get five levels of signature on an out-of-state travel request."

Once all of these were listed, we captured the common ones and named them "Beliefs and Practices." There were over 130 of them. The 130 were taken to the executives of this agency. The executives were asked, "Going forward, which of these do you really want to keep as the way we do things around here?" Guess how many they kept? If you said less than ten, you'd be right. Seven!

This work was shared with the whole organization - both the list that was kept and the list that was, in essence, "thrown out." It caused unprecedented conversation inside this organization - and prompted great creativity. In my personal experience, it ended up being one of the more transformative exercises I've participated in.

Why would I bring these two stories up now? One's a parable. One happened many years ago.

Because, as we approach a fresh new year, the message seemed timely. We all 'grow up' inside an organization learning what we can or cannot do. Sometimes the rules are directly spoken or written down. Sometimes they are only "observed". Too often, they go unchallenged.

So, as my challenge for the New Year 2005 -

1. Look at your written rules and practices. Going forward, which do you want to keep?

   Written practices - in rule, statute, or policy - can be changed and often pretty easily. (i.e. We just believe they can't). Usually there is a lawmaker who is eager to get rid of unnecessary regulation. If it's an administrative rule or organizational policy, get your facts and arguments together and present your case.

2. For those unwritten beliefs and practices, set up a fun process to "out them." Putting beliefs and practices into words is in itself important to do. (You'll be surprised at the differences in what people assume to be true.) For each, DECIDE whether you want them kept or not. This can be done at any level inside an organization - from enterprise-wide to inside a work unit.

3. Then, keep vigilant. Set up a screening process to keep you from creating new 'policies' to unnecessarily fill the void. Decide how your group can, on an ongoing basis, distinguish between that which is current good practice and that which has become simply a new policy that 'binds'?