Have you ever worked hard trying to improve things at your workplace, yet end up frustrated with the progress or results? Or perhaps you've had a goal to achieve but find that another month has gone by without any real progress? I hear this a lot in group learning sessions and one-on-one with coaching clients. The concept of understanding written and unwritten rules is often helpful to getting beyond the frustration.

Life is filled with written and unwritten rules. On the highway closest to your home, what is the written rule for the speed limit? Here in the United States, it's usually 55 or 65 miles per hour. According to the written rule, you are in danger of receiving a violation if you exceed this speed. What about the unwritten rule? If you go the same speed as the flow of traffic (even if it is substantially faster than the posted limit), your odds of getting a speeding violation are quite small. In boating, the written rule says that a sailboat has the right-of-way over a boat under power. All sailors know the unwritten rule: the biggest boat wins! I might have the right-of-way over an oil tanker, but you can bet I'm not waiting for him to turn!

Our personal lives have written and unwritten rules. A written rule might be "I believe in taking care of myself." The unwritten rule might be that sleep, exercise, and a reasonable diet are the first things I'll toss when the demands of life increase. The written rule might be "My family is my top priority." The unwritten rule might be that the job has me so consumed that even when I'm home I'm not really "home".

Organizations of all sizes have written and unwritten rules. The official policy might be "Nothing gets done without the boss' signature." The unwritten rule might be "''Do it and ask for forgiveness later' always works better than 'Please!'" A software development organizations might say "We believe in re-use!", but the rule that everyone lives by is "Get the release out on time or else!" Many organizations state "We empower our employees" but in practice, the real shots are called from up top.

Written and unwritten rules are not inherently good or bad. The benefit comes from: 1) recognizing what they are, and 2) understanding the gap between them, and 3) taking action on the insights. Let's look at these more closely.

Recognizing the Rules

Recognizing the written and (perhaps more importantly) the unwritten rules in an organization can help you more effectively get things done. Written rules are about intentions--how we want things to be. Unwritten rules are about reality--how things really are. The truth is that reality always wins over intentions. Get a better grasp of the unwritten rules in your organization and you are better equipped to navigate the waters necessary to get things done. While everyone else is following the written word, you are getting things done because you understand what is necessary within the organizational culture. In an environment where we increasingly need to influence without direct authority over people, a firm grasp of the unwritten rules of an organization can provide significant help.

Understanding the Gaps

Mission statements lacquered on a wall plaque are only meaningful if the gap between their words and the reality of day-to-day in the organization is very small. The wider the gap, the greater the organizational illusion. You may recall the Jerry Weinberg quote from January's Horizon Time: "It may look like a crisis, but it's only the end of an illusion."  If you pretend to focus on customers, respect employees, value quality, (or whatever else you say is important) but do not follow-through in reality, the illusion will eventually lead to a crisis.

There are always gaps between the written and unwritten rules in the real world. If your organization is filled with them, don't be surprised and don't use it as an excuse to just complain! The issue is: Where are the biggest gaps? What can you do to take advantage of the gaps, if appropriate, and help close them, where possible (check out the QBQ! feature below for additional healthy questions to ask). A great place to look for remedies is taking a realistic look at incentives currently in place. If you say one thing but incent people (even subtly) to do another, there should be no surprise that gaps exist. Use this new knowledge to take the initiative to make things better!

And may I encourage you to take advantage of this knowledge to improve your personal life as well. Regardless of what people say, I generally find that a quick review of their calendar and checkbook provides a reliable window into the reality of their life. Take the time to identify what really is important to you. Even if you aren't living it out today, what do you really want to be true about you? Feeling courageous for a dose of reality? Take the risk of asking your spouse or a close friend how they think your real life lines up with your desires. Closing the gap requires filling in some blind spots. With this information you can then make the tough decisions necessary to more closely align your schedule, your resources, and your energy with those things you value.

Here is my March challenge for you: Get your team together and do a little "Unwritten Rules" exercise. The Team Questions section below provides one way to run the exercise. You might want to do a similar exercise on your own, or perhaps with a loved one or coach, to tackle gaps in your personal life.

Do you want to be more effective in achieving personal goals you have set? Do you want to be more effective at getting things done at work or making it a better place to spend the best hours of each day? There is power in taking an honest assessment of what is actually happening in the behaviors and choices of the real world. Take time to recognize the unwritten rules, understand the gap between them and the written rules, and then take action based on the insights you learn. You'll be amazed by the results!

Team Exercise

• Directions: Before the meeting, print out this newsletter and have copies available for team members.

• Ask the participants to take a couple minutes to read through the newsletter article. Ask them to highlight interesting points.

• After everyone is done reading, have people draw a big "T" on a piece of paper, providing two columns for the exercise. Have them label the left column "Unwritten Rules" and the right column "How this helps/hurts". The idea is that unwritten rules can have trade-off's--they can actually help in some ways, but cause harm in others. Ask the team to spend 2-3 minutes brainstorming Unwritten Rules they have observed in the day-to-day reality of the workplace, and the consequences of them.

• If you took more time, you could undoubtedly identify more issues, but keeping the time to a couple minutes will draw out the most obvious issues.

• After the allotted time, go around the room soliciting one unwritten rule at a time from each person. Have the person mention what they put in the "How this helps/hurts" column as well. Record the comments on a flipchart that has a similar two column setup. You will probably have some rules repeated as you go around the room--there's no need to write the same issue on the flipchart twice.

• Get agreement on the top 2-3 rules that have the widest gap or worst consequences. This can take some discussion, but use this time to focus on where the greatest return for any change would be.

• Have the team brainstorm together ways to start shrinking the gap on these 2-3 rules. NOTE: It might mean that some written rules need to be modified to be more relevant.

• Begin taking action on the ideas generated in the session.

• Send me a quick e-mail summarizing an unwritten rule gap that you identified and some ideas that came out of your session! Thanks!

Personal accountability is a topic that doesn't really get much air time. However, the lack of personal accountability in the workplace consumes more of your time as a leader than you might realize. And, after some honest reflection, it could just be that personal accountability is something you and I can improve on as well! John G. Miller is author of the book QBQ! The Question Behind the Question, an easy reading book that teaches some powerful lessons on personal accountability. Rather than interviewing John this month, he has given me permission to include the short first chapter of his book. Information on how to get your own copy of John's book is available at the end of the excerpt.  Enjoy!

John G. Miller is the author of two books, QBQ! The Question Behind the Question and Personal Accountability. He is the founder of QBQ, Inc., an organizational development firm based in Denver, Colorado, dedicated to "Helping Organizations Make Personal Accountability a Core Value." A 1980 graduate of Cornell University, John has been actively involved in the organizational development and speaking industry since 1986. John lives in Denver with his wife, Karen, and their seven children. If you would like to learn more about John G. Miller and the Question Behind the Question, check out the QBQ web site at www.qbq.com.

Horizon Time contains hyperlinks to web sites operated by persons other than the Institute for Leadership Excellence and Development (I LEAD). Such hyperlinks are provided for your reference and convenience only, and I LEAD is not responsible for the content or operation of such web sites. A hyperlink from Horizon Time to another web site does not imply or mean that I LEAD endorses the content on that web site or the operator or operations of that site. You are solely responsible for determining the extent to which you may use any content at any other web sites to which you might link from Horizon Time.