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Supervisors often prefer rule breakers, up to a point

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Re: Supervisors often prefer rule breakers, up to a point

#111

Post by mikepurvis »

bmacho wrote: post #78
alienthrowaway wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In which country? Even for the US I don't believe the law system is that crappy. There's video from a few years back that shows very American cops standing outside a burning house at night, knowing there was a young child still in it. A passing pizza delivery dude[1] rescued the 6-year old, handed her to cop, and ended up requiring hospitalization. In the online discussion, everyone called the rescuer a hero, but I…

A burning house is not "a pool". In my country you can't watch a kid drowning in a pool* but you are not obligated to help anyone in a burning house, since that would put you in danger too. I assume it is the same ~everywhere in the world, including the US. * assume rescuing would be fairly safe, you are a good swimmer, you have lifeguard education, the weather is nice and the kid is small. AFAIK rescuing drowning pe…

A drowning child is of fairly limited threat to an even halfway competent adult swimmer. Even at maximum panic/flailing, they just don't have the mass or strength to prevent you from at least treading water.

Re: Supervisors often prefer rule breakers, up to a point

#112

Post by _fat_santa »

seeknotfind wrote: post #38

Here's the dangerous way I put it that I only tell senior people: understand why rules were made and make sure the people who made them would be happy.

As a manager the way I approach rules with my reports is I always tell them to understand the "chesterton's fence" behind any rule. I looks at rules like business logic in code, the "logic" was added there for a reason but there are often edge cases where that logic does not apply. I don't tell my reports to either break or follow any particular rule, but to understand why that rule is there before they decide if they need to either follow or break it.

And from personal experience i find that when you give people that level of autonomy, they will almost always approach what I told them about rule breaking in good faith.

Re: Supervisors often prefer rule breakers, up to a point

#113

Post by austin-cheney »

Yes and no. A more extreme example of this is the US Army's Mission Command Philosophy.

The yes part:

Leaders like velocity and don't want rules to slow people down. Rules exist for a reason, because somebody in the past has fucked it up for the rest of us. Leadership still wants goal accomplishment in the shortest time frame and at the cheapest cost, though. The US Army baked this into the cornerstone of their leadership approach more than 20 years. The central concept is for a leader to tell their people at set of goals and then release their people into the wild and figure it out on their own. This provides flexibility with minimal constraints, which is especially important in a rapidly changing environment of fluid changes where the senior leader has outdated information.

Its also why corporate leadership doesn't discourage working on personal code projects if that value comes back to the organization.

The no part:

Leaders, at least the non-toxic ones, don't want to cannibalize their people. Even if rules are not important ethics certainly are. Good leaders don't want narcissistic assholes rotting the organization from the inside even if it does mean higher velocity. If your organization reaches a market milestone first but everybody has left the organization then its purely a Pyrrhic victory and the organization will still lose. This is why up to 25% of flag officers in the US military are continually under investigation at any time.

In the corporate world this is crystal clear when you look at your leadership and your peers. Are they primarily interested in releasing a product or reaching an organizational goal or are they primarily interested in their place within the organization or the appearance of relationships.

Re: Supervisors often prefer rule breakers, up to a point

#114

Post by xdavidliu »

sudoshred wrote: post #43
rblatz wrote: post #33

Anecdotally I’ve heard from professional athletes that steroid use is actually liked by coaches because it gives them better control over the locker room. If someone becomes an issue in the locker room, guess who is getting randomly selected for testing without a heads up warning.

Similar thinking applies in other fields as well I am sure.

yep, the concept is more general than steroids and often goes by terms like "blackmail" or "leverage"

Re: Supervisors often prefer rule breakers, up to a point

#115

Post by trimethylpurine »

GuB-42 wrote: post #83
randomNumber7 wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Similarly, it is reprehensible but legal to pull up a chair and watch a child drown in a pool. In which country? Even for the US I don't believe the law system is that crappy.

In France at least, and I believe in the US to, it is illegal to not do something if you can. It does not mean that you should dive and bring him back. In fact, it is not recommended unless you know what you are doing as you may put yourself in danger and need rescuing yourself. But if there are other people around who can help and you don't alert them, or if you have a working phone and don't call whatever emergency…

It depends what you mean by do. In the US, if you didn't notify police or call for help and just stood and watched while someone died, no jury would pass on convicting you. You're expected to behave reasonably. There need not be a written law. It's called common law.

Re: Supervisors often prefer rule breakers, up to a point

#116

Post by ike2792 »

In any large organization, there are basically two classes of rules: 1) stupid red tape rules that slow everyone down and 2) really important rules that you can never break ever. Effective people learn which rules fall into which group so they can break the red tape rules and get more stuff done.

Re: Supervisors often prefer rule breakers, up to a point

#117

Post by ClumsyPilot »

s1artibartfast wrote: post #67
alienthrowaway wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In which country? Even for the US I don't believe the law system is that crappy. There's video from a few years back that shows very American cops standing outside a burning house at night, knowing there was a young child still in it. A passing pizza delivery dude[1] rescued the 6-year old, handed her to cop, and ended up requiring hospitalization. In the online discussion, everyone called the rescuer a hero, but I…

Cops have no legal obligation in the US to protect people from crime. They can watch you be mugged without lifting a finger. They might be fired, but the victim isn't entitled to protection. It basically comes down to positive and negative rights. Someone is at fault if they harm you, but nobody is required to help you, even the government.

> nobody is required to help you, even the government

Seems very convenient, what am I paying taxes for then?

Re: Supervisors often prefer rule breakers, up to a point

#118

Post by krapp »

ClumsyPilot wrote: post #117
s1artibartfast wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cops have no legal obligation in the US to protect people from crime. They can watch you be mugged without lifting a finger. They might be fired, but the victim isn't entitled to protection. It basically comes down to positive and negative rights. Someone is at fault if they harm you, but nobody is required to help you, even the government.

> nobody is required to help you, even the government Seems very convenient, what am I paying taxes for then?

You're paying taxes because your government forces you to under threat of violence.

Re: Supervisors often prefer rule breakers, up to a point

#119

Post by harrall »

Enginerrrd wrote: post #99
pdpi wrote: post #23

Fundamentally, rules almost always come with compromises — for the sake of making rules understandable by humans, they have to be relatively simple. Simple rules for complex situations will always forbid some amount of good behaviour, and allow some bad behaviour. Many of society's parasites live in the space of "allowable bad behaviour", but there is a lot of value to knowing how to exploit the "forbidden good behav…

The worst of all worlds is when a blind application of the rules results in bad behavior. This situation seems to come up frequently, and I'm very often appalled at how readily otherwise normal people will "follow the rules" even when it's clearly and objectively bad, and there may even be existing pathways to seek exceptions.

Some types of people are “rule followers” are can’t fathom breaking any rules.

There are also “rule breakers” who can’t fathom being told what to do.

Both types of people are insufferable.

Re: Supervisors often prefer rule breakers, up to a point

#120

Post by harrall »

efavdb wrote: post #28
pdpi wrote: post #23

Fundamentally, rules almost always come with compromises — for the sake of making rules understandable by humans, they have to be relatively simple. Simple rules for complex situations will always forbid some amount of good behaviour, and allow some bad behaviour. Many of society's parasites live in the space of "allowable bad behaviour", but there is a lot of value to knowing how to exploit the "forbidden good behav…

Example?

Going 10mph over the speed limit on a highway, especially because you’re a little late, isn’t a big deal.

Going 5mph UNDER in a neighborhood with kids playing around on the street is too fast.

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