Appearances

Ghost Writer discusses compliance while the only compliance Marti's doing is alignment with a beach chair.

 

My dear friend, N, told me the story of she and her high school aged son discussing his homework.  Her son said, "Mom, you can only make it look like I'm doing my homework.  You can't make me do my homework." N replied, "You're right, but as long as you live in this house, we're going to keep up appearances, if nothing else."

 

Every Fixer-of--Broken-Things and HR Manager knows my friend's feeling of resigned acceptance of the fact we can only make people look like they are complying withe the process.  As Marti would say, "We can put air freshener cones around it and put it on a pretty plate, but a turd is still a turd."  Appearance of a process matters.  When I document a new process, many people say how great it is and thank me for the hard work.  However, consistent execution of the process when no one is looking would be the greatest thanks I could get.

 

Today, on one front, I got just that.  An employee who is busy and could easily skip corners without anyone knowing until it's way too late was faithful to the process.  This saved me a lot of points on an important process review and gave the process' appearance real substance. 

 

Thank an HR Manager or Fixer-of-Broken-Things today -- do the process as designed, faithfully.  And for bonus points, suggest a substantive improvement based on your informed use.  We love that stuff!