Flexibility & Process Adherence

One of the major issues I see with the organizations today is the misuse of one of its biggest strength "Flexibility". Flexibility to me does not grant an authority to individual or teams to grow above the defined rules or processes. It should be viewed as an organization’s open mindset to listen and adapt to changing environment by enabling framework to re-define the processes. I today see people living by exception or may I call it that the exceptions are becoming a rule. At the pace we are growing this is not sustainable and at some point very soon will become unmanageable.

I might be wrong but I believe that once a process or a rule is defined that should be followed. A friend of mine told me once when I was visiting US that there is nothing right or wrong it is only legal and illegal as law states. I often hear people say that following a process or a rule is a deterrent to creativity which I personally do not agree with. I surely agree that certain rules or boundaries might create constraints that may not be able to accommodate your imagination but then rather than breaking the boundaries why not work to recreate or redefine them.

If any single process is not working this does not go to say no process works, think of the way the traffic would look like if all were trying to be creative on roads it would be a disaster but then we have build racing tracks (redefine boundaries) to accommodate for the more imaginative folks. To me there is no binary answer to the question “Do Rules deter Creativity". There will be situations and roles which do not have scope for creativity typically in operations hence the need to be strict with the process might be higher in certain situations.

I believe that rules and processes are a must have and should be followed. The only other thing we need is a framework around accessing the productivity/usefulness of the process at regular intervals and a framework to enable redefinition at agreed intervals.

We all know that change needs time to settle in hence need to be very cautions on the frequency of change. Let us not make exception in the name of "Flexibility" and live by exception as a rule.