I had the pleasure of listening to a series of CDs from Dr. David Ball, a consultant who helps trial lawyers strategize cases and understand how jurors might respond to their arguments.

Ball's work is specific to litigators but his comments on "rules" caught my attention. I think you'll find value in some of them (paraphrased for a broader audience): 

  • Every activity involves a set of rules.
  • A rule is a statement of how one must behave to successfully participate in an activity.
  • Rules are not a statement of truth.
  • Rules are not correct or incorrect, but rather standards of performance that must be followed to succeed in a given endeavor.
  • Rules are more often than not unwritten.
Violating a rule will put you or your organization in danger of losing the game.
Rules change.

Now -

How does this talk about adherence to rules fit my proudly iconoclastic mantra of thinking differently?

Doesn't smashing the status quo involve breaking all the rules?

Perhaps not.

Ball describes rules as being (often unwritten) "standards of performance" that must be followed. If ALL activity is guided by rules, then there are rules in play even during times of change when it seems as though no one is playing by the rules.

I encourage clients to think differently as a means of breaking free from the status quo and successfully managing change. The takeaway from Dr. Ball's seminar is that successful change can come about by:

Identifying new rules and adjusting your strategy to follow them, OR -
Creating a desire for new rules and pulling others toward you.

We live in an Age of Paradox:

Rules are changing all the time

Prudent people obey the rules

Brain Calisthenics 

  1. Make a list of rules that governed your organization's activities 5 or 6 years ago, but not today.
  2. What new standards have replaced the old rules?
  3. Where will those standards be in the future and how will you adjust to obey them?
 
Rules are not meant to be broken as much as they are meant to be changed.