“All that is important is that we follow the procedure,” a senior administrator, condescendingly, told me today. While process is important, so are the lives of the people who are impacted by the outcomes of their applications. When the two conflict, I embrace people, and shun process.
People have lives, dreams, and aspirations. Procedures are hidden in the damp pages of handbooks that are seldom opened, and rarely help anyone. Most of the time they are used as crutches to perpetuate organizational bureaucracies.
When the rubber meets the road, during life’s defining moments, people matter.
The ‘procedures’ lay buried in dark places and rarely help anyone.
I think, I will pass on the crutch. I’d much rather touch a life in a positive way.
About Hemant Rustogi
Rusty, I appreciate the dilemma. An ethicist I admire often says it this way: We must be willing to administer justice in the Macro, but mercy in the Micro. What that means to me is that all people in the organization should be willing and able to enforce (and/or accept) the standards that are adopted for the health and effectiveness of the org. However, individual leaders, in individual cases, should have the discretion to administer forgiveness and correction without implementing the harshest disciplines that are authorized. What say you?