Here’s another leadership lesson from driving in Italy.
In Italy, everyone speeds. Whatever the speed limit is, they go faster.
Well, most of the time. Sometimes they don’t.
Which is deeply confusing as a visitor.
In Australia, if you speed, you’ll almost certainly get caught and fined.
In Italy, if you don’t speed, you’ll almost certainly get a grumpy driver right on your arse, gesticulating like they’re having a fit.
It’s a stupid system.
The problem is the gap between formal theory and informal reality.
The speed limit says one thing. While what everyone actually does says another.
It confuses people who are new to the system. And it frustrates the people who know how it works.
Nobody wins.
Management systems are often the same.
There’s work as it’s written in the procedures.
And work as it’s actually done.
That creates problems:
- It confuses new starters
- It penalises those who follow the written rules
- And it makes accountability impossible, because no one’s following the same system
If the way we work has changed, the system should change too.
Otherwise we’re just building shadow systems – full of unclear expectations and unwritten rules.
Found a better way of doing the work? Great.
Update the system to reflect it.