I Am an Approver

Policies are meant to produce results.

In most organizations, they fall short. Not because the rules are wrong, but because of how they are constructed and what they communicate in the process.

Every policy contains several messages. Most organizations are focussed on only one of them.

The substantive message is the rule at the centre. That's the message the drafting committee debated, the legal team reviewed, and the approver signed off on.

What gets overlooked are the emotional overtones and the hidden messages that are heard by the reader. The heavy-handed overtone that says we don't trust you. The defensive overtone that reveals we are frustrated with disobedience. The condescending overtone that suggests don't even bother to ask for an exception; we don't care.

These messages resonate louder than the rule, and have a direct impact on compliance. They negate the positive messages that your culture, engagement, and leadership development investments are working hard to convey.

The problem isn't the people. It's a systemic convergence of gaps.

Three things explain how this situation became the norm.

First, traditionally, command-and-control management culture shaped the way organizations communicated with their people. In recent years, leaders have updated their channels to reflect a more collaborative approach. Policy writing was left out of those initiatives.

Second, minimal training for policy writers exists. A few universities teach it, even fewer professional associations certify it, but it's typically overlooked as a skill. Moreover, what training does exist addresses only half the problem, looking at issues from a writers' but not a readers' point of view. As one policy professional put it after attending a workshop: "I've been writing policies for 20 years, but I never realized there was a science to it."

Finally, inside most organizations, disparate services manage their own piece of the policy landscape without anyone looking at the cumulative effect. Communications professionals, who would normally be tasked with overseeing tone and messaging, are typically shut out of the policy process. The result is a cluster of independent policy silos with accountability for alignment falling between the cracks, owned by nobody, corrected by nobody.

When everything aligns.

Organizations that build sound policy instruments and align their contents with the messages their culture, engagement, and leadership development initiatives are sending see significant results. Those investments compound, producing a more collaborative workplace, stronger cooperation across functions, and a communication environment that reflects every channel pulling in the same direction.

A systemic problem needs a coordinated response.

The solution to this problem is a process that starts with getting the right people in the same room. Your team can begin to build its capacity to speak in a harmonized voice once it establishes a shared framework and common vocabulary.

The Perfect Policies™ approach operates through a series of integrated frameworks that shape your policy instruments — eliminating redundancy, waste, and ambiguity, and ensuring that every statement in every document is effective and defensible.

 

Learn more about the Elements of Sound Policy

Learn more about Ways to Move Forward