Lewis S Eisen, Author at Lewis Eisen

What we can learn from traffic rules

Policy non-compliance is often a symptom of unclear rules, not unwilling people. Policy makers want to influence specific behaviours, but...

Authority Architecture: the Anchor for Good Governance

By Lewis Eisen and James Duncan https://www.linkedin.com/in/jamesaduncan/ In the business world, we often talk about leadership, accountability, and transparency, but...

Evaluating the Impact of Changing Your Policy Drafting Approach

Because my Perfect Policies™ approach to policy drafting is so radically different from the traditional model, some people ask for...

Why Isn’t Policy Drafting a Professional Competency?

When it comes to the skill of policy drafting, we have a serious training gap. We can contrast our situation...

Five Obstacles to IG Policy Approval

In the best circumstances, a well-crafted draft IG policy will sail through an approval process like a ship in warm...

Sample #1: Don’t Dumb Down Your Policies

Don't dumb down your policies. It's true that everyone might need to be able to understand your policy, that doesn't...

Sample #2: Procedure vs Checklist

Distinguishing a procedure from a policy or standard is easy: a procedure has a beginning, an end, and sequential steps....

Sample #3: “Must” is NOT clear

No, "must" is *NOT* clear (contrary to popular belief). People reach for "must" to indicate that something is strict, but...

Sample #4: Policy vs Signage

Policy and signage are different. Policy RECORDS the decision on a given point; signage COMMUNICATES that decision to employees and...

Sample #5: The Bossy vs Helpful Format

Here's another example where an organization — in this case, a government social service — has used "must" to indicate...