The rule of rules

Here is an existential question for you: how do you know a policy exists? In what sense does it exist? Does it exist because we have been applying it before? Where is the line separating policy from custom? Does a policy have to be written somewhere, and where exactly (the catalog, the website, a program advising sheet, a syllabus, scribbled on someone’s notebook)? Should a rule have a traceable history of adoption? If no one can remember the reason for the rule to exist should it still be enforced? How do rules die; does someone kill them? Who has the authority to establish and to abandon it?

Anyone who knows anything about organization theory will find these questions familiar. For people who learn to work in and manage organizations, the most difficult mental shift is to recognize that the organization is an entity of its own, separate and distinct from the people that comprise it. In a very real sense, rules and policies do exist. It is equally important to recognize that their existence comes in different degrees and forms; their lives are weird, messy, and often unpredictable.

In this office we deal with rules every day. Thankfully, none of our decisions are about life and death, but they do involve real people, their careers, their money, and the potential impact they will have on their students and clients. Many of these decisions have to do with interpreting the rules and policies. One typical decision goes like this: do we let someone to continue in one of the teacher preparation programs, or do we enforce a rule to the fullest extent? A policy is a rule with a specific intent, a rule that hopes to achieve a specific objective. And this is why policies contradict each other – their intent is different (not necessarily because some rule-making body screwed up, which also happens). For example policies that protect student rights conflict with those that protect the right of their future students and clients to have a qualified teacher or counselor.

The rule of rules is this: Interpreting rules is an exercise in ethics. Sometimes people invent rules to relieve themselves from making a hard decision. In a way, every policy indeed is designed to make an automatic decision. So when someone’s GPA is lower than we demand, we can just say, sorry, rules are rules; it is not my call to make. A policy separates decision-making from context, both for efficiency reasons and for considerations of fairness. Yet it is very important to recognize that such automatism has very clear limits. First, it is because very few policies are intentionally designed to have no exceptions. Second, because there is almost always a counter-policy that may or may not overrule the one in question. And finally, no policy can force one to act unethically. A little unethically – yes, but totally wrong, no. For example, we may have a rule that is unenforceable because of the technical error we made. So we let a marginal student to go on. It is not a big deal, because we don’t know for sure how good or bad a teacher she or he will finally make. However, if I see someone I am reasonably sure will not ever be good, no policy flaw or past errors will prevent me from using the full arsenal policies, or even making new ones to stop this person from ever entering a classroom full of children. I may fail at the end, but not for the lack of trying. Another way of putting the rule of rules is this: rules are important, powerful, dangerous, but only means to an end.