The written and unwritten rules of nations, organizations and society

Unwritten rules are the undercurrent of an organization.

Nations should always seek to maintain the singularity of policy and social unwritten rules. Just like in any organization there are official rules and there are also unwritten rules. One will state clearly what the goals and expected behaviors are while the other is the unwritten rules of how things function in reality.  Read Shifting the Unwritten Rules of Organizational Behavior. 

An example might be the official universal law/Constitution as passed artifacts and the unwritten subjective law as applied/lived/realized.  In an organization it could be the policies & procedures as compared to how the work gets done everyday. 

We know these official and unofficial rules exist in every organization. The official rules are essential but its the unwritten rules that make the some of the most profound differences. 

The article discusses how one might write the unwritten rules (i.e. principles) and then seek to adjust and change them for greater national performance. 

Here are a couple of quick examples (See in my outdoor beach bum life I don't need to explain everything. No one listens and for the most part beach bums are expected to say incoherent things. dribble dribble.....)

1. Official and Unofficial Rules: State official codes of conduct/ policies but not enforce them. On a macro scale maybe pass universal laws (most are) but subjectively apply them. I think this is where we are getting hung up through the differences between word and action.

2. Opportunities Through Validity of Performance: Promotion in a merit based system is based directly on performance. We might say on a macro scale that improving the nation would be based on encouraging either realized or potential performance (i.e. the dirty word of broad based human capital development). A negative unwritten rule might be throwing in there who you know, connected groups, racial/religious considerations that demotivate people. 

(For example, a local college ghosting qualified candidates based on bigoted rumors thereby making recruitment and use of tax payer dollars for clan based and religious based employment preferences an unofficial rule. There are official laws but one wouldn't want to upset their preconceived notions and social networks so they find ways to circumvent. If someone challenges they ghost to avoid answering tough questions and then then use that as a tool the next time because the official rules may not be at the forefront of decision making. We may also add. While officially we want these organizations to fulfill a role of exposing and educating people to compete, we also unofficially accept that it is true as long as it helps a certain clan based group, political agenda, or something else. Whatever that else is....)

3. Meeting and Exceeding Expectations: These unwritten rules can also be positive. For example, the policy might dictate X=Y outcome but we go beyond that minimum to improve a situation. We are thinking long term over the horizon and believe that exceeding policies helps our society so people make some extra effort. They are not required to but they go beyond the official.

How we apply our written and unwritten rules is sometimes non-universal and short-sighted. Each leader must find a vision of the organization/nation and determine how they are going to realize that vision. If that vision includes the highest performing society it will need to adjust some of the unwritten rules to maximize opportunities. The same can be said for any other version (indivisible or segregated) as the unwritten rules tell us how things might be functioning in some places. 

Incoherent dribble, dribble...turn the page.....