You’ll have to do more than pin a standard or policy on a cork board.
“It is not to be expected that human nature will change in a day.” Frank B. Kellogg
Any leader worth his or her salt knows that for an organization to be successful, it must develop, follow, and enforce standards. In the military we had a standard for everything – even grooming. U.S. Army Regulation 670-1 states, “men cannot allow their fingernails to extend beyond the fingertip and women ¼ inch beyond the fingertip.” For mustaches, the regulation states they, “must not extend sideways beyond a vertical line drawn upward from the corners of the mouth.” While these standards are extreme – don’t measure fingernails and mustaches today, they do remind us of the purpose of standards which is to govern an organization through formal consensus and normalization so that it may perform at its peak (Rob Campbell definition). In a world where people wear pajamas in the first class section of an aircraft, we (and our organizations) need standards. They are not innate meaning,
people are not born with standards.
Author and philosopher Thomas Hobbes posits that “human nature is inherently bad.” He argues that “humans are naturally selfish, aggressive, and prone to violence, requiring societal rules and structures to control these tendencies.” There is much debate around this theory. Chinese philosopher Wang Yangming counters that, “goodness and cooperation are innate in humans.” Mencius, another Chinese scholar believed that “human nature is good and made up of benevolence, righteousness, propriety, and wisdom.”
I’m an optimist and a people-centric leader. I tend to place a lot of trust in my people believing that, while they may err, they wake each morning wanting to do good by themselves, others, and their organization. This said, while I do not believe most people are aggressive and prone to violence, I do believe in structure and standards to control the tendencies of human beings. It is a fact, even in the U.S. Army that complacency, laziness, and selfishness permeates an organization if not kept in check or, moreover, where standards do not exist and are not enforced. I always knew as a military leader that, even in combat, amidst all the pressure and rigor, grooming standards (among other standards) were important. Units who cast aside standards on the battlefield suffered the consequences of bad behavior and poor performance – lives would be lost. Need standards in your organization and among your people? Here is a way…
