Learning & Leading in the Uncomfortable Area Between Rules & Creativity
Courtesy of The Virtus Group, Inc. The concepts of Rules and Creativity are diametrically related. Whenever an organization enacts a new "rule," a bit of creativity is killed. In my roles as a trainer and policy writer for a police department, I continually navigate and map out the treacherous chasm between what we've called Rules and Creativity environments and functions. For each and every situation, there is a tradeoff between restricting decisions via standardized procedures and empowering fresh solutions via open creativity . This spectrum is anchored at two ends: RULES and CREATIVITY. Rules are for known and predictable environments. Checklists and step-by-step processes ensure efficiency and consistency. (In policing, we have rigid rules governing: uniform standards; scheduling; criminal laws and statutes; evidence collection; traffic crash reports.) Rules work well with absolute knowledge and highly-specialized techn