Let’s Cancel Annoying Workplace Rules
Black and white action shot of diverse office staff celebrating fewer workplace rules.
By Lisa Bodell for Forbes
If you could eliminate any workplace rule that frustrates you or slows down your team’s productivity, what would it be and why? When I directed that question to teams at AT&T, they responded with a list of 459 annoying rules to change or cancel. Much to everyone’s shock, leadership actually acted to eliminate or modify all of them.
Canceling annoying rules is one of many anti-complexity measures taken by AT&T that have resulted in an annual savings of $186M. It’s also a fantastic starting place if you’ve noticed complexity creeping into your operations. The technique can be led in-person, remotely or hybrid and requires either virtual or physical sticky notes as well as a whiteboard.
Ahead of your session, draw a matrix on the virtual or physical whiteboard and label the vertical axis with "Ability to Cancel" and the horizontal axis with "Impact on Business." The four quadrants should be equal and labeled according to the illustration below.
After gathering your teams, give everyone 30 minutes to identify as many annoying rules as possible. Direct them to focus on rules that are directly related to their sphere of control and business unit — not the larger organization. Examples range from “four approvals required for hiring” and “expense reports are required for $5 items” to “restricted or no Internet use” and “ban on ChatGPT usage.”