Endless rules: When has compliance gone too far?

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You know how it is: you actually just want to do something really simple, such as making a purchase, taking a decision or completing a task. But before you can get started, you have to fill in a form. After that, you’re supposed to obtain approval. And then you’re also expected to document that the approval has been granted properly. Of course, someone then has to check whether the documentation is complete. Why not? What should be a ten-minute job has been bloated into a one-hour chain of processes. What’s astonishing is that everyone followed the rules; nobody did anything wrong. And yet I can’t help but ask: are you serious?

When good intentions turn into a bureaucratic maze

I’ll admit it: I like rules. After all, I’m the managing director of a medium-sized company with lots of creative people, all of whom have their own ideas and visions. And at home, I’m a father – and there, too, rules can sometimes be quite helpful. That’s because rules create reliability and a consensus that everyone can adhere to and use as a guide. In doing so, they protect us from errors and misunderstandings, mistakes and unpleasant consequences. They ensure fair conditions and make decisions transparent. Or to put it another way: without rules, our way of working together would function just as poorly as most organisations do.

However, rules become a problem when those involved forget why they were originally introduced. Perhaps there was a mistake five years ago, following which an additional check was introduced. Two years later, something similar happened, so the departmental management introduced an approval process. And at some point, for reasons of liability or otherwise, a documentation requirement was added. So each measure was introduced with the best of intentions and not without good reason. But later on, each responsible body simply focused on its own part of the process, rather than questioning the whole structure. That’s how processes come about so easily – ones that look excellent on paper but bring surprisingly little satisfaction in day-to-day practice.

Control is good, but how much control is reasonable?

An everyday example: an employee needs a spare part costing 35 euros for their work. To obtain it, they must submit a request, which a line manager approves. The accounts department then checks the cost centre, after which the order is placed. And the result? Processing this transaction costs more than the accessory itself. Instead of asking at what cost threshold the entire process in this form makes sense, the company has just one standard process for all purchases – whether it’s three euros or thirty thousand. Wouldn’t it be wiser to set a budget range within which people are allowed to make their own decisions? Those in charge should keep proportionality in mind here. Because the truth is: every check comes at a cost. And not just money, but above all time – which, if we’re honest, is money in itself. What’s more, tasks that are perceived as pointless can demotivate the staff involved and make them more prone to errors. And too much control breeds little trust among those being monitored.

I become particularly wary when someone talks about having „digitised“ such processes. Upon closer scrutiny, it often turns out that the paper form has simply been replaced by a form on the intranet. Okay, so the scanning has been done away with – but what else? Once completed, the „digital“ form still has to pass through three departments; it’s approved here and printed out there, for documentation purposes. Is the process digital now? To some extent. Is it better? Faster? More efficient? Not really. Because in this case, digitisation was implemented technically before anyone had reviewed the processes. As Bernd Fritzges, then CEO of Telefónica, said back in 2015: ‘If you digitise a rubbish process, you end up with a rubbish digital process.’

Bureaucracy comes at a cost, even if we don’t realise it straight away

What many people forget is that bureaucracy comes at a cost. And I’m not talking about the numerous forms, fees or extra staff. Because the main burden is caused by the five minutes it takes someone to enter the same information twice or three times. Or the quarter of an hour a manager wastes on the formal approval of a decision that has long since been agreed upon in technical terms. And then there are the countless interruptions to ongoing processes, which lead to extra work and errors. These may seem like minor issues, but on balance they incur enormous costs. And it’s not just large corporations that are affected, but also small businesses, clubs and voluntary organisations.

However sensible many rules may be, we should learn anew to constantly question the bigger picture. To this end, I recommend five simple questions that help strike a balance between compliance and common sense:

• What specific problem are we trying to prevent with this rule?
• How great is the actual risk?
• Is the effort involved proportionate to the outcome?
• Which steps could be omitted without compromising safety or quality?
• Would we introduce the entire process in exactly the same way today?