Beyond the Rules: The Rule That Never Was

Policy or preference: Is it a policy if one person says so?

One of the frustrating things about writing a book is realising ideas you could’ve included after handing in the manuscript. So, here’s an exclusive story for my newsletter readers — one I remembered recently that would’ve definitely made it into Humanizing Rules if I’d thought of it in time.

When I was heading up a department, I tried to send someone to deputise for me in a meeting my boss was chairing.
I was told I couldn’t.

Apparently, it was his policy not to allow alternates.

That struck me as odd.

Then, purely by chance, my boss called me a few minutes later. So I asked him directly.

And it turned out… there was no such rule.

In fact, he liked the idea of people stepping in. He saw it as a way to give them exposure to senior meetings; something they rarely got until promotion.

But he also admitted he’d never seen it happen.
Presumably because the myth had taken hold.

So I sent my team member.
My boss welcomed it, and used the opportunity to publicly kill off a rule he didn’t even know he supposedly had.

It made me wonder:
How many other “rules” are like that?
Things we assume because no one ever questions them.
Things we believe because someone once told us, or because “that’s just how it’s done.”

How many of the rules we follow… don’t actually exist?