Frog, Toad and bureaucracy

The other night I was reading my 3 year-old a bed-time story from one of our favourite series of childrens' stories, Arnold Lobel’s “Frog and Toad” collection, when this little exchange between the two got me thinking:

{Frog’s List has blown away in the wind}

“Hurry!” said Frog. “We will run and catch it."
“No!” shouted Toad. “I cannot do that.!
“Why not?” asked Frog.
“Because,” wailed Toad, “running after my list is not one of the things that I wrote on my list of things to do!"

This resonates with so much of business life; procedures, workflows, instructions, audits, filling out forms. We all have lists of things to do, from our (largely ignored and occasionally conscious-pricking) task lists, to those procedures.  We need to realise that we can make the choice between “merely” following the procedures to the letter, and rehumanising them.

Naturally, this all applies to the bureaucracy of life, too (I recently married and had a child, so I know all about filling out forms and chasing the right administrator at the right time…) but since I have been thinking has been about business life lately, that’s where the brain cells decided to resonate with interest.

At work, I have a great collegiate friendship with a quality manager who is also a trained auditor. He is (it sounds strange to write this), a human being. By this I mean that he treats the audit procedures as a frame within which he must operate, but not as a constraint. He is a detective who understands that humans have created these constructs around them to force themselves into doing the right thing, in the sense of doing the best for the company and (by extension) the best for society in general. He also knows that humans tend to cut corners, in order to maximise leisure time. He understands that rigidly following an audit checklist is the surest way of ruining a day and of missing the real issues that a list can paper over. Yet without this list, even he is lost.

We need to force ourselves to get things done properly. These constructs, sets of instructions, whatever we call them, that we have placed for ourselves - in business, bureaucracy, religion and in every walk of life - do not necessarily stifle or strangle creativity. They can postpone the effort of thinking to more important tasks. Yes, they take time to complete and yes, they require an effort of willpower; but no, it is often not really time or energy wasted. And if there is waste involved, then it is a business benefit to eliminate this waste.

(If there is waste involved, then it is a religious necessity. If there is waste involved, then it is a bureaucracy…)

With all of our lists, we must ensure that the free thinkers - the frogs - amongst us have room to breathe, to innovate, to dream; and we must ensure that the petty list-followers - the toads - do not exceed their remits or relish their “powers” excessively.

Sebastian Abbott @doublebdoublet