Screw It, We'll Do It Illegally! - Why Not Following the Company Framework Is Not Always a Bad Thing - News, tips & guidance for agile, development, Atlassian-Software (JIRA, Confluence, Bitbucket, ...) and Google Cloud

This title may first sound like an action movie with Jason Statham, but it's actually a very topical phenomenon that shows how wide the gap between management theory and value creation in practice is in many organizations. Lars Vollmer and Mark Poppenburg addressed this dilemma in their unconventional keynote at the 2021 Tools4AgileTeams conference. They are among the most renowned experts around the new world of work, modern business management and organizational development.

The title might not even sound very unfamiliar to some. After all, discussions about data protection in the Cloud, servers in faraway countries and data protection policies are never-ending, and with the current work-from-home climate, these topics become even more important.

What sort of illegality are we talking about here?

First off: there are two types of illegality: "legal illegality" and "useful illegality". Poppenburg and Vollmer are not suggesting people ignore laws, destroy company property or breach their contracts. This would not be a very wise career move, as you can imagine.

The type of illegality they mean is "useful illegality". This means that in many, if not all, companies, processes have been put into place and tools have been decided upon, and employees should follow these processes and use these tools. These are the "rules", so to speak. And to break those rules would mean you're acting "illegally". After all, you're doing something that goes against things that have in many cases been determined by upper management. Of course, these rules are usually there for good reasons, like wanting to streamline processes to get a better overview of what's going on, or not wanting to use several tools that basically do the same thing, to reduce costs.

Breaking the rules

This means that employees are expected to follow the processes that have been put in place, and use the tools that have been decided upon. The rules generally make sense, because they're based on knowledge from issues that arose in the past, so the framework that is set up will work if you run into problems that have occurred before, But what you run into a problem that's completely new and therefore outside the framework that has been set? What if the tools you've been told to use, based on previous experience, can't provide the solution you need? That's when you have a problem because you can't let anyone know, as that could have consequences for you personally. You're breaking the rules, after all.

Poppenburg illustrates this by using an example: a friend of his came to him to ask one of Poppenburg's data security experts a question. "Why?" Poppenburg asked, "don't you have your own expert?". "Yes," his friend replied, "but if I ask him, it will be clear that I'm not following the rules that were set by Project Management, and I can't let anyone know I'm doing that. But if I don't get this information, the project won't be a success. So, I need someone outside of the company." And thus, his friend decided to be "usefully illegal".

According to Poppenburg and Vollmer, useful illegality is usually seen as a sign of employees not caring about the company; they draw their own plan and just ignore the framework they're supposed to follow. Except the exact opposite is true: employees find a way outside of the framework because they want the project to succeed, which is ultimately in the company's best interest, so it is usually a sign of complete loyalty.

Unfortunately, the reaction of companies, especially larger ones, to useful illegality, is to tighten the screws and expand the Compliance department. Every nook and cranny of the organization is double- and triple-checked to see if all of the rules and regulations are followed. But it is exactly this increase of monitoring that causes legal illegality to be more frequent. This is because employees then have to keep their useful illegality a secret even more, and they might use the wrong tools or ask the wrong people for help. This then results in the task not being performed properly and/or according to the law.

Center stage and backstage

When it's clear to the people who are actually working on a project that the existing framework just can't solve the problem, they usually smile and nod during meetings, because they feel they can't say that the established processes don't work. However, they then go back to their desks, or meet up in the kitchen for a cup of coffee or tea, and say, "so how are we actually going to do this?". They decide that they need a different solution to solve this specific problem they're facing. This is called the backstage, while the official meetings are the center stage, where they do their "acting", i.e. pretend everything is going according to plan and there's no problem with the processes.

Importance of backstage

Poppenburg and Vollmer argue that it is this backstage that is the most important part of the company. After all, if processes fail, but no one tries a different way, the project is doomed and the company could face a serious setback. The backstage is where things happen and progress is made.

Conclusion

Employees are often told to stick to a certain framework of tools and rules that work in most cases, but no plan is foolproof. Of course, we love it when a plan comes together, but that doesn't always happen.

Instead of rigidly sticking to rules and frameworks, which, they admit, work for most problems that arise during a project, companies should leave room for other methods when the established ones don't work, Poppenborg and Vollmer argue; "companies should accept the fact that there's a backstage and a center stage."

Instead of immediately accusing people of not following the rules and not caring about the company, those who create the framework that others are told to follow should ask themselves, "What good reason would I have to act in the same way as my coworker; what sense is there in this nonsense?" This question makes sure that the people themselves are not seen as the problem, but instead, the rules that they follow are. This paves the way for a framework that is aimed at maximizing performance.

By the way: The next edition of Tools4AgileTeams is already scheduled! On December 1 and 2, 2022, we want to celebrate the 11th T4AT conference and hopefully, we will be able to offer a hybrid event of face-to-face and virtual. Save the date!

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Would you like to know how Atlassian Cloud and Google Cloud solutions can advance your teams and your business, and how these tools can unleash their potential, especially on the productive backstage? Get in touch with us! We'd love to talk with you about your functional requirements, the tension between cloud and compliance, the benefits and challenges of cloud tools, and the future of digital collaboration in organizations.

Screw It, We’ll Do It Illegally! – Why Not Following the Company Framework Is Not Always a Bad Thing