House rules
What do informal rules and conventions tell you about the deeper, unwritten rules behind your problem?
Hi everybody - sorry I missed a week. I had covid. And Happy Election Day for those who observe it.
This is Andrew Benedict-Nelson, social change strategist and innovation educator. Each week, I share a question that you and your organization can use to find a new perspective on the toughest problems you face. Reply to the e-mail or comment on the site and we can talk about them together!
NOW FOR THIS WEEK’S QUESTION…
Just about every organization and community has informal rules that shape their day-to-day reality. These rules can cover everything from where you’re allowed to take your dog to who gets investigated by a government agency. And of course there's the famous “No Parking” rule used in many a family’s Monopoly game. What informal rules have been adopted by groups of people in the world of your problem? What can those rules teach you about the behaviors that hold the problem in place?
Dear readers, please indulge me in a little theory. At the root of all these exercises are six “innovation dynamics” that can help people look at problems in new ways. The power of these dynamics comes from the fact that discussing any one of them can provide insights into social norms and how to change them. Norms are the “unwritten rules” of society that must be changed if we want to truly eliminate a social problem.
This exercise is based on one of those “innovation dynamics,” the limits dynamics. This dynamic is all about formal laws and policies — the “written rules” in contrast to the “unwritten rules” of norms. Many of the exercises grounded in this dynamic address things like legislation, regulations, and how people’s actual behavior validates or undermines these rules.
But here’s the catch: not all limits are written down. “House rules” are a good example of these unusual limits. Nowhere in the rules of Monopoly does it say that you should put all the penalties people pay throughout the game in a “pot” at the center of the board. Nor do they say “when a player lands on Free Parking, he or she gets all the money in the pot.” Yet lots of people play that way.
“Free Parking” isn’t a social norm. Norms lie under the surface of group behavior, shaping how everyone acts through social sanctions and rewards. “Don’t cheat at board games” is a norm — just see how upset kids get when someone breaks it. By contrast, “Free Parking” is just a switch you turn on or off.
But “Free Parking” still has something to do with norms. While they may or may not say so, people adopted the “Free Parking” rule to shake up a game that can be kind of monotonous without it. It was probably conceived to fulfill a different norm: “games are more fun when everyone has a chance to win.” Or maybe in your family you followed the rule because your norm is “we follow whatever rules Grandpa used.”
This is why “house rules” are such a fascinating window into behavior. Because they are so informal and vary from place to place, they are a great indicator of what happens when the grand, formal rules of organizations and societies collide with the deeper social norms that shape our behavior. House rules and other workarounds define the space in between where we spend so much of our time. Though they may seem modest compared to gigantic social forces, investigating them is a great way of understanding how those forces translate into actual behavior.
HOW TO DO IT
List your house rules - These may not be as obvious as “Free Parking.” Here are a few statements you can use to find “house rules” within your organization or community:
“Even though it’s not an official policy, everybody knows that…”
“When I came to this organization, I found out they do things a little differently. One way is that…”
“There’s a rule of thumb about this. When in doubt…”
“Even though nobody from outside the community knows, you’ll find that we always…”
Now normally I am always encouraging folks to look at the behavior around the entire social problem, not just one organization. However, it’s in the nature of house rules that they usually only pertain within one group. If you can, though, collect “house rules” from other organizations or groups connected to the problem.Ask what the point of the rule is - Ideally you can find someone who remembers how the rule came to be and what its purpose was. But a lot of times the history of these rules is lost because of their informal nature. So if you can’t get the whole story, think out loud about what purpose the rule serves. What larger group values or norms might it represent?
Contrast the house rules with the “real” rules - Any time I ask people to look at formal rules and laws, one reason why is to understand the gap between those rules and the way people actually behave. House rules are a kind of bridge across that gap. So what was wrong with the formal rules that a house rule had to be instituted? Is there a discrepancy between those rules and actual behavior that this informal rule helps accommodate?
Imagine the rule went away - You can also discover more about what the rule means by considering what would happen if it were to disappear. What would some of the advantages and disadvantages be? Would it be better if everyone followed the “real” rules, or do you think there is no chance that would happen without some sort of workaround? You can also use this step to consider if any different versions of the rule are possible.
Reflect on what the rule has taught you - Hopefully, after taking a long hard look at this house rule, your feelings about some aspect of behavior around your problem have changed. You may value the norms behind the house rule even more — if so, how could you use them to make more enduring changes? You may find that the house rule represents a problematic behavior — if so, what makes that behavior so persistent that people developed such a workaround? Remember, these informal rules aren’t necessarily good or bad on their own, but they can provide valuable clues on what norms need changing.
CAN YOU GIVE ME AN EXAMPLE?
The “Rooney Rule.” You can read an exhaustive history of it in this Washington Post piece. I may screw it up because I’m not a sports person, but essentially instead of developing a more comprehensive policy toward a bias toward white men in coaching, the owners of the NFL adopted a less formal rule where every time a major coaching position opened, they would interview at least one candidate from a racial minority. This “rule” was then widely imitated in major corporations. But of course, this “rule" was understood differently in each organization, and never made a dent in the more serious social norms that benefited white men’s rise in hierarchies.
COOL, SO WHAT MAKES THIS WORK?
This question is an example of how to view your problem in new ways using the limits dynamic. It’s one of six innovation dynamics I help people master to improve their critical thinking and build strategies for social change. Reply to this e-mail with your answer to the question and I’ll let you know what I think! Or learn more by visiting http://www.teachingsocialchange.com.
.