Humanizing Rules

CHAPTER 26A IS FOR ADAPTIVE

Introduction

The second radar of the framework is “Adaptive”. It points us to look at situations where employees “adapt” the interpretation of a rule in order to suit their desired outcome. This is necessary where there is a perceived or actual conflict between what they would like to do and what the rules permit them to do. There are two main ways in which this can occur: creative compliance and creative noncompliance.

You've probably heard of the former, but you might not have heard of the latter. In case you're unfamiliar with it, creative compliance¹ is where people comply with the “letter” of a particular rule, but ignore the “spirit” of it. In doing so, they seek to simultaneously benefit from being deemed to be compliant, while also achieving their desired outcome. Creative noncompliance,² on the other hand, is where people break the “letter” of a particular rule, but justify doing so by citing compliance with the “spirit” of it.

By way of example, imagine a firm has a rule that prevents the acceptance of gifts worth more than £100 and an employee knows they will be given a case of wine worth £200. A creatively compliant solution would be for them to ask the giver of the gift to split the case into two half cases, each worth £100. In the absence of an anti‐avoidance rule specifically preventing the splitting of gifts, this approach would comply with the letter but not the spirit of the rule.

A creatively noncompliant solution would be to accept ...