When people construct windows you can walk through
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Savannah GA has some of the most charming historical homes in the US. And some of them have been converted to bed and breakfasts. If you stay in one of those fine, old homes you may notice something interesting. Here's how it's described by the Azalea Inn.
"Enjoy views of stately Magnolia trees and the Inn’s heritage gardens when you step through a window of time onto your sitting balcony nestled above the brick-lined walks of Huntingdon Street."
You may feel like you're stepping back in time, but you're actually stepping through a real, physical window to get to your balcony. That's not some quaint architectural feature, unique to one inn. It's common for historical homes in Savannah.
Houses were built with windows to function like doors because Savannah had a door tax. The city levied taxes based on the number of doors so people substituted windows for doors.
No matter what rules you set up, people will respond by acting in what they perceive as their own best interest. I'm sure that the people running Savannah had a logical reason to levy taxes based on the number of doors. And I’m sure they didn't think that people might construct windows down to floor level so they could be stepped through.
When you, as a boss, make a rule, people will respond to it. They just may not respond to it in the way you expect. They may just start stepping through the window to get to the balcony.
Wally's Working Supervisor's Support Kit is a collection of information and tools to help working supervisors do a better job. It's based on what Wally's learned in over twenty years of supervisory skills training. Click here to check it out.
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Wally Bock has helped people learn to be great bosses for more than a quarter century. His latest book, Performance Talk: The One-on-One Part of Leadership, makes learning key leadership principles almost effortless by teaching through a story and providing lists of resources for further growth.
Click here to find out more about Wally's coaching services.
For weekly tips and resources pointers, check our Wally Bock's Three Star Leadership Letter.
Click here to find out more about having Wally speak to your company or convention.
Good post. It's certainly true that one needs to think through a rule before imposing it. I would probably open a proposed rule up to discussion to get help with doing that.
And thanks for the history lesson about doors and balcony windows in Savannah. I'd always wondered about that.
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Good suggestion, Robyn. Groups are good at that sort of thing. One thing that's worked for me is a kind of simulation where you give groups different variations of the rule with instructions to outline how they would get the most from it.
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Terrific post! Reminds me a little of the story about Soviet nail production and the resulting shortages of certain types of nails. Kudos to the good people of Savannah, way back when, on their elegant solution to an odd tax burden.
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Thanks for coming by, Gray. But let's raise our glasses to good people everywhere who "figure out a way." There's a similar situation in parts ofAlsace
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Wally,
I've often thought that some of the most creative ideas are the result of "rule-breaking"--the window example sure falls into that category.
Perhaps one of the better ways to get groups to bump up their creative game is to put out a directive on "how" to do something and then allow them to react to the direction. The inherent nature of "I can do it better" just might produce more than a brainstorming session with a blank piece of flipchart paper.
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Thanks for sharing that. I've had good luck with something similar. See my response to Robyn earlier. You can run an adaptation of strategic gaming to figure out how people might respond to a rule change or any other environmental change. You're dead right, it bumps up the creative game.
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