Rules I Did Not Write

You said the words "that is just the policy" out loud this week, and something in you flinched while you were saying it.

You have used that sentence for years and it is technically accurate every single time. It is the policy. You did not write it, you cannot change it, and saying so is not a lie.

And still there is a small unpleasant taste afterwards, and I want to tell you what that taste is, because it is not guilt about the rule.

It is that the sentence hides you. It puts a document between you and a person who was talking to you, and the person walks away having spoken to a policy rather than to their manager, and you get to not be there for a moment that was hard.

Two things I am not going to do. I am not going to tell you to undermine the system in front of your team, which is a way of buying their affection with somebody else's authority and it always comes apart. And I am not going to let you keep hiding behind it either, which is the more comfortable failure and the more common one.

And if this is a genuine employment matter, a dismissal, a grievance, a safety issue, a legal question, that goes to somebody qualified in your jurisdiction and not to an article. What is left after that is the thing I actually came for, which is how you treat people.

Give that which is just and equal

There is a short instruction at the start of Colossians 4 addressed to people who ran things, and what interests me is how little it says about systems.

Masters, give unto your servants that which is just and equal; knowing that ye also have a Master in heaven. (Colossians 4:1, King James Version)

Just and equal, knowing that ye also have a Master in heaven.

It does not say design a just system. It does not address the structure at all, and the structure in that world was far worse than anything you are working inside. Colossians 4:1 stays on the treatment from beginning to end, and the Holy Spirit is the one who keeps it there.

It says: whatever you personally hand to the people under you, let it be just and equal. And it gives the reason, which is that the person handing it out is also under somebody.

That is a much smaller instruction than fixing the rules, and it is entirely inside your reach, and it is aimed exactly where your discomfort is.

Colossians 4:1 puts the obligation on the treatment rather than on the system, and the Holy Spirit is the one who makes that a relief rather than another weight.

You are responsible for what you personally hand them, and you have never once been responsible for a document you did not write. Colossians 4:1 says give unto your servants that which is just and equal, and the Holy Spirit is the one who lands that on the treatment rather than on the structure.

Name which part is which

So here is the mechanic, and it is one sentence and it changes the room.

Tell them which part is the rule and which part is you.

That is it. Not: this is unfair and my hands are tied, which is undermining. Not: that is just the policy, which is hiding. Something like: the rule is that we cannot do it that way, I do not have a way around it, and the part where I made you find out about it on a Friday afternoon was me and I should have told you on Tuesday.

Because at the moment they cannot tell the difference. Everything arrives as one undifferentiated wall, and they do not know which parts of their working life are a company and which parts are a person they can actually talk to. Colossians 4:1 makes the person in charge personally visible rather than merged with the structure, and the Holy Spirit is the one who makes that a safer room rather than a weaker one.

And when you name your part, you can be talked to about your part. That is not a loss of authority. That is where authority comes from.

You are able to be visible inside a structure, and the rule has never once required you to disappear behind it. The written word makes a leader personally answerable for what he hands over, and the Spirit of God is the one who makes a named line something a person can actually stand on.

The part that is yours is bigger than you think

Now the thing that surprises people, and it is worth a paragraph.

The rules govern much less of their day than you assume.

Whether they are told things early or late is you. Whether a hard conversation happens in a doorway or sitting down is you. Whether their good week gets mentioned is you. Whether the rota came out when you said it would is you. Whether somebody who made a mistake is corrected in front of others or quietly is you. Almost everything that actually determines what it feels like to work there sits in the space the manual does not reach.

You have been assessing yourself on the wrong surface. You have been carrying guilt about policies you cannot change and paying almost no attention to a much larger area that is entirely yours, and Colossians 4:1 puts the weight exactly where the reach is, and the Holy Spirit is the one who moves a person's attention onto the ground they actually stand on.

You are holding far more of their week than the manual is, and it has never once been the small part. Colossians 4:1 addresses what a leader personally gives rather than what the system permits, and the Spirit of God is the one who shows somebody how much of the room was always theirs.