Common Goal Leadership

Let’s talk about policy. Wow, if that doesn’t immediately get you to switch over to another window, I don’t know what does. It’s the exact opposite of a hot take. You may be asking yourself, how is this guy trying to drive new business and interest by discussing policy? 

Policy, alongside culture, make up the third pillar of what I believe are critical leadership functions. They all work hand-in-hand with each other. And although Policy isn’t exciting, it is extremely important. There are some big questions to answer when addressing policy and we’re going to look into them here.

What is Policy?

Policy is nothing more than the practice of laying down the guidelines, rules, best practices, and procedures of how an organization operates. Policy can be on any number of topics, for any size of team, and can be as rigorous or ambiguous as it needs to be. Think of the US Constitution. It is just policy written by lawyers and state representatives on how democracy should be run. We now call it law, but that’s just another term for policy.

I created a whiskey club in 2021 and when we met with six guys, I had written by-laws. How were members going to be approved? How were new rules to be ratified? When were meetings held? Initially, it was funny but as the club grew to 70+ people, it became clear that the by-laws, or policy, were instrumental in providing structure.

When should you write Policy?

Sitting down and deciding to jot down some notes on how something should be run takes away from the actual running of the thing. It can be cumbersome and wearisome. If this team has been running successfully for all this time till now, why bother wasting precious profitable minutes jotting down how we do it?

It is precisely for that reason that you should codify what has been going well. When the orders come rolling in or the new staff starts and training has to be written, it is going to be hard to put those things on hold to outline the procedure. 

Write the policy before you need it.

How do you write Policy?

There are loads of ways to write policy. It really depends on what exactly your policy is for. And policy can be general or specific. Take the FBI for example. We have the DIOG which serves as the FBI bible on how investigations are run. And then there are policy guides (commonly known as pigs) for everything else you need to know, drilled down and specific. 

When you set out to write your policy, think about what it’s for. You need to determine at what level it gets approved and how often it should get updated. You need to determine who is going to be reading it and write it in the language those people will understand. All of this is deterministic on your own policy and how broad or specific.

There are a few things which should be standard for policy though. Here are few rules I use when I write down a new policy:

• Leaders should approve or drive policy – it’s why we include it in one of our core pillars. If leaders don’t at least direct the policy, the policy will not work in tandem with the goals of the organization which is driven by the leaders. The vibrations will shake something loose and something will break.
• Policy should be updated – too often I’ve seen great policy get written, stored, and occasionally referenced. But over time it becomes stale and ultimately out of practice. Then when you need it for a critical incident, it won’t be there for you and something will break.
• Policy should be parameters – this takes some practice. You’ve got to write the policy in such a way that it provides clear direction but also in a way that allows two different teams in two different locations some ambiguity to be successful. Think of it like bumpers on a bowling lane. The ball has to move in one direction and the policy will steer it that way.
• Policy should be organized – almost about as sexy as my first sentence. Policy grows and before it gets split off into separate smaller rule practices, it can be difficult to parse through. So keep it organized and easy to navigate.

Who should write the Policy?

I mentioned above that leaders should approve or drive the policy but they shouldn’t necessarily write it. There is a skill to writing policy. 

When I was first overseeing an aviation program, our local policy did not match up with the national one, and it was grossly outdated. However, I didn’t have time to update it and it was a glaring issue that kept coming up. We needed a new living document to reference and even though my crews knew how to function, I really needed to have my own leadership direction and culture outlined through policy. 

Then, one of my crew members raised his hand and it became clear. This guy knew how to write policy. He had a great attention to detail and could think of a variety of scenarios that could arise out of a defined set of rules. He was perfect. So I set a committee with him at the helm, gave him a date for review, and was able to focus on some other fires.

If you’re reading this far, you may be the one who needs to update or define your organization’s policy. Perhaps your own existing policy is just too big and is ready to be split off into smaller pigs. Perhaps you’ve been operating without a clearly defined set of parameters. Maybe your team needs some standard operation procedures to function more efficiently. Policy can help with all of that. It isn’t a pretty pig, but it’s critical to a well-established business.