To be a better manager, I play the game “Rules!” before I ask someone to take on a new responsibility.

Set-up as few rules as possible, or at least make them easy to remember.

Rules! is a timed stressor that I really do not enjoy, but I feel like I have to play it. I believe that is the rules-follower in me. As with my recent post on the game KAMI, please consider Rules! when you give work direction.

This totalitarian game begins with a simple request such as, “Tap numbers in descending order.” When you complete that, you are rewarded with a new rule like, “Tap all greens.” After you do that, you must complete rule #1, “…descending…” As before, success is rewarded with more responsibility, and you get rule #3, then rule #4, and so on. At about rule #5, you feel the time pressure and start to forget rules, “was it animals THEN greens?”

The Rule with Rules! is that there are too many Rules, except for Rule #1.

If you have the role power to compel someone to do work, you are a rule-maker. Even when you ask nicely, it sounds like a rule that everyone must follow (everyone that already follows you will follow your rules).

Rule #1: When you give someone more work, you are also responsible for making the space for that work.

The Effective Manger has two strategies for this:

• Tell them to choose something to stop doing.
• Help them to delegate a task.

The idea behind Rule #1 is that success should not be rewarded with overwork. It should be rewarded with responsibility, and efficiently managing work is part of that responsibility.

Also following the style of Rules!, the game. You need to execute Rule #1 after you complete all of your own tasks (rules) and you find that you have too much to do (too many rules) in order to be effective.

Win by creating ways to beat the rules.

Think of this situation, I have a variation of Rule #1 when someone asks, “When is a good time for a weekly project meeting?”

Whenever you make a recurring meeting, you must delete two others to give participants the space to prioritize your meeting.

Practically speaking, you can roll in some of the topics from the other meetings into the new meeting and then de-prioritize the other topics.

Rule book

Rules! Official web site

The Effective Manager

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