By Adam Turteltaub
adam.turteltaub@corporatecompliance.org
A state representative in New Jersey is in hot water, both literally and figuratively, over a draft piece of legislation to prevent distracted driving. It’s a noble goal, given the increasing death toll due to texting while driving.
No one is objecting to the idea of having drivers pay more attention to the road. But now the accusations are flying that, under the proposed law, drinking coffee while driving may be illegal. The idea of getting a DWC – Driving While Caffeinated – is sending up alarms, alarms that the bill’s author says are unnecessary. He assured people that there was no attempt to ban drinking coffee behind the wheel.
There’s a lesson to be learned here, other than that we all should avoid running for elected office. It’s that proposed rules, whether they are legislation in a state house or policy in an organization, are never as clear as they appear on paper, and that once they meet the public eye, all kinds of questions are likely to be asked. Worse, all kinds of assumptions are going to be made.
One potential way to avoid this problem is to start at the end point: what do we want people who read this policy to conclude? Write that as a statement that an employee might make to her or himself: “According to this new rule, I need to….”
When I worked in advertising we would write creative strategies that began with the statement of what the consumer should think after seeing the ad. It helped focus the message and avoided the inevitable tendency to try and throw everything possible into the ad.
Read the policy and see whether or not it’s likely to get people to reach the conclusion you want. Then read it again and think through all the ways people could misunderstand it. Tighten here. Loosen language there. And keep in mind that this is very much a Rorschach test: People are going to read in a lot of things that aren’t there. Maybe show it to a few people and ask them what they think this policy means.
You’ll still get questions asked, but you’ll end up with a much more focused piece of communication, and, hopefully, time to grab some coffee when you’re done.
[clickToTweet tweet=”No More Coffee for You @AdamTurteltaub” quote=”No More Coffee for You” theme=”style3″]
Nothing incredibly new or earth-shattering here, but said in a lovely new way that I absolutely needed today to get FOCUSED on the desired result before I think about how I’m going to get there. Thank you so much, Adam!!
Terrific post.
It made me think of a related issue. Too often, compliance officers write policies that look good when they are reviewed by other compliance officers. “We need an anti-bribery policy!” So we write one that has the same content as the ones we Googled.
We need to consider our true goals when writing compliance policies, such as stating the organization’s expectations, addressing current behaviors (and what motivates them), and setting realistic goals.
When we look at the end result we seek — changing behavior, not just congratulating ourselves for writing a policy — we can be relevant and valuable to the organization.
And isn’t that why we are here?
Mariann and Meric: Glad you both enjoyed it and thought it helpful.
Meric, I totally agree with your point: relevant and valuable is as important in compliance as it is in advertising. If people say, “not for me” you’re lost.
A good issue to raise, Adam. Too often, the people in charge don’t think through, research and road test policy concepts-in government, business, education, etc. Then we spend inordinate time and energy failing, criticizing, apologizing, repairing, restructuring, and recreating the concept. Would be nice to get it close to right the first time. For this, I’m a big advocate of using behavioral science to validate policy ideas first. The aphorism widely used in business, “It’s better to ask for forgiveness than permission” really does us all a disservice.
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