Rules are made to be broken -- in a reasoned, systematic way

I have a real problem with rules…. Some people say that 'rules are made to be broken' but I think more along the lines that rules are made by someone else, and that makes them easy to ignore.

The real problem I have with rules is other people's blind faith in the rules. I agree, rules are necessary for society to function, but not all rules are laws, and not all laws are rational or even reasonable.

The complex world we live in often needs complex rules, but solving problems in this world means forgetting about rules and looking at the issues. Maybe that's what I like about scientific method -- the idea is to break the rules except for one -- the solution needs to work and be repeatable by others.

'Just do it because I said and Damn the rules!' is just as emotional and irrational as 'I don't care if we're all going to die, the rules say we can't!' There is a time, just about every day in my world, where we have to say, 'We need to ignore that rule because…'

And here's the rub. The explanation for why we need to ignore a rule is often so complicated your audience might as well hear 'because I said so.'

Which gets me back to pure science as a business tool… Science breaks rules by documenting how the rule is irrelevant or changed by new information. That new information is reviewed by other people who know the subject matter, and then they either agree or disagree. Once there's agreement, we're not breaking the rules anymore, we've adapted the rules to the new reality.

The problem is that business needs to turn these ideas around faster than the scientific community changes the laws of physics, or even comes to agreement on evolution or global warming.

What we need is a plain English, standardized method to explore business ideas. It's not the technology that's missing (Wiki's are great for this model), it's the business culture, and the only way I can see getting business people to adopt scientific process is to say 'Just do it because I said so!' and that's not the mindset that adopts this model.

Guess I'll just keep breaking rules…