Squashing Initiative

Five Destructive Company HR Policies - BusinessWeek: "...Overwritten or heavy-handed policy manuals hurt your business in three ways. First, they take your employees out of the realm known to sports psychologists as The Zone—the most productive mental place to be. It's the arena where staffers can push your agenda in a fully engaged, minimally distracted way. Bad policies force an employee to stop and look up a rule or consult a manager, slowing down the action. Second, policies are expensive to disseminate and costly to administer. Third and most destructive, policies speak loudly about CEOs' trust in themselves and their management teams. Where trust abounds, policies are few. In organizations where trust exists, leaders have confidence in themselves to hire and manage team members without minute-to-minute supervision. In fear-filled environments, policies rule the day..."