Picture a restaurant kitchen. On the wall is a rule: wash your hands before you touch food. A cook walks in from a break, sees the sign, and starts chopping. The rule is there. The washing is not. Nothing on the wall reached the hands.
The rule→The hand→The proof
People call the work in between compliance. The word just means doing what the rule says, and being able to show that you did. It has three parts: the rule, the hand that does the job, and the proof that the hand followed the rule.
The ruleon the wall
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The handchopping
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The proof?
The sign says wash your hands. The cook chops without washing. Which of the three parts is missing?
The proof. Nobody wrote it down.
Not yet. Nothing was done, so there is nothing to write down. Proof comes third; it can only show a washing that happened.
The rule. There is no sign.
Not yet. The sign is on the wall; the cook saw it. A rule that exists and is not followed is a different problem from no rule, and a more common one.
The hand following the rule.
Right. The rule exists and nobody is following it. That gap, between the sign and the hands, is the whole subject of this course.
Days the sign was up30 days of 30, made up
Days hands were washed18 days of 30, made up
Picture that kitchen counting for a month. The sign was on the wall every day: 30 out of 30. The cooks washed before chopping on 18 days out of 30. Having a rule and following a rule are two different numbers, and only the second one keeps anybody safe. The numbers are made up.
Picture the same kitchen. Move what the restaurant adds and watch the days hands were washed, out of 30. The numbers are made up to show the shape.
Hands washed18 days, made up
Days30 days, made up
What the kitchen adds: A sign on the wall
A sign alone: 18 days of 30. The rule is there, and that is all that is there.
Hands washed24 days, made up
Days30 days, made up
What the kitchen adds: A sign and a sink by the door
A sink by the door: 24. Washing is now the easy thing to do on the way in.
Hands washed28 days, made up
Days30 days, made up
What the kitchen adds: Sign, sink, and the head chef checks
The head chef looks: 28. Someone can see whether it happened.
Hands washed29 days, made up
Days30 days, made up
What the kitchen adds: Sign, sink, a check, and a tick sheet
A tick sheet: 29. One more day, and now there is a record of all 29.
What moved the number most?
Making it easy, and having someone look. The sign was already there.
Right. The sink and the chef added ten days between them. The sign was in every frame and the first frame was the lowest; a rule nobody helps or checks stays on the wall.
The tick sheet. Writing it down is what makes it happen.
Not yet. The sheet added one day. It is the proof, not the cause: it shows the washing, it does not make it. Lesson 7 is about why the sheet still matters.
The sign. A rule is what makes people act.
Not yet. The sign is in all four frames, and the frame with only the sign is the lowest. A rule with no sink and no checker stays at 18.
Move the control.
10,000 staff
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Thousands of rules
Now make the kitchen bigger. A company with 10,000 staff has thousands of rules: about money, about customers' details, about who may be given a gift, about what may be said to whom. The gap between the rule on the wall and the hand on the job is the same gap. It is just ten thousand times wider.
Each card is something in a company. Is it the rule, the hand doing the job, or the proof?
One card at a time. Tap the pile it belongs to.
Card 1 of 6
A policy that says no gift over £50 may be accepted
A cashier asks a customer for ID before opening an account
A signed sheet showing who finished the fire-safety training
A law that says a customer's details may not be sold on
A log of every gift a salesperson was offered this year
An engineer tests the brakes the way the manual says
A policy that says no gift over £50 may be accepted → The rule
Not yet. The rule. It says what must happen; it is a sentence on a page until somebody acts on it.
A cashier asks a customer for ID before opening an account → The hand
Not yet. The hand. This is the rule being done, at the desk, by the person whose job it is.
A signed sheet showing who finished the fire-safety training → The proof
Not yet. The proof. It does not train anyone; it shows, later, who was trained and when.
A law that says a customer's details may not be sold on → The rule
Not yet. The rule, from the very top. A law is a rule written by Parliament, and it is still only words until a hand obeys it.
A log of every gift a salesperson was offered this year → The proof
Not yet. The proof. A log is written after the fact so that someone else can check it; it is not the gift rule and not the refusing.
An engineer tests the brakes the way the manual says → The hand
Not yet. The hand. The manual is the rule; the test being done the manual's way is the rule reaching a hand.
2The rule
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2The hand
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2The proof
Right. Two of each. The rule says it, the hand does it, the proof shows it. A company that has the first and not the second has a sign on a wall.
The floorevery rule followed
↓→
Above itwhat is right
One more thing about the word. Compliance is the floor, not the ceiling: it is the least the rules demand. A company can follow every rule and still do something people think is wrong. This course is about the floor, how a rule gets followed. What is right above it is a different question, and a harder one.
The rulein the handbook
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The lockers
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The log
A school has a rule: phones go in a locker at the start of the day. An inspector visits. Which of these shows the rule is being followed?
The headteacher saying everyone knows the rule.
Not yet. Knowing is not doing. The kitchen had a sign everybody knew and washed on 18 days of 30. The inspector wants the second number, not the first.
The rule printed in the school handbook.
Not yet. That is the rule, and the inspector already knows there is one. The question is whether hands follow it, and a handbook cannot answer that.
The locker log for each day, and the lockers full at ten in the morning.
Right. A record of the hand doing it, and the hand doing it. The inspector cannot see yesterday, so the log stands in for it, and the full lockers show today.
Lesson complete
A rule on paper changes nothing until a hand follows it. Compliance is the work in between.