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Rule-Breaking PeopleExceptions and HierarchyTerminationMembershipRule-orientedRole-Appropriate BehaviourWeak SignalsCoaching and PsychotherapyChanging the GoalTrust, Breach of Rules, ExceptionsGuiding Process Decision OrientationGuiding Process Handling the PresentGuiding Process PersonnelGuiding Process Team ParametersGuiding Process Handling the PastGuiding Process Goal SettingMembership in the Team

Rule-Breaking People

In authoritarian systems, dissidents are considered to be difficult or undesirable. But this does not mean that they are dysfunctional. And it is unclear which function people, who question the status quo, breach informal rules and laws, disturb or impede the habitual processes, have in organisations. Are such people required for organisational change? To begin with – in respect to change it needs them! An organisation must not only wait to notice irritations in the external environment (because then it could already be too late), rather, it needs mutation stimuli in the internal environment, i.e. from personnel. People, who are not adapted, who think laterally and would rather break faith with others than themselves, are, from a psycho-dynamic viewpoint, not what one would call ‘easy’ for themselves and their environment. Mostly, they are rather taxing and therefore the tendency to exclude or silence them is created. Membership is closely connected to the adherence to organisational rules. Under certain circumstances however, those, who don’t take the rules so seriously or who find them wrong, inform the organisation very clearly about where they are too rigid, too out-dated, too self-orientated and too habituated. They ‘inject’ the system with possibilities. Organisations who desire change would, therefore, do well to set themselves rules which makes it difficult to classify the breakers of rules as problematical. Alternatively, it could be useful to control whether, in the rule-breaking behaviour, a person’s modus operandi is finding expression, and whether this represents a useful feedback to the organisation.