I fly a lot. I’m on and off a plane regularly as I travel to and from HCCA and SCCE meetings.
What strikes me as I travel is how willing people are to be compliant with some rules and to openly violate others.
People quietly endure the boredom of the security line and the public undressing that we have come to expect at the end of it. And, despite or because of all the announcements about tampering with lavatory smoke detectors, I have yet to see someone try and sneak a smoke on the plane.
Yet, when it comes to the use of personal electronics, especially Blackberries and their relatives, a large percentage of travelers are anarchists at best, criminals at worst. The same people who lined up just minutes earlier for TSA, and waited until their row was called before boarding, suddenly seem indifferent to the requirement to turn off their cell phones and Blackberries.
There are likely many reasons for this flaunting of the regulations, each of which has good lessons for the compliance officer.
First, few people believe that their Blackberry is powerful enough to down a 747. And on each flight there is the evidence of other Blackberry users violating the rules without the plane being navigated into the side of a mountain. More, anyone who flies regularly eventually hears a cell phone ring during take off or landing. The only harm from the incident comes in the form of embarrassment for the phone’s owner.
As a result many come to believe that it is a stupid, meaningless rule, and only a fool would follow it.
How many policies in your company are that way? If you have some rules that seem unneeded, then ask why do you keep them. And by keeping them, what kind of an attitude towards rules are you creating?
A second reason why I think people violate the ban on the use of personal electronics is that there are few consequences for not heeding the requirement Flight attendants often make only a perfunctory check: they are good at spotting the laptop but bad at spotting the Blackberry or iPod. If they see someone in violation, they usually gently ask the person to hang up the phone or turn off the device. I have yet to see a flight attendant seize a phone, even of someone who had been repeatedly told to hang it up.
Quite simply: people don’t follow the rule because they know the authority responsible for enforcing it is not very willing to do so. Put another way: there are no sticks, but there is a carrot. By leaving the Blackberry on, the rule breaker can get more work done.
With this equation in place, rule breaking is inevitable. So too in business. If your company has rules it doesn’t enforce, and your workforce has incentives not to follow them, you have to expect the rules to be broken.
There is at least one other reason why people don’t follow the personal electronics rule: There is little if any social pressure to conform. Have you ever told someone to turn off their Blackberry because the flight attendants said its time? Have you ever seen someone say, “Your noise cancelling headphones are on, and we’re under 10,000 feet?” The answer is probably “no.”
When it comes to planes, for the most part we mind our own business, or at least try to. Unless someone tries to set off a bomb, or acts suspiciously, we don’t say or do anything. In fact, on planes many people do their best not to interact with anyone.
Chances are in your workplace it’s much the same. As long as the action isn’t egregious, people look the other way. It’s not their business, even if it affects the company’s business.
That is the hardest issue to address, of course, and there is no easy solution. Yet, we must keep trying if business is to keep flying through clear skies.