THE DICHOTOMY: Rules and Whims

When planning group work, an important distinction is whether you group for fun (socio-emotional) or work (task-oriented).

As we discussed, this dichotomy is fundamental, well-known, and practical: you must understand from the start what you aim at with the group work: the fun or the work.

One of the examples was about business (the group for work) with a friend (the group for fun) and the intrinsic contradiction between the two endpoints that often leads to not building a business and losing a friend.

However, don’t we often have fun at work groups while dying of boredom in the supposedly fun groups? What exactly separates “fun” from “work?”

Uncertainty.

It is uncertainty in the sense of arbitrariness, which, in turn, can be defined as freedom of choice, which can be realized on a whim.

Workgroups always operate with rules. These rules can regulate all characteristics of your work: spatial (where your workplace is, how it is organized, what equipment you have and what you can use), temporal (when you start and when you finish work; when you have a lunch break; when you have meetings; when you can use the equipment you need, and when you can have a vacation), monetary (how much do they pay you, how much you can spend on what, what is the financial limit of your decisions, etc.), and social (who is collocated with you, who is on a project, etc.).

Being a prospective employee, you can negotiate rules with the employer-to-be and not join a group you think is too tight. However, if you have concluded the contract and already work for an employer, you adapt to the rules.

Are rules evil?

Of course not. Rules are a framework that must help you achieve work endpoints. However, unless you create these rules, you might experience stress trying to fit yourself into the framework developed by others, as in the myth about Procrustes and his bloody bed.

For instance, seven out of eight people experience social jetlag—they have to start working or studying before their heads start working after the night’s sleep.

Another common situation is having to work with a person whom you strongly dislike. Yet another example is when your employer does not let you take a vacation when you want, and you have to take holidays in some weird month.

Indeed, the lucky ones will enjoy what they are doing during work hours, while others will accept the situation, thinking that “life sucks and then you die.”

Some will start “badappling” the workplace, others will seek more freedom, and others will complement their day job with an evening hobby.

Coping strategies differ, yet to function properly, all people need the possibility to exercise a whim.

The informal network, or grapevine, serves this purpose and can be a safety valve at work. You communicate with the people you select on the topics you want there. Thus, you will resist when somebody starts dictating with whom you should speak during lunch—it is your playground. You may create rules, and you exercise them. Later, you might dismiss them and make new ones.

What about groups for fun? Unlike work groups that people join to cover their living expenses, people exercise their choice in joining or creating the groups for fun. The freedom to skip a meeting, come late, or leave the group is essential to the play.

Thus, we arrive at the contradiction: to run smoothly, these groups also must be operated and have rules and routines in action—the things that ruin the joy. And if there are too many rules, too many demands, and too little play, we stop liking these groups. They become stuffy and stale to us.

This dichotomy is related to the “be loved or be respected?” question. In work situations, the answer is, of course, to be respected.

Moreover, starting any working relationship with a more formal approach and attitude is a safer option. You can add play elements and emotions later when the work progresses. This broadening of the band is always welcome; however, reducing it will usually be treated negatively if you start with a less formal approach.

You might check David Graeber on that. {The Utopia of Rules}

{GROUPS: A PARAMEDIC APPROACH, BOSSES AND LEADERS, COMPARTMENTALIZATION, CONSTRAINTS OF A SYSTEM, CLIQUE, PERMIES}