I made a strawberry-rhubarb pie last weekend in honor of another pie many years ago. It got me thinking about all the times I hear employees say, “That’s just the way it’s done,” because this pie wasn’t the way it was done!

Employees  fill out forms, walk through stale routines, chase down signatures, and maintain countless documents. Why? “That’s just the way it’s done.”

But do you know what the real problem is, beyond the obvious waste of time year after year?

They’ve abdicated responsibility for results. They are either operating without an understanding of the desired results or they do understand, but have given up and quit banging their heads against the wall trying to make changes to increase efficiency or improve outcomes.

And it’s not just old procedures and habits I’m talking about. New initiatives also generate abdication and mindless execution. Classic and costly examples include the implementation of big programs such as a new performance management system or process improvement program.

I was an employee the first time I encountered ISO. We fought against the ludicrous efforts to replace judgment with cookbook procedures. But that’s-just-the-way-its-done won the day and my company created hundreds of worthless documents and tedious practices that added no value and improved nothing, unless you count the certificate that has fooled many customers.

Several years later, I had the privilege of leading the destruction of 98% of those documents by insisting that we abolish the phrase “doing it for ISO.” If you couldn’t explain how a document or practice improved quality and reliability, you either didn’t understand the intent of the ISO standard or you had yet to find a reasonable method of satisfying that standard. When we quit “doing it for ISO,” we really started to improve our processes, as well as ownership and profits. And we didn’t even upset the ISO auditor. Au contraire:

“The method used for translating quality requirements into manageable actions is the best seen anywhere and has led to managers with a greater depth of understanding, a more integrated system approach, and more astute planning than any of 95 companies audited.”

If I subscribed to that’s-just-the-way-it’s-done, there would have been no pie, swimming, pig roast, or beer tasting at my Solstice wedding celebration! If you UNsubscribe to that’s-just-the-way-it’s-done as an organization, you can create better results faster with greater confidence and commitment. And then you’ll have something to celebrate!