You Can Rationalize an Astonishing Number of Things

You can rationalize an astonishing number of things.

We humans are remarkably talented at this. So are organizations.

Think of the legacy program that maybe three people still use on a regular basis. The numbers tell you it costs more in time and money than the value it creates. But as soon as someone suggests shutting it down, there’s a sudden wave of nostalgia.

“But everyone loves that program.”

“It’s been around forever.”

“We can’t just get rid of it.”

And so it stays.

Or think about the wonderful new idea an employee, constituent or member absolutely insists the organization should take on. It doesn’t really fit the strategic plan, but it’s exciting. It could do some good.

Well, if you squint hard enough at Goal 3, Objective B, you can probably convince yourself the shiny new thing was part of the plan all along.

Sometimes we spend months developing policies and procedures, only to discover that our commitment to following them lasts right up until one tells us to do something differently than we've always done it.

“Oh. That’s not really how we do things.” And suddenly the new policy becomes more of a suggestion.

The problem isn't that organizations don't have guardrails. Most of us have plenty of them: mission statements, values, strategic plans, goals, budgets and policies. We create them to help us make decisions about where to invest limited time, money, attention and energy. And they're wonderfully easy to use when they point toward the decision we already wanted to make.

The real test comes when we don’t particularly like where they’re pointing. That's when something interesting can happen.

We don't necessarily decide to ignore the guardrail. Sometimes we just reinterpret it until we can say it’s pointing us where we wanted to go.

When we start with the answer

We invoke the mission. We point to a strategic goal. We talk about member value or available budget. And because we're using all the right words, we’re convinced we're applying the guardrails.

But mentioning the guardrail isn't the same as letting it guide the decision.

There's a difference between saying, "Our strategic plan says this is important, so we're going to do it," and saying, "We really want to do this, so let's figure out where it fits in the strategic plan."

The first uses the guardrail to make the decision. The second uses the guardrail to justify one we've effectively already made.

Does this new program have something to do with our mission? Sure.

Would this partnership benefit our members somehow? Probably.

Could we make a case for getting involved in this policy issue? Absolutely.

But "we can explain why this is related to us" is a pretty low bar for deciding where to invest limited resources.

A program can provide value and still not provide enough value to justify what it costs. An opportunity can advance the mission and still pull resources away from something that advances it more. An issue can matter and still not be ours to take on.

If your mission can justify everything, it isn't helping you decide anything. If every new idea can somehow fit your strategic plan, your strategic plan isn't setting priorities. And if every program provides enough "value" to continue indefinitely, you haven't actually defined what value means.

That's why we establish these guardrails before we're staring at the particular decision where history, enthusiasm, relationships, convenience or emotion might influence what we want the answer to be. Because once that moment arrives, we manage to become incredibly good advocates for why this particular situation is different.

Guardrails aren't handcuffs

None of this means organizations should be inflexible. Circumstances change. We learn things. New opportunities emerge. Strategic plans should evolve. Policies that looked good on paper sometimes don't work particularly well in practice.

Sometimes we follow the guardrail. Sometimes we knowingly cross it, recognizing the tradeoffs we're making. Sometimes we decide the guardrail itself no longer makes sense and change it.

None of those choices is necessarily rationalization. The distinction is whether we're able to recognize the choice we're making.

There are really four possibilities when a guardrail points somewhere we don't particularly want to go:

• We can follow it, trusting the criteria we established before this particular decision was in front of us.

• We can knowingly cross it, accepting that we're making an exception or choosing something else over the priority we previously established.

• We can change it, acknowledging that circumstances or our thinking have changed and applying the new standard going forward.

• Or we can gradually reinterpret it until we're genuinely convinced it points somewhere it was never intended to point.

That last one is surprisingly easy. And that's what makes rationalization so tricky: we don't always realize we're doing it.

What did we say would guide us?

Maybe that's the question worth asking when we're struggling with a decision:

What were we trying to accomplish? How did we say we would measure value? What priorities or processes did we agree would guide our choices?

And if those answers are leading somewhere we don't want to go, why?

Maybe we've learned something and the guardrail genuinely needs to change. Or maybe we just don't particularly like what it's telling us.

Guardrails aren't meant to make organizations inflexible. They're meant to make our choices intentional.

So change them when they no longer serve you. Cross them when circumstances genuinely warrant it.

Just don't get so good at rationalizing the decision that you convince yourself the guardrails were somewhere else all along.