Introduction

The fourth radar of the framework is “Analytical”. It encourages us to look for instances where our employees pay a lot of attention to our rule. For example, they're asking us lots of questions about it, or the page on which the rule appears on the intranet receives significantly more traffic than similar pages.

If we can find out why people are paying more attention to the rule – in other words, why they're analysing it – we can understand whether this is happening for positive or negative reasons and react accordingly.

Rationale

The reasons we want to explore why people are looking in detail at our rule are most simply illustrated by a familiar plot you'll recognise from the movies. In The Great Humanizing Rules Robbery, an imaginary film I've just invented, the main protagonists are a gang who are – the clue was in the title! – planning a robbery. This requires them to scope out a secure facility, which conveniently happens also to run visitor tours.

The gang disguise themselves as tourists and join a visitor tour. What we know, but the tour guide does not, is that she is about to guide two very different types of visitors. There are genuine tourists who will ask questions because they're interested and fake ones who will do so to find weaknesses in the facility's security that they can later exploit.

We experience broadly similar dynamics when our employees pay attention to our rules. As the fictional movie plot illustrates, there are two main reasons they are likely to do this.

Genuine Interest

The first reason people will pay attention to rules is that they are genuinely interested in understanding them. On the face of it, this is a positive since they are clearly motivated to try to do the right thing. However, as we will see, there are situations where this is good news – primarily where making enquiries is precisely how we need them to behave – but others may be more illustrative of a problem.

Fence Testing

The second reason people spend time researching rules is that they're looking for loopholes. If the effect of a rule is particularly obstructive from the employee's perspective, then there's an incentive to look for ways around it. Equally, if the rule is “gameable” – for example, it contains lots of technical details in a rapidly changing environment – it is potentially more loophole friendly.

Clearly, “genuine interest” and “fence testing” are not mutually exclusive. It is possible that someone enquires out of genuine interest and realises that gaming the rules or noncompliance is preferable. This can happen when they become aware that compliance is more challenging than they had imagined or when something they intended to do clearly breaches the rules. Alternatively, it may be that someone who is testing the fences realises that compliance is actually easier than noncompliance.

FAQ Logic

To understand when an enquiry might be a positive sign and when it might be a negative one, we can think about the dynamics of the rule in question. There will be specific topics or rules where we might naturally expect or indeed want our employees to ask questions. There will be others where an enquiry seems unusual.

My point isn't that we should treat all enquiries of a particular kind as suspicious and questions of another kind as innocent. Just because someone is making an enquiry that could be suspicious doesn't mean they are actually doing something wrong. It is perfectly possible for people to forget things or to be curious for a good reason. Equally, people up to no good can look entirely innocent.

This is one of the reasons I like to focus on collective rather than individual behaviour. If many people are looking at something, there's a collective message. Of course, the downside of collective data is that Fred might look at something in a very different way from why Francesca is doing so. But it's a start, and if we look at collective behaviour, we may find some interesting patterns. It's also worth remembering that the purpose of looking at where employees are being analytical isn't so that we can catch them out. Instead, it can help us to identify where there is a pattern of behaviour that should prompt us to investigate why.

I refer to this as FAQ Logic from the Frequently Asked Questions we see on websites. FAQs are things that website owners have identified are common questions – either things they initially expected users of the site to ask or things they have discovered that they frequently ask. They then look to answer them; either by redesigning the website, so the questions don't arise or by answering them. We can adopt a similar approach when employees ask questions about rules. One of the ways is to think about whether an enquiry is expected or unexpected.

Expected or Unexpected?

If, for example, a particular rule is only relevant in limited circumstances – for example, when someone travels – then it may be entirely reasonable for someone who infrequently travels to need to remind themselves of the rule. But we might be surprised by a frequent traveller doing the same thing.

The same applies to processes or rules that employees must follow at different frequencies. Someone who only has to do something once a year, who refreshes their memory before doing it, is more expected than someone who does something regularly and feels the need to do it.

Equally, there is a difference between rules or procedures that might apply at entirely unpredictable moments as opposed to predictable ones. We explored a few examples of these in Chapter 4, when we looked at three different examples of training we might want to provide for employees. By way of reminder, they were as follows:

• Awareness: where we need employees to know the “telltale signs” of a dynamic and then either take a specific course of action (e.g. not to click on an email link) or get help.
• Understanding: where we need employees to have a basic understanding of a situation so that they are well‐informed enough to be able to make the right choice from a series of potential responses (e.g. knowing whether to fight or flee from a fire).
• Autonomy: where we need employees to be able to use their judgement to respond to a fluidly evolving situation (e.g. administering first aid).

A simple analysis might conclude that employees investigating anything covered by these three types of training is entirely predictable and, therefore, a good thing. Awareness, for example, is intentionally designed to make them aware of something, not to give them any level of expertise in the subject. Hence, someone recognising they only have limited knowledge might be a good thing. However, it is worth considering what level of enquiry might be appropriate.

Someone undertaking detailed research into a topic where Awareness is all we need them to have could indicate that they are trying to solve problems without getting appropriate help. If, on the other hand, they are simply revising their basic understanding, then that is arguably far more positive. Equally, someone requiring Understanding diving into technical details may also be trying to bite off more than they can chew. Conversely, if someone should have Autonomy or a greater understanding of an area looking at fundamental concepts, it could be indicative of a surprising lack of understanding.

Alternatively, we may be dealing with something I call the “Hypothetical Actual”.

The Hypothetical Actual

An option which didn't feature in my fictional movie but, in my experience, is prevalent in real life is the “Hypothetical Actual”. It works as follows. Someone enquires about a particular rule and wants to run a hypothetical scenario past you. My working heuristic in these situations is always assuming that nothing is hypothetical.

This is particularly true if the level of detail is greater than one might expect from a hypothetical situation. The chances are that whatever they are asking about has already happened, and they're either seeking reassurance that what they've done is within the rules or are looking for a potential loophole.

The other feature of these enquiries is that they are often presented as an “asking for a friend” type request, usually on behalf of a staff member whose name they don't want to reveal because “it doesn't matter at this stage”. If you come across this, be wary, but also recognise that they should be having the conversation rather than not.

Identifying “Analytical” Behaviour

Identifying when our employees are being analytical can sometimes be challenging because there is a broad range of ways in which they might do so. Some of these will provide digital breadcrumbs, and others won't. To help you think about where you might find this information, here are three examples of ways they might choose to obtain further information about a rule, each with commentary on some of the dynamics.

The first is through unofficial channels, where they undertake “research” by, for example, asking a colleague. On the one hand, this may be the easiest way for them to obtain information. On the other hand, it can also be because they are trying to avoid official channels. They might be looking for an unofficial interpretation of the rules; in other words, the same reason the lady I mentioned in Chapter 14 asked for advice on whether she needed to put a label on her luggage. In that case, they may be seeking an answer along the lines of “the rule says X, but no one actually does that”. Equally, they might want an initial response to enable them to frame their “official” question more effectively.

The “research” method is hard for us to detect. After all, we're unlikely to get employees telling us that other people have asked them about a particular rule. Though it may be something, you can obtain anecdotal insights about. It is also worth noting that “research” can also pose the greatest risk, as the colleague they ask may not necessarily have a good knowledge of the rule in question.

The second is via self‐service channels such as reading the staff handbook, reviewing online training, or other online resources. This can provide easily gatherable data since it is a breadcrumb‐rich environment. What is worth noting – if your system allows – isn't just what they are looking at, but how they ask questions. There may be helpful information in the way that questions are formulated and the substance of what is being asked.

In his book, Everybody Lies,¹ Seth Stephens‐Davidowitz outlines how we are much more likely to be honest with a search engine than we are with another human being. While discussing the risks posed to individual privacy, the dynamic of being more transparent is still relevant in an employment context. The reason for our over‐disclosure of our digital versus human interfaces is that we might choose to “sugar‐coat” our question if we're asking a person so that we're not embarrassed or revealing too much about the reasons for our question. But when it comes to asking a search engine or online portal for help, we get better results by being direct.

The final category is that they go directly to the experts, for example, by contacting their Compliance Officer. This can provide the richest source of information, as there will be more context to the enquiry. Training those who receive the questions to pay attention to what they are asked and the context in which they are asked can provide some handy insights.

Good News or Bad News?

As ever with RADAR, don't forget that we can look at the opposite dynamic. If there's a policy or rule that no one ever looks at online or asks questions about, that could also be worth investigating. Whether you choose to do so will depend on the nature of the rule. If it's something obscure, then perhaps the fact that no one is focussing on it is not a matter of concern.

But if a rule is more likely to result in questions, we might want to ask why no one is doing so. It may well be that everyone is aware of, understands and is compliant with the rule and the reason no one is looking at it is because there is no need for them to do so. At the opposite end of the spectrum, perhaps no one is aware the rule exists, and therefore it does not occur to anyone to look at it. Alternatively, maybe they know it exists but are not interested in discovering more about it.

Whether the reason for the lack of interest is a good thing or a bad thing will depend on the rule in question. The only way you'll know is to look at the policy and investigate further.

Teaching Rule‐Breaking

I want to share something that illustrates an alternative way of thinking about “Analytical” employees. On the face of it, one might consider that an appropriate way of dealing with analytical enquiries designed to identify how to break the rules is to shut them down. That would have been my gut instinct as well.

Until I read about Timpsons, a UK‐based family‐owned company that provides services like shoe repairs, key cutting, dry cleaning, engraving, and assisted photo ID. There's nothing unusual in that business model, but what differentiates Timpsons from other companies is that they actively set out to employ ex‐offenders to give them a second chance. Around 10 per cent of their workforce is made up of people who have criminal convictions.

In a Times newspaper column headlined, “I always show staff how to put their fingers in the till”,¹ the CEO, James Timpson, explained:

What I like about this is that he's given real thought to what his employees might be thinking – in other words, what might make them “Analytical” in future – and hit it head on. They don't need to find out for themselves if he's told them. And they know that he knows.

Practical Application: Radar Inc.

When it comes to “Analytical”, my client Radar Inc. provides policy owners with information about how many questions were asked about their policy and details of the critical topics that were asked. The idea isn't for them to need to amend the policy to deal with each question but rather to see if there are common themes that might warrant amending the policy.

They are also asked to find someone to “mystery shop” the policy and report back. The purpose of the mystery shopper is to do two things. The first is to establish how easy it is – or isn't – to obtain information on the policy. It's one thing having a policy, but is it easy to find if you don't know what the policy is called? The answers then feed into the policy review.

The key to this radar is to think the unthinkable. While we don't hire employees on the presumption that they will test our rules, it is important to recognise that some will, for good and for bad reasons. This radar encourages us to prepare for that fact.