Rules.

Rules are liberating.

They free our mind to focus its attention on creativity.

It can't be creative and analytical at the same time. They're different processes.

Most organisations try to make people happy. Social clubs, birthday cakes, employees of the month, work-life balance. Yet few spend time with each job applicant and go over the contract, enterprise agreement, policies. The Rules.

People can be unhappy and still do good work. They just need Rules. If I do this, then that will happen.

'People do not have to love each other, or even like each other, to work together effectively. But they do have to trust each other in order to do so. Trust between people is the basic social glue: suspicion and mistrust are the prime enemies of reasonable human relationships.' Requisite Organization. 

Rules allow workers to do good work knowing that trust is baked into the Rules.

As Liz says -  rules are like old fashioned secretaries - they do the 'non-thinking' tasks to free the expert up to do expert work. 

Rules liberate. 

They allow us to move from the reactive to the de-liberate. 

'De-liberation': a Freeing of multiple possibilities. I can choose. 

Rules are the solid, immovable anvil against  which we hammer out our Widget and therefore our identities. We fashion ourselves against the boundaries created by our employer.

Widget clarity releases our energy and creativity.

If only to help us realise that we don't want to make that widget any more.