Agoraphobia

You could call it Agoraphobia - a condition which develops when a person begins to avoid spaces or situations associated with anxiety. Complexity, rules, policies, and procedures grow as organizations grow. Of course, this is necessary. The problem is the barriers and limitations this unremitting proliferation of rules creates.

Real walls

We have a cat that does not know she is a cat . . . at least not aware of the abilities of a cat. We let the cat out into our back yard, surrounded by a six-foot high fence. She never leaves the yard. She does not realize that she, if desired, could jump the fence with ease. Occasionally, other cats will jump into the yard and leave at will. She watches them come and go, but never realizes that she too could leave and explore the world beyond the big wall.

My cat is content with this. The wall is real and creates an element of safety. She is not aware of her ability. It would take risk to attempt to jump that wall. Many people look at rules in their company in a similar way.

Artificial walls

Apparently, dogs can be "boundary trained," or trained to stay within a perimeter that only has a piece of string or line of some sort on the ground. The walls are entirely imagined – there is nothing physically stopping to dog from leaving.

It is equally problematic when people are afraid to step out despite an organization's ability to limit its' rules.

Unutilized potential in any person is detrimental. The enterprise experiences unrealized capacity; the unfulfilled individual will eventually leave.

The challenge is to create balance between the amount of rules and freedom for individuals, encouraging the use of their ingenuity, and be flexible enough to get people with widely varying levels of risk to either step out, or in the case of the "cowboy," to keep him / her restrained adequately enough to protect the organization.

Most tend to lean to the side of caution – this means you will have to push them over the wall – real or imagined.

Agoraphobia