Unwritten rules

Many accidents have occurred because maintenance work was not cai -ried out in accordance with the (often unwritten) rules of good engineering practice, as the following incidents and Section 10.4.5 show. 

In most instances cultural problems arise because there is misalignment between the new requirements and factors that drive day-to-day behavior— the unwritten rules. One model for the staff motivation process, shown in Exhibit 3-1, illustrates how staff behavior is influenced by ... 

Exhibit 3-2. Guide for Designing Unwritten Rules Assessment Questions... 

The team should also summarize the problems you anticipate with the project (from the unwritten rules analysis) and show how you propose to address these. 

Peter Scott-Morgan, The Unwritten Rules of the Game, McGraw-Hill, Inc., 1994. 

An unwritten rule says that a mold or die should cost almost half the cost of the basic machine (injection, extrusion, blow molding, etc.). If it does not then something is wrong such as you probably have an oversized machine for the job for the lower cost mold or die. 

In accord with the federal government s unwritten rule that no bad deed goes unrewarded, the current Bush administration has reappointed Fisher to EPA and promoted her to Deputy Administrator. Not unexpectedly, the combination of an agency head —the scientifically unschooled EPA Administrator Christie Whitman—with an aggressive, unscientific, unprincipled deputy has been anathema to the creation of sound public policy (and a source of continuing embarrassment for the Bush administration). 

The poll confirmed this, and in their words indicated that mentoring and support by and for minority groups provide a safe, family-like environment to discuss and understand important business issues. Specifically, this includes the opportunity to discuss and understand such topics as successful on-board technique, company politics and business strategies, personal and/or technical resources, models of success and histories of failure, unwritten rules and expectations, obtaining constructive criticism and feedback on performance, and how to develop leadership skills. 

So what are demands requiring historical expert witnesses to keep silent This appears to be nothing less than the admission of a renowned expert witness that incomplete and thus biased testimony by those witnesses is the mle rather than the exception, i.e., that they all commit peijury, probably partly because they are convinced that this is morally (in other words, politically) correct, or because they are simply afraid of the public reaction that is to be expected if they break the unwritten rules of Germany s strongest taboo. 

Each member of the community took his or her turn, weekly, to provide the little cakes that went with the afternoon s cup of tea. When anyone had a birthday, or a new baby, or anything comparable to celebrate, it was, by unwritten rule, that person s duty to provide a large iced cake, free, for that occasion. Each person had his or her own desk, of course, but everyone knew, at least in outline, what everyone else was doing. All the problems, and everything that was going on, were interesting. Mutual assistance was frequent animated, even heated discussions were normal. The motivation was the interest of the subject. Everyone worked hard. It came naturally to do so.07... 

In Japan, I am told, there is an unwritten rule that if you show violence on television, you show the result of that violence. Such a program is, I am sure, much more disturbing. But maybe it should be. Maybe that s what s missing. 

The Second Hague Conference of 1907 attempted to codify what were regarded as a number of unwritten rules of warfare, although chemical warfare, in the modern sense, was not considered. Article XXIII of the 1907 Hague Convention regarding Laws and Customs of War on Land deals with a closely related issue ... 

The Market Development Function in the Chemical Industry. Forecasting is a dangerous business. Many a forecaster has lived to have his predictions haunt him later. Recognition of this has led to the unwritten rule that one should always forecast for a period of one year after his retirement. Since I hope to be actively involved in market development through most of the 1970s, this safeguard is not available to me. 

But there were a few unwritten rules for foreign investors, and Tompkins broke a big one when he criticized and then sued a powerful Chilean salmon farmer in 1994. And that was when the secret of Tompkins s conservation efforts entered the public consciousness, and the inevitable conflict took root between his zero-development conservation ethic and the long-held Chilean dream of a million-strong force of settlers taming Patagonia, much as the old West had been tamed in America, marching down a Southern Highway that never seemed to get built. It was not a realistic dream, but its romantic appeal ran deep. 

Operationally, organizational culture is defined as a set of shared philosophies, ideologies, values, beliefs, expectations, attitudes, assumptions, and norms (Mitroff and Kilmann 1984). Cultural norms are the set of unwritten rules that guide behavior (Jackson 1960). Use of this concept allows the capturing of those dimensions of organizational life that may not be visible in the more rational and mechanical aspects of the organization. 

Users become familiar with certain customs. For example, an individual would probably expect a frame containing an X in the top comer to close the window. There is no law which states that this rule must be obeyed by software designers but over time users we have developed conscious and subconscious behavioural expectations of the user interface. Break those unwritten rules and users describe the system as clunky or unintuitive. These assumptions and expectations can be entrenched and hinder transition to an unfamiliar technology. Designers face the difficult dilemma of whether to revise the user interface to fit with a user s mental model or to improve their models by providing additional user training. 

Although climate is difficult to define, it is easy to see and feel. According to Petersen, Probably the best definition I ve ever heard on culture came from a worker I interviewed who stated, Culture is the way it is around here. It s the unwritten rules of the ballgame that the organization is playing. Culture is what everybody knows, and therefore it does not have to be stated or written down [3,4]. 

Another organization Nathan visited had an unwritten rule that managers were to come in very early, well before official office hours, and work late every day as well as spend at least half of each Saturday in their office—even if they did not have anything to do Why Because the CEO believed that this showed dedication and that long work hours were essential. This is representative of another example of an authoritarian type of organization. 

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