Rules are made to be broken

You have all heard the phrase, "rules are made to be broken." Of course, the phrase makes compliance professionals cringe! The bottom line, though, is that it is very difficult to count on rules and procedures alone to govern behavior. If we want to insure that people do the right thing, we need to inculcate a strong set of values throughout the organization. We need people to understand the criteria they ought to use to make key decisions. We need to establish a framework that guides decision making, because we will never anticipate all situations, and we can never design "perfect" rules.