Are you a rule-follower? Or do you see them more as... guidelines?
There's a spectrum. On one end: people who follow rules to the letter - and internalise self-discipline, too, layering habits and routines on top. No wine on weeknights. No phone in the bedroom. Two cups of coffee per day. That sort of thing.
On the other end, there are people who seem to get away with everything. They pay bills late, renegotiate deadlines, and skirt around the edges of expectation. (If you lean more to the former end of the spectrum, these people frustrate you no end.)
Most of us lie somewhere in the middle, judging the importance of rules by their potential consequences. The mortgage is always paid on time, for fear of losing the house. Council rates too, due to swift penalties. But perhaps other things slip. You skip topping up the parking meter late at night, or go through self-checkout with a few items above the limit. A wee cashie for your builder. A white lie or two.
Some people are above the rules
I recently read Rogues: True stories of grifters, killers, rebels and crooks by Patrick Radden Keefe, a collection of investigative pieces published in The New Yorker.
Most people in Rogues operate above or around the law. The book features arms dealers, drug traffickers, wealthy tax evaders and murderers who live by their own code, unfettered by everyday constraints. Even when busted, they access a different rulebook - negotiating plea bargains, offering up kingpins in exchange for amnesty, or securing large amounts of state funding or luxury prison stays. The rules apply differently, it appears, to those with enough wealth or leverage.
The book closes with a profile of late chef Anthony Bourdain (presumably under the 'rebel' category), who crafted a singular career, flying to exotic locations and sampling local cuisines for his popular TV show. "What do you do after your dreams come true?" Bourdain asked in a voice-over in one episode.
Bourdain had his own personal rulebook, a sort of moral code. He was fixated with being on time and arrived to appointments fifteen minutes early, considering himself "pathological" about punctuality. "I judge other people on it," he admitted. "Today, you're just late, but eventually you will betray me."
The profile includes an anecdote of the time he shared a meal in Hanoi with then-president Barack Obama. The contrast between the two men was striking. Despite the power and status of the US President, Obama was rarely able to visit restaurants, and needed clearance to drink a beer in public. His power didn't exempt him from rules, it created new, oppressive ones.
Rules are powerful stories
Rules are stories: laced with unspoken ideas, unevenly applied and frequently negotiated. Laws, workplace guidelines, codes of conduct and social norms shape our choices and behaviour.
They operationalise and justify systems and together, these stories and systems distribute outcomes. Tax codes justify and operationalise a public revenue system, and regulate the accumulation of wealth - unless you have enough money for a Swiss bank account. Criminal laws protect property and public safety - unless you have an army of goons to murder your enemies and/or a well-bribed police force to save you from jail time.
With enough money or power, even inviolable rules bend and flex. If you want New Zealand citizenship, you can jump through all the hoops and meet our residency requirements - or perhaps, like Peter Thiel, you can spend 12 days here, invest $50 million in local tech companies, and become approved under "exceptional circumstances."
Rules and morals are not always the same
Back in 2021, I led an organisational strategy process for Crown Law, in partnership with the Solicitor General and Deputy Solicitors General. In workshops, we sought to define legal leadership, grappling with the difference between responsible government and lawful government. We landed on a definition that goes beyond the letter of the law, to include championing constitutional values like fairness and transparency, and respectfully and responsibly testing the exercise of power.
This conversation reflects an important distinction between law and morality. In his 1963 Letter from Birmingham Jail, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. wrote "One has not only a legal but a moral responsibility to obey just laws. Conversely, one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws." Laws are dynamic. They change. They both reflect and shift social values and norms, sometimes with surprising speed. When the law changes, we might find we stop smacking our kids, smoking in bars, or carrying plastic bags.
Rules can change
It works in the other direction, too. If the public voice is loud and consistent enough, the law can shift to protect workers, repair the environment, or promote gender equity. The flows of power between systems and stories are fluid and in a constant state of renegotiation, which is one of the reasons why lawyers play such an important role .
Understanding the details and nuance of how rules work, and when and how they can be negotiated is a form of power in itself. For most people, rules are a way to maintain order and compliance. For the audacious, well-funded, or well-represented, they can be far more flexible. Advocates address some of that disparity.
Whether you're a rule follower or a rebel, rules are rarely set in stone. They are stories - albeit very powerful stories - that structure behaviour. Rules are vessels for our values, guardrails for our conscience, mirrors for who we are, what we believe in, and what kind of society we want.
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Rules are a lever of power
Rules don't guarantee compliance - as grifters, killers, rebels, and crooks frequently demonstrate. But this ongoing process of rule-making, rule-breaking, and rule-interpretation still matters. For those who live in democracies, rules are only legitimate insofar as they reflect the collective will.
This means if we don't like the rules, we can change them. We can vote for people with different ideas about what the rules should be, and we can challenge specific rules that undermine or contradict our values.
When I work with politicians, I suggest they have three key levers at their disposal: rules, resources and relationships. For legacy change, I recommend they target rules. In governance, you can't always change decisions, but you can influence future ones by changing the rules.
Rules shape who you are
For mere mortals, those of us who don't write the rules - or have the time, capacity, or skills to rewrite them - we are never powerless.
We make choices every day about the rules we agree with, the rules we follow, and the rules we disregard. Our relationship to rules reveals who we are and what we value. We use rules for our benefit - to enforce moral standards in our lives and home, set bottom lines in our relationships, ensure fair and honest dealings in our work - and we can appraise rules with a critical eye, too.
We can even choose to break them - though our rebellion may have consequences. Almost every one of the grifters, killers, rebels, and crooks in Rogues faced the music eventually.
Rules shape our behaviour, but they don't determine it. You may not write the rules that govern the world, but you do choose which ones govern your life.
Choose wisely.
Paid bonus: 5 strategies to turn rules into leverage
Want more? Here are five practical strategies I share with politicians, CEOs, and senior leaders, to use rules as levers of power.