Have you ever noticed that when you go to work for a company, during the orientation and training period they never tell you everything? There's always something they forget. All of a sudden as you're working, you're confronted with a situation that was not covered in orientation. You're tired of going back to your manager and asking questions. You don't want to look like a dummy. You want to show some initiative. So you attack that situation and you create a set of procedures that helps you quickly and efficiently finish the task. For the next two or three months, every time that situation arises, you do what you think is right.

Three months later, your manager comes by, observes what you're doing, and says, "That's the wrong procedure. You're going against company policy. What you're doing doesn't take into account what's happening in accounting or sales or what's occurring in the plant. You need to do it a different way. Here are the new procedures." You realize that in relationship to the company's policies you've been sinning, not following the correct procedures.

But something else occurs the moment your manager tells you that. If you're like I am, something down here says, "Wait a minute! He or she doesn't understand my job. I figured it out. I've done it efficiently. If I follow their procedures, it's going to be more paperwork, more bureaucracy." And when the manager leaves, the temptation is to do it the way you've been doing it the last three months. Why? Because there's something deep inside of us that causes us to respond negatively to law, rather than positively.