Violating rules for the good of company ?

Rules are rules. Rules are framed by some people with wisdom and all are expected to follow without exception. 

Sometimes the rules stop you from doing something innovative. If you have the authority to change rules to let the innovation, you can facilitate the innovation. Else, you get frustrated and need to work around your innovative idea. Then is this considered a violation or cleverly manipulated?

I remember my dad  taking many bold steps depending on the situation. There was a typhoon and all the electric poles were uprooted and there was major interruption of electricity in his jurisdiction. He posted one Engineer to a cement factory to get them manufacture ONLY electric poles till the  requirement is met. And at the same time he instructed all to find unused electric poles lying anywhere including neighboring districts ( outside his jurisdiction) and just lift them. He assured them that he will talk to the counterparts of other jurisdictions. And he ensured that the power was restored in the least possible time. And  no one complained and the appreciation poured for bold decisions which were not in rule book. Yes. He had conviction that he is doing some thing good( though others may call it 'bad') and it resulted in the good.

In 1998 i was toying with  webpages and wanted the photographs of all our products. One way was to scan the photographs and upload. Else, get a digital camera which was costing  Rs 51,000. And to my surprise, I found that the camera comes under capital items and anything above Rs 50,000 needs to be cleared by my Big boss and then the finance department need to give approval. And these take more than 3-4 months. I discussed with vendor, got the price reduced to Rs 49,000  inclusive of taxes. The I raised Purchase Indent for "realtime image capture device" and the Purchase Order was released after my boss gave approval.  Boss was surprised how I could buy a Digital camera without his approval! He told he only cleared "Image capture Device" ! Did I break the rules?

In my previous company, we had some non moving items. I realized that we were buying a different item of the same manufacturer. I checked with the vendor if  he can take the non moving inventory which is an out dated model and supply new variant and adjust the prices. This way I can reduce non moving items and avoid cash flow in procuring new items. The General Manager liked the idea, but, shot down the proposal saying that I may have good intention to save, but, there could be others who may  'create' non moving item inventory and dispose at lower cost in exchange to new item by colluding with vendors.

It is a double edged sword !

My ex-bosses and current boss are sometimes scared of my decisions, but, they all know  that I have no selfish interest but to help the company.

 Rules are meant to be followed. But, some rules if they need to be broken, take a bold step and break them....those rules are meant to be broken , so that new rules are written :-)

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