Humans tend to abhor chaos, and love to invoke rules to supposedly create order. We like rules because they make us feel protected, aligned, and perhaps operating on a fair playing field.

At the same time, we dislike rules because they can protect us to the point of being smothering, align us to the point of being constraining, and fair to the point of being unfair. Regardless of perspective, there are an increasing number of them—thousands per year. Most folks don’t blink an eye.

What are we doing to ourselves as a society? As organizations? Or individually as humans and leaders? 

Years ago I visited Italy and was surprised at the traffic—and the lack of traffic signals. The city of Naples, with a million people, has about three. Signage is basically ignored. Miniature cars, and the rare larger sedan or SUV, rush all over the place intermingling with Vespas, buses, and trucks. Sorrento, Rome, Florence... all roughly the same. This seems like pure mayhem and madness to visitors from the U.S. with our highly disciplined traffic control—until you start to realize something:

Traffic flows continuously, everywhere. It may appear slower, but without the batch stop-go-stop of mindless obedience to signaled intersections, often waiting for no cross traffic, there is actually more flow. Batch vs. continuous flow?

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