Rules, Who Needs 'Em?

"Over the years, I changed from having lots of rules and few suggestions to lots of suggestions and fewer rules. To a large degree, I replaced specific rules and penalties with strong suggestions and unspecified consequences. This gave me much greater discretion and allowed for more productive responses to misbehavior." -- John Wooden

As a corollary to that, over the last few years I've replaced the word "should" with "might" in most situations... it's a little thing, but feels to me like a better reflection of openness and empowerment to others. Who likes to be told "this is the way it has to be?" Not only that, but often "should" is flat out inaccurate. There are exceptions to most every rule, and usually multiple ways to get to the right answer. And sometimes, the outcome isn't nearly as important as they way it was reached -- as a product of the input of the entire team.