Do what I say not what I do, how many of us heard this from our parents & teachers or at least thought that it was one of their mottos? Unfortunately this seems to be a common theme in interactions with all sorts of official bodies as well, now I am not daft enough to mention any by name but it is clearly frustrating when we are pulled up on a certain point yet we experience clear failings in due process.
Recently we have had examples where new procedures have been introduced, that have been poorly thought through, badly implemented and not consistently communicated across the organisation so different departments give differing interpretations and advice – change management anyone? Another example is where we have to respond to deadlines without fail but on occasions time seems a very ill defined concept for others.
We are fortunate in the fact that we regularly deal with these bodies and are familiar with some of these issues, but we know for companies who only rarely have dealings it causes significant problems.