Playbook

Playbooks derive from the belief that business is a heuristic. They are normal science: boundaries are delimited, parameters set, risks codified and understood. They speak to a belief structure that the only material risk is that of not complying with the established rules: they adhere to the doctrine of precedent. When the playbook runs out of road, there is an escalation: the matter is referred to a higher figure - a control function, a competent court, the idea being (or ought to be being) that the decision of that court can be fed back down and incorporated into the playbook, stare decisis style, to improve and build out the corpus of established law.

In theory the control function will have its own playbook, and the “court of first instance” is as bound by that as the baseline process is by the basic playbook. There is an algorithm, a recipe, and the main ill that comes about is by not following it. Hence the existence of an internal audit function. Two roles: (i) identifying the ruleset, and (ii) seeking data as to compliance with it. It is a formal role only. Note the behaviour that this encourages: following an if/then logic structure requires no understanding of the underlying subject of the process (you don't need to know how an internal combustion engine works to drive a car), and indeed such comprehension risks challenge or subversion of that process: subject matter expertise might incline one to take a view on a formal, non material issue. This accelerates the particular item through the system, but at a cost to the integrity of the process.

The other thing about subject matter experts is that they are expensive. The name of the game is cost reduction. The ideal process participant costs nothing, follows instructions with perfect fidelity, doesn't break down or make errors, and certainly doesn't think or question the process. One escalates within the process, one doesn't question it. There is a paradox here, though, because to get the best outcome within the playbook parameters requires a degree of advocacy, inasmuch as the process participant is facing the outside world (beyond the playbook control) - you can best negotiate if you understand your subject material. The portfolio risk engine ascribes the same value to any outcome as long as it conforms to the playbook. The principle measurement is speed.

The theory is we operationalise a negotiation process. We divide into doers and thinkers. Wherever there is a playbook, the demands of fidelity and economy require a deskilling and deemphasis of subject matter expertise.

But we also operationalise the escalation process - the dogma of internal audit and the bottomline imperative see to that. As a result subject matter expertise leaks out of the whole system.