In business and in life, we are addicted to creating rules in response to “bad behaviors.” Whether it’s in our businesses, our schools, or our homes, we accept this responsive behavior as normal, and accept it throughout our society. But what is it accomplishing?

Are we really getting better outcomes through more policies, rules, laws, and governance?

We somehow got it in our minds that by creating rules designed to stop unwanted behaviors, that we have someone solved a problem. We couldn’t be more wrong!

As a result of our misconceptions about rules, we wind up becoming helicopter parents to our kids, constant naggers with our partners, and micromanagers at work.

We all know what happens to people when we try to impose strict rules on them: whether it’s your children or your spouse, they will lash out. Why do you think the dynamic at work would be any different?

Like anywhere else in society, by trying to restrict behaviors in business, you will only encourage them even more. In this article, I’ll propose alternative solutions to improve your employees’ workplace behaviors while still maintaining a positive company culture.

Give Your Employees the Freedom to Be Cool

Imagine you buy a pair of shoes from a brick-and-mortar store, only to realize after your first wear that they are too painful to wear to the end of your driveway, let alone for the next few years.

You go back to the store and try to return the shoes, but you hear the dreaded response: “I’m sorry, I’m not approved to accept returns that have been used.”

When employees answer in a way that shifts responsibility elsewhere, I’m always so full of questions that I don’t know where to begin.

They say they’re not approved to accept returns—who is, and why? And I’m curious: How would I know how my feet felt in the shoes had I not worn them for the day?

Or the employee points to the sign in front of the register that describes the no-return policy. This song and dance is the orchestration of some misguided corporate suit crunching numbers to mitigate the risk of financial loss on returns.

However they measured the decision, they missed the single point of failure: build a business with your target customer in mind.

Sure, measure everything—including returns—but allow the messiness of bad behaviors by both the customer and the employee to take their natural course. Don’t micromanage my returns.

The great employees far outweigh the weak ones; the same holds true of customers.

When someone returns a product, and you calculate the cost to create a new policy—one that stops the bad behavior of making returns—think again.

It’s actually easier to not have a policy: don’t bother figuring in the cost of returns, and you’ll be automatically compelled to discover a better way to treat your honest customers well and how to leave your dishonest customers behind.

Run your company to serve the behaviors you want to enforce, not punishing the behaviors you want to disappear. The same holds true for your team and community.

For example, I recently purchased a shirt from Marine Layer. In my struggle to pick the right color this awesome young woman said, “You have a year to figure out if that’s the right color.” Shocked by the statement, I said, “Don’t you know I’m the customer, and you’re supposed to treat me like I don’t matter? What’s wrong with you!” We laughed. She was cool, in part, because the owners gave her the freedom to be cool.

If she were restricted by her corporate policies, I would have had no reason to show any loyalty to her company. Instead, I’m now a devoted part of the Marine Layer community.

How did our businesses turn into bureaucratic systems that force mediocrity instead of excellence?

Start-ups tend to get this right. They might have policies for third-party requirements, but usually not for their internal actions. But as they grow, they overlook bad behaviors and bad decisions and the start-up responds with—you guessed it—a new policy to counteract the behavior.

This habit continues to spiral until they end up like the majority of large companies, blocking their employees from helping the customers.

My rule of thumb is this: never create a policy to correct behavior, whether it’s from your customers or your employees. Be discerning, but still protect the health of your organization by alleviating the fear of failing. The more we allow this insidious creep of policies, the closer we are to killing our businesses.

Instead of bureaucracy and policies, focus on removing the barrier for your team to take the right actions. Don’t worry about protecting your company from your people.

Instead, protect your company from itself, and let your people do what’s right.