If your measure of compliance is the number of rules, you're probably measuring the wrong thing.

I was talking to someone this week who told me they have a ‘𝘰𝘯𝘦 𝘪𝘯, 𝘰𝘯𝘦 𝘰𝘶𝘵’ policy; introduce a new rule, control or piece of mandatory training, and something else has to go.

I like the principle. It recognises that compliance isn't cost-free and that organisations can't keep adding requirements indefinitely.

But it also got me thinking. People don't experience the number of rules; they experience the weight of them. One rule might be almost effortless to follow because it fits naturally into the way people already work. Another might place a huge administrative burden on their everyday lives. An hour of tedious e-learning with a performative quiz at the end isn't the same as an engaging, practical workshop. It might look the same on paper, but feel very different in practice.

What we should be measuring is cognitive load. Every rule, process and training requirement makes a claim on people's limited brain capacity. Some claims are light, others are heavy. Simply counting them doesn't really measure the burden we're asking people to carry.

So I think the question we should be asking isn't, ‘𝘏𝘰𝘸 𝘮𝘢𝘯𝘺 𝘳𝘶𝘭𝘦𝘴 𝘥𝘰 𝘸𝘦 𝘩𝘢𝘷𝘦?’ It's, ‘𝘏𝘰𝘸 𝘮𝘶𝘤𝘩 𝘥𝘰 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘺 𝘸𝘦𝘪𝘨𝘩?’ And since rules have a sneaky habit of dodging the speak-your-weight machine, it can be tempting to count them. But what’s easiest to measure isn’t always what matters.