What can we learn from a government poster
How can you make your Compliance program as bureaucratic & obstructive as possible while still appearing to be helpful? A poster at Rotterdam train station ostensibly designed to 'help' Ukrainian 🇺🇦 refugees get to the UK, provides some answers.
My thanks to BBC correspondent Anna Holligan who tweeted a picture of it. Having read the poster, I realised that it provided insights into how you can design a process that looks like it allows something good to happen, but in reality, creates Kafkaesque hell designed to prevent it.
In my latest Human Risk video, I break down the processes outlined in the poster to see why they're so obstructive. In doing so, I discover that they've even included one technique that makes things so confusing, that it manages to confuse me when I'm describing it in the video.
It's worth noting that the poster was designed by Eurostar — the people who run trains through the Channel Tunnel between UK and France — who *are* offering Ukrainian refugees free travel. 👏
So, while they are responsible for the poster, they're not responsible for the processes it outlines. That's entirely down to the UK Government. Though they could've written the poster in Ukrainian and made the steps somewhat easier to follow.
Pedants will therefore note that my description of it as a 'Government poster' is therefore technically wrong. But my point remains!
I know some people will argue that the process is just incompetence, rather than deliberately making things hard, but I think that's far too generous.
