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Is the Internet just a bit-mover, or is it “the” new environment? I chose to describe it as the former while challenging the latter recently, branding me as dour and visionless in the eyes of some readers.

Nonetheless, the Internet is, physically, a way to move bits around. That’s an accurate description. It isn’t, however, the only accurate description, so to restore my luster, here’s an accurate description at a different level: The combination of the Internet and the personal computer (not the Internet alone!) has created an important new environment. In terms of impact on humanity I’d put it on par with telephony — certainly below modern medicine and agriculture, but definitely above Dennis Miller on Monday Night Football.

To understand the Internet’s potential impact, you do need to consider it as place, not technology. You’ll gain more insight from the ramifications of “cyberspace” than of IPv6 and routing protocols, just as psychology gives you more insight into human behavior than the neurophysiology of synapses.

As evidence that cyberspace is a locale, I offer this: Until business met the World Wide Web, IT had never met a customer. The Web is where they first made their acquaintance. It’s been the healthiest experience for IT since the PC first transformed us from a priesthood to just another bunch of employees with a job to do, because it’s IT’s connection to Real Paying Customers that has connected us with revenue.

Never underestimate the importance of revenue. Before the Web, we did underestimate it. We spent all our energy trying to cut costs. And cost-cutting is always a bad goal.

Yes, always. Improved efficiency is a good goal, which may involve reducing unit costs. Improved effectiveness and increased productivity are good goals, either of which may require cost reduction as well. But cost-cutting must be a means to a different end or all you’re doing is playing with numbers.

Want proof? Take a look at a recent study by Professor Gary Hamel of the Harvard Business School, described in the July 17th issue of Business Week. Hamel studied 50 S&P 500 companies whose earnings growth was at least five times revenue growth. No doubt their proprietors figured they were cutting out lots of fat at the time, but guess what: 43 out of the 50 imploded (okay, “experienced significant downturns”) within three years.

It isn’t difficult to understand why this almost has to happen. Think of a business as a hot-air balloon. There are only two ways to keep it aloft: Heat the air, or throw out some ballast. Cost-cutting is throwing out ballast, and eventually you must run out of it. What do you throw out next? The gadget that heats the air … that generates revenue … is a good candidate. It’s pretty heavy after all.

So out it goes, and down the company drifts, because no matter how much hot air its executives generate explaining the benefits of cost-cutting, it isn’t enough to maintain altitude.

Stay connected to revenue. Its importance goes way beyond the money. It energizes every employee in the company, where cost-cutting generates apathy.

To change metaphors, cost-cutters are like hunters who stay home cleaning, sharpening, and polishing their weapons. Yes, it’s important to do it, but whether you’re in the north woods or cyberspace, the excitement of hunting isn’t in weapons maintenance.

It’s bagging the game.

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Dear Bob,

As a new manager, I am interested in any publications or references that are available with sample policies — for example, sample backup policies, helpdesk policies, data retention policies, etc. I’ve searched many libraries and found few actual “templates” from which I can glean knowledge, and, if it was an excellent template, copy shamelessly from. I’m hoping you could point me in the right direction to do more research.

– Managing in Manhattan

Dear Managing,

I’m definitely the wrong guy to ask. One of my missions in life is preventing the creation of policies whenever possible.

I know there are times when they’re necessary, but in my experience it’s just one step from a policy manual to a bureaucracy, and it’s a short step at that. Any time you have a policy, you make employees responsible for memorizing someone else’s thought process instead of using their own. Be careful what you ask for.

Once you form the habit of creating policies, it won’t be too many months before you find yourself moving all of your policies from a 2-inch 3-ring binder to a 3-incher because the 2-incher won’t close anymore. You’ll have turned yourself from a leader into a policy-meister — an awful thing to do.

Another downside to policy creation is that you turn your employees into jail-house lawyers. Your policies will turn into excuses for not getting the job done. They’ll turn into reasons to turn down reasonable requests from customers. And your most innovative employees will waste potentially productive time searching for loopholes, which they’ll then take great glee in publicly exploiting.

Worst of all, your policy book will become a source of disgruntlement, because employees will use the thickness of your policy manual as a direct measure of your lack of faith in their judgment. That’s the only attention most will pay to it, too: The more policies you publish, the less impact any one policy has. The advantage to having a very thin policy manual is that it’s clear to everyone the issues they address really are important.

Anyway, if you copy someone else’s policy, you’re copying someone else’s solution instead of creating one that fits your situation. The reason to create your own policies is that it forces you to think through the issue thoroughly enough to understand the ramifications. Once you’ve thought matters through, you’ll usually conclude you need nothing more than a guideline, or nothing at all — you’re trying to fix a one-time event, which, since it’s already occurred, doesn’t need more fixing.

So always write your own policies. The problem with pre-written templates is that they make the whole process too easy.

The exceptions are compliance issues … insider trading or data retention are examples … or when it’s important to declare a company position on a subject (sexual harassment comes to mind). Under these circumstances you need not just a policy, but one that will hold up in court. Don’t mess around with these — go to either HR or Legal, go directly to HR or Legal, don’t pass Go, and don’t collect $200 either. For that matter, always run any policy you do decide to draft past HR and legal — you never know when your policy crosses some invisible line that can land your employer in court.

Avoid policies whenever you can, and consider: “policy” and “police” have a common etymology.

– Bob

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