My arms were about to be shaken off, so I take my old VW Bug into a little tire shop and ask to have my front tires balanced. No problem...until I find out the wheels are too bent. Well, you can't effectively balance a tire if the wheel is bent. I tell the guy that a school board can't effectively do its work if their policies are bent. Pause.
Anyway, there are a couple of old wheels in the back of the shop that will fit. They're not perfect but they should work better than the ones I have. So then I tell the guy that an upgraded board policy is usually better than a completely bent one. Pause. Blink. Yep, let's switch out the wheels so everything will be "relatively" round. I'll at least get up to good, but maybe not great.
The wheels get switched, the tires are balanced and then a realization....my old hubcaps won't fit on the "new" wheels. Sigh. I tell the guy that the board just updated that bent policy and now there are unintended consequences. Pause. Blink. Cocked head. "Well, we really didn't mean for THAT to happen." So, I'll just go look for some of the clip-on hubcaps somewhere and I'll be good....oh, I guess not because most of the clips on the "new" wheels have been broken off so no hubcap will fit.
Fine, I like to look on the bright side. I now have two "extra" hubcaps for my rear wheels. The car does drives better than before. And, it was already kind of ugly-ish so a bit more ugly is not really that noticeable.
With board policies, you can't just look on the bright side and hope nobody will notice the ugly. Since policies drive your work, it's worth it to invest the time and thought to make them the best they can be to keep your board running straight and true. Look at your policies from different perspectives to avoid those unintended consequences. And if you have to go back to that policy again, then do it. They're not written in stone and you don't have to worry about the hubcaps.
