Does a manager’s request justify an exception to the rules?

In Basel’s pharmaceutical, life sciences, Rhine logistics and international R&D activities, a request to move faster may encounter a traceability or approval requirement. The practical question is specific: what should you check with your manager before treating their request as permission to depart from a procedure?

What the literature establishes

Stanley Milgram (1963, The Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology) demonstrated experimentally that participants could continue an action they believed was harmful when instructed by an authority figure. This establishes the possibility of obedience despite signs of distress within a particular experimental setting. It measures neither the frequency of procedural exceptions in organisations nor the behaviour of employees in Basel.

When a request becomes merely an operational problem

Ann E. Tenbrunsel and David M. Messick (2004, Social Justice Research) propose a complementary mechanism: the fading of a decision’s ethical dimension, notably through language and self-justification. Their article is a theoretical analysis, not an experiment on managerial relationships. Applied to a manager’s request, this framework invites us to examine whether expressions such as “streamlining the process” conceal the removal of a control.

The premature conclusion

One might conclude that an effective relationship requires suspicion towards every unusual request from a manager. That would confuse an authorised adjustment with circumvention: some procedures explicitly provide for exceptions and specify who can approve them. The issue is therefore not to refuse on principle, but to distinguish the instruction received from the authorisation needed to carry it out. (our executive and employee training programmes)

What these studies cannot promise

A laboratory obedience experiment and a theoretical framework on self-justification do not demonstrate that asking for clarification prevents a workplace violation. Nor do they establish that an employee can question a manager without risking the relationship. Verification must therefore rely on the relevant procedures and competent functions, rather than making the individual employee solely responsible for the safeguards.

A practical check in Basel

As part of SHR’s “Building an effective relationship with your manager” programme, a Basel-based exercise could test, for one month, the clarification of requests perceived as departing from a procedure, whether they concern pharmaceutical documentation, a sample transfer, a Rhine shipment or an international R&D milestone. For each request recorded in an authorised register, check that three elements are available before execution: the rule concerned, the basis for the exception and approval by the authorised person. Measure the proportion of recorded requests with all three elements documented before execution, also reporting the total number of requests and retaining no unnecessary sensitive data. This rate checks a clarification practice, not the absence of violations; if authorisation remains uncertain, the applicable quality or compliance process must take over. To go further: explore the Building an Effective Relationship with Your Manager training in Basel in the canton of Basel-Stadt, or browse our executive and employee training programmes in Switzerland.

In pictures: Building an Effective Relationship with Your Manager in Basel

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