There’s a kind of person in every company who rewrites the rules before they’ve even read them. They see something that doesn’t work, and instead of asking for permission, they just… fix it.
These are the people you need most. And they’re also the ones most likely to get reprimanded for “not following the process.”
We say we want innovation—but then we penalize the very behaviors that create it.
If you want breakthrough thinking, you have to design space for rule-breaking. Not recklessness, not rebellion for rebellion’s sake—but thoughtful, purposeful deviation from business as usual.
Because here’s the truth: some rules protect the business, but others just protect comfort.
The Innovation Behind the Curtain
Innovation doesn’t always start with a grand idea. Sometimes it starts with someone quietly ignoring a broken process because they care more about the outcome than the protocol.
It’s the customer support rep who rewrites a canned response because it doesn’t reflect the company’s values.
It’s the junior developer who fixes a bug in another team’s codebase because they couldn’t sleep knowing it was there.
It’s the project manager who skips the three-week approval chain and builds a prototype in two days with real customer feedback.
These aren’t outliers. They’re intrapreneurs. And they thrive in environments that invite deviation in service of a better result.
We explored this dynamic in Empowering Teams Through Design Sprints—how structure can create freedom. The same principle applies here: give people a safe space to challenge the system, and the system gets better.
Know Which Rules Are Sacred—and Which Are Just Habit
Not all rules deserve to be broken. But not all rules deserve to be followed, either.
There’s a critical difference between:
- Principles, which reflect your values, and
- Policies, which reflect your habits
Most innovation comes from challenging the latter. And often, the only reason those policies exist is because no one’s thought to question them.
Your job as a leader isn’t to enforce blind compliance. It’s to create clarity around what’s truly non-negotiable—and give your teams the freedom to color outside the lines elsewhere.
Create "Permission Zones" for Experimentation
Want more initiative? Stop waiting for people to take it.
Instead, carve out explicit spaces where rule-breaking is expected—even welcomed. Give people a chance to question assumptions without fear of punishment.
You can do this through:
- Designated innovation labs: Cross-functional teams with a mandate to explore
- Opt-in pilots or sandbox projects: Safe-to-fail spaces for trying something new
- “Break-the-rules” retrospectives: Invite teams to surface processes that no longer serve their purpose
What you’ll find is that once people know they won’t get in trouble for challenging the norm, they’ll do it more often—and with better ideas.
And if you’re not ready to blow up the whole system? Start small. As we covered in The Power of Small Wins for Big Breakthroughs, tiny acts of permission can cascade into big cultural shifts.
Build Psychological Safety Before You Bend Anything
Of course, none of this works without trust.
Teams won’t take risks if they think the penalty for failure is shame or silence. They need to know they’re safe—not just legally, but emotionally.
So before you invite people to challenge the rules, make sure you’ve built a culture where:
- Questions are welcomed
- Ideas are respected, not ridiculed
- Mistakes are seen as learning, not liabilities
Psychological safety is the operating system for innovation. Without it, the boldest minds will play small—or leave.
Leadership’s Role: Make It Safe to Be Bold
Leaders set the tone. If you want your people to challenge the status quo, you need to show them how.
That means being the first to admit when something’s not working. It means rewarding people who ask hard questions. And it means resisting the urge to snap back into control mode when things feel uncomfortable.
Because innovation is uncomfortable. It’s messy. It’s uncertain. And it’s almost always easier to just stick to the script.
But if you want real transformation, you have to give your team permission to write a new one.
So go ahead—let your people break the rules.
Just make sure they’re breaking them for the right reasons.
Because the future of your business isn’t built by people who follow every step. It’s built by the ones brave enough to ask, what if we did it differently?
