Boundaries for What?

The story: The team voted for work-life boundaries. It got the most votes. Then at 11pm a message arrived: "You there?" She replied — it's 11pm, whatever happened to boundaries? He said that was for meetings. Messaging's fine, right? They had voted for the same sticky note and walked away with completely different scopes of what it covered.

What it means for organisations: Policies voted on are not policies defined. The act of agreement — a show of hands, a vote, a nod — creates the feeling of alignment without the substance of it. Work-life boundaries can mean no evening meetings, no weekend messages, no after-hours emails, or all three. Until the team discusses exactly what the boundary covers and where it starts, everyone enforces their own version and violates everyone else's.