Every day we make rules. But do we know for whom we make these rules? Who are the people in the companies and who are the ordinary citizens we expect to abide by our rules? What do they know about our rules and how do they feel about them?

Quite often we find a large gap between regulation and the people and organizations that have to comply with the rules. Good regulation means regulation that connects with people; rules that support people and companies in their creativity and entrepreneurship; rules that are easy, useful, understandable, fair, and known.

We call this human-scale regulation or Human Rules.

Behind these rules are the people who make them. People working at various levels of government whose job it is to make rules, to implement them, and to ensure compliance.

But are they making the most of the opportunities in front of them, are they using their creativity to look for alternative human-scale solutions? Are they really listening to the people?

“Making smart rules” or even better “finding wise solutions” require us to think beyond the many, the fast, the complicated. It requires attention, needs effort, but most of all needs a change in the way we think, in the way we behave, in the way we are, in human “be-ing”.