The Law of the Loaf

One of the responsibilities of leaders is to organise our people and create contexts within which they operate. This context has a significant impact on the results that the teams can achieve. One way we put in place these contexts is through the culture we operate under (intentionally or unintentionally). And this decides how we interact with each other – as one entity moving toward the goal or as individuals working on each our own goals.

It is fairly evident that we are much more effective when we are all working towards a common shared goal. So, the question is how can we achieve this (simple but surprisingly difficult thing).

Here we can learn from the ancient Roman Army and how they organised. Roman army was not only one of the most powerful army but it was so because of how they organised everything while not being at war, so that when they are at war, they don’t have to worry about anything else and everyone just being focused on defeating their opponents.

The battle is not necessarily won at the battlefields but in the way leaders address the little everyday problems when not at battle. And the Romans found elegant ways to solve these little everyday problems.

Let’s take one simple example. Managing the food rationed to the army. As they say, no army can march on an empty stomach. So, how you distribute food to your soldiers is an important decision.

The Roman Army allotted a single loaf of bread as the daily ration for two soldiers. Each one got half a loaf. Obviously, for the soldiers to eat, someone needs to cut the loaf and distribute. Since, any division of the loaf will involve in uneven sizes, human nature would kick in and both soldiers and both would want the larger of the two chunks.

This has the potential to be a conflict situation every single day at every single meal. If the soldiers felt that the distribution of food was not fair to them, they could potentially revolt or at the very least might not be happy and therefore not fully focused on winning the battle. Worst case, there could be fights within the army that could potentially lead to self-destruction.

The Roman solution to this was simple.

One soldier would divide the loaf into two pieces. The other soldier would pick the piece he wanted.

There were no policies or regulations or process on how to divide the loaf. There was no manual describing how to cut the loaf into exact halves. There were no laws about what would happen to a soldier who cheated his partner. There was no training on how to cut the loaf.

There was just a simple rule. A simple rule that took into consideration how we function as humans. A simple rule that understood the needs for checks and balances. A simple rule that makes it almost impossible to cheat and at the same time leaving the decision on what is right to the people in question. So, on a day when one of the soldiers needs to eat more, they can. Between them, they can decide what is fair and who needs how much.

Think about the Law of the Loaf the next time you’re tempted to draft long, complex regulations or instructions to deal with an issue within your teams. Instead think about rules that are simple to understand, easy to implement, come with their own checks and balances and yet is flexible. Sometimes this might be easy to find, sometimes, it might need some work to come to these rules. Engage your teams when it is difficult to create these rules.

Culture is influenced by these rules – one at a time.