# Policy and Personalization By:: [[Ross Jackson]] 2023-04-06 Organizations exist in perpetual tension between policy and personalization. Policy enables efficient operations. One learns what is to be done; one executes the policy without fear or favor. Policies, at their best, allow everybody to know what is to be done, by whom, and under what conditions. For all the benefits of policy, they tend to be impersonal. Humans long for real connections. Policies preclude personalization. The person executing the policy is a bureaucratic functionary. The person subjected to the policy is considered a case for adjudication. Finding the balance between the benefits of policy and the satisfaction of personalization is challenging. There are no easy answers. One can try to be cute and develop something along the lines of “personalization is our policy,” but this is unlikely to alter the tensions existing between what organizations require and what humans desire. Within metamodern organizations, one likely deals, maybe even plays, with this tension. Perhaps the best organizations can do is to consider our shared humanity as policies are constructed and enacted. #### Related Items [[Policies]] [[Individuals]] [[The Human Condition]] [[Work]] [[Organizational Analytics]]