This year’s Olympics brought us lots of Snoop Dogg, Flavor Flav, and oh, incredible athleticism.

As with any situation involving governing bodies, rules committees, and subjective judging, it also brought complete chaos to gymnast Jordan Chiles last week.

You can Google the controversy to get all the deets, but high level for context: Jordan placed 5th in the floor routine. Her coaches realized the difficulty score was off. They challenged the score. The judges agreed, and Jordan got bronze! The next day, that challenge was challenged. Jordan’s coaches didn’t submit their complaint in time. Jordan had to give the bronze back! USGA got involved with video tape, showing that the coaches filed the challenge within the allotted time. Evidence. Proof. Video.

Jordan gets to keep the bronze!

EXCEPT SHE DOESN’T. (At least at the time of this writing.)

Now, I want to be really clear here. What I know of this is what I’ve read in the media–not social media–but the actual media (FWIW). I do not know all of the details. I do not know all of the sides of the story. I often make people aware–and more directly warn people–not to make assumptions and check your judgments before entering a conversation and asserting your reality as fact. There are always multiple sides to the story.

With that disclaimer done… here’s the part that gripes my 🍑: The Court of Arbitration for Sport, CAS, told USA Gymnastics after they shared they had video evidence “its rules do not allow for a decision to be reconsidered in the face of new evidence.”

This mentality drives me insane. It’s like they’re saying, “We have a rule. The rule is to follow the rule. Oh, you have evidence? No matter. The point of what we do is to enforce rules as they are stated and not bring logic, evidence, or perspectives into this decision-making. Rules are rules are rules. We make the rules. We keep the rules. There is no adjusting the rules. That is our job. Rules.”

Who are the rules for? What impact do those rules have on reality? What happens when reality contradicts your arbitrary rules on a subjective scoring situation?

I get that we can’t do everything willy-nilly–there needs to be order and process and, yes…at times…rules.

When we lose sight of the impact of the rules to follow them, we lose the point.

Can you even imagine what Jordan is going through? Or the Romanian gymnast Ana Barbosu, who thought she had the bronze, then dropped to fifth, and is now told she’s got bronze again as soon as Jordan returns her bronze medal in the most pathetic attempt at take-backs ever?

Are those people at the CAS factoring in the humans behind their rules?

From my understanding, at the end of the day, Jordan’s coaches realized they didn’t follow the difficulty score rules, so then they followed the rule that said they could challenge it and did so in time, according to physical evidence.

It seems to me that a group that is so hell-bent on following rules would appreciate all the rules that were followed.

Rules. Policies. So often, they are put into place because of one bad egg or one crappy situation. Then they get written in stone, enforced arbitrarily, used to explain bad or lazy behavior and lack of logic, and then we wonder why people throw up their hands in frustration.

When you examine your organization’s rules and policies, when was the last time you performed a logic check and asked yourself a few questions?

Why is this rule in place?

Who is it serving or not?

Who is this rule/policy for?

What is the purpose of this rule/policy, and is enforcing it equaling that outcome and purpose?

You can change your rules and policies. You can adjust. Because nothing makes you lose credibility, trust, and authority more than holding on to a rule that dismisses evidence, reality, and humanity.

Just ask Jordan and Ana.

It turns out Flavor Flav made Jordan a signature bronze clock necklace. Could that masterpiece carry more weight than a bronze medal? Perhaps not. But Flavor Flav’s caring, purity, and thoughtfulness speak volumes to the tone deafness of the CAS rule followers.