You're right. This is what happens when things are lax. Nobody wants to be bureaucratic for no reason. Everybody tries to avoid being too serious too soon. There's a reason business jargon is its own meme. But there's also a reason that things trend in that direction for established companies. You need structure for your managers and employees if you want to stop tripping over yourself and you want accountability.

I had a friend of mine recently approach me about an issue he was having with his employees at his small business. My first question was whether they have an employee handbook that says they can't do the things he's trying to prevent (drug or alcohol use on the clock). Working with heavy machinery doesn't mix well with drugs and alcohol, but if people aren't told they can't then there's a chance they will. This might sound obvious, but because they're a small company they were trying to "be fun" and not stuffy. They had beer in the fridge at work for people to crack open on Friday afternoons after a long week. Unfortunately, they weren't only drinking it on Friday afternoons, and they were also smoking weed on company grounds before operating heavy machinery. At some point you have to say enough is enough and drop the fun when people can't be responsible.

Managing people is like being a therapist, a friend, a parent, and a lawyer all in one. And worse, people don't seem to grow up much (if at all) beyond high school. People come to you with their personal problems (or sometimes don't, but a performance issue may arise from a personal problem at home), people need encouragement and honest feedback, people need a firm hand and to be guided and given direction, and you also need to protect the company from potential litigation by saying the right thing or not saying the wrong thing, as well as the need to protect employees from themselves, each other, and third parties (contractors, vendors, clients, and customers). Managing is hard, and that's why companies mandate HR training for management positions. Furthermore, cases are rarely, if ever, clear cut. Two people have a problem with each other? Time to put aside the work I had planned for today and go figure out why these two assholes can't get along. It sounds like managers at LMG need more training, and Colton might not be the right person to lead HR. Employees need to be adults, but also need to be able to rely on management to help them resolve issues they can't resolve themselves. Telling them to figure it out and talk to the other party isn't good enough. LMG needs to do better

I often use the phrase "put on my big boy pants", but have never told an employee to "put on their big boy/girl pants". I've joked that "reading is fundamental" when I misread or skim something and come to the wrong conclusion, but never when somebody else does. That said, I've told an employee that they're acting childish, and explained why I expected more from them. The issues I'm hearing seem to stem from just being relatively young people and being a relatively recently established company. You can't talk to your employees like you talk to your friends. Hell, I was privileged enough to hire a friend recently, and I compartmentalize personal and work. If not, I might end up doing something that could damage the company. I know how much to trust him with, so it's not like my personal experience with him doesn't factor in at all, but I need to choose how much to share, when to share it, and how to share it, even if I want to tell him everything I might know about a particular situation. Maybe if he didn't work for me I'd be more likely to share privileged information because he doesn't work for the same company, but now that he does I need to make sure I don't say something that puts him in a bad spot to know, and doesn't put me in a bad spot if he slips up and divulges privileged knowledge. It sounds like some of the managers at LMG aren't making these distinctions and simply approach work situations like they would personal ones.

"That's not how I meant it" isn't a valid defense, at least in the US, when it comes to HR complaints. It doesn't matter what you meant, but how it was received by others. I'd say they overlooked this one rule a lot based on Madison's writeup, and I'm not, at all, surprised. But, like I said, this comes down to poor training.