My grandmother's name was Edna A Ball. For as long as I can remember she lived with us in our house in a small addition off of the back porch. She was a fixture in my life and provided me with many great memories.

In a family of Republicans she was a staunch FDR Democrat. She didn't argue politics with us, she simply told us we were wrong and that was that. As a strapping 18-year-old full of myself, one of the few people I truly feared was Gram. I knew she could whip my butt if she really wanted to. But she left the discipline to my parents and concentrated on her cooking and baking. She liked to help my mom with the Sunday meals. I still remember the Sunday noon meal waiting for us when we got home from church: Pot roast with brown potatoes, gravy, corn and rolls. Desert was usually pie of the chocolate or lemon variety.

But what she really did best was oatmeal chocolate chip cookies. She always had some stashed somewhere and they were awesome. I remember helping make them. Flour, sugar, water, eggs, shortening and cinnamon were all mixed with the chips and baked to perfection. It was a kid's dream come true. I used to think no one could bake her cookies like her. That is until I did. Yes, it's true. I bake oatmeal cookies just like Grams. The secret is the recipe off of the back of the Quaker oatmeal carton. Disappointing but true; Gram's recipe was available in every store in America. What I thought was magic as a 4-year-old was freedom as an 18-year-old. Now I could have her cookies anytime I wanted without pestering her all the time.

So why the long dissertation about cookies and Grandma's recipes? The point is this: anyone can do the same thing I did. Nestle does it all the time and makes a fortune at it. If all else fails, follow the recipe.

A recipe is no different than a protocol. A recipe is a list of ingredients and instructions that when followed result in good food. A protocol is a list of actions and instructions that when followed result in a good outcome. Now I know and you know there are no guarantees in life. Things can still get messed up even with a recipe or a protocol to follow. But we certainly stack the odds in our favor when we know what we are going to do, how to do it and when we are going to do it. We should view a protocol as a tool to simplify our job. It gives us freedom to act as well as a safety net for protection.

As I see it, protocols provide three distinct advantages: