"Rules become dysfunctional when they are followed without regard to purpose.
A standard is not a moral statement. In an audit-driven requirement that can become theater, it is an agreement about what the system will do under pressure. Without that agreement, you get exceptions by persuasion instead of principle.
In an audit-driven requirement that can become theater, exceptions accumulate in private. The organization learns that standards are negotiable and that the real rule is persuasion. Name what you are refusing to optimize, so future changes do not quietly destroy the property you thought you were protecting. If the exception path is informal, it becomes politics; write the signal that makes an exception legitimate and who can approve it.
Robert K. Merton is useful here because it forces precision. Write the bar as a yes/no check, then name the exception trigger and decision owner. Save it where decisions live.