Over Time.
Carefully, methodically, over time, the common law and the parliaments have built up a body of law …’ - Chief Justice Debbie Mortimer of the Federal Court of Australia
That 40km/h speed limit outside the local school?
Hundreds of years in the making.
What Matters More.
Of much less importance and likely to be quickly forgotten is the harm caused to another by necessity, accident, or error.
What matters more and will be memorable is the ‘offender’s’ choice of healing balm, and their time and care in applying it.
Lag Leaders.
They’re late adopters of the latest management fad.
Their writing and speech are riddled with stale corporate cliche and jargon.
They avoid offence and therefore the truth.
They’re lag leaders.
Make Smaller Lids.
Designers of products in bottles cleverly include caps that double as cups to pour a measure of the liquid into and use.
The larger the cup, the more product is used, and the quicker the consumer will make another purchase.
The more authority you give a person, the more they will rely on it to get things done.
The less authority - the more they will rely on persuasion, negotiation, enrolment, and creativity.
Miss-take.
It’s only a mistake - miss-take - if I don’t learn - take - anything of future value from it.
Why are You Surprised?
Why are you surprised? Shocked? Confused? Angry? Disappointed? Disorientated?
You chose Leadership. You wanted to Lead. You wanted to take people to where they otherwise wouldn’t have gone.
Did you consider and prepare for the implications?
The people in charge who heard you say: ‘Their direction they took you is wrong. Mine is right. Follow me instead!’
What made you think they’d just respond with: ‘Sure! We concede we failed! We’ll step aside and let you take over!’
The people meant to follow who heard you say: ‘You’ve followed the wrong people. You’ve wasted your time. Trust me instead!’
The virgin territory you’ve set forth upon - without a path or signs or anyone ahead beckoning you forward.
The snagging thickets of dissent, sabotage, discontent, fear, jealousy, and sheer incompetence fetter your progress and tear at your smooth, delicate follower-skin and heart, unblemished by the toil of leading.
Leadership is hard.
That’s It.
The bad boss is like a photocopy of a photo of a photocopy of a photo of a photocopy of a photo of the good boss.
With the word ‘Boss’ written beneath it.
You know it’s the boss because of the title: Boss.
You can discern the shape and indistinct outline of a shadow of what the good boss looks like.
You know it’s the boss because HR points to it and says ‘The boss said…’.
That’s it.
On Love.
The teacher handed out photocopies of Emerson’s essay ‘The Oversoul.’
The last page of the photocopy had the last page of The Oversoul, and the first page of ‘Love’.
I borrowed Emerson’s Essays from the library so I could read the rest of ‘Love’.
I can’t remember anything about The Oversoul.
Love changed my life.
Foul.
Hundreds of boys aged eleven and twelve voluntarily spend ninety minutes doing basketball drills under the scrutiny of a dozen adults.
No names - just numbers drawn in black marker on their arms and upper thighs to identify them to the coaches.
Those boys will be divided into groups of ability, culled, divided into smaller groups, culled again.
The coaches will gather at the end of each session to compare notes and shuffle names.
Lists are emailed to parents together with training timetables.
This process will take a couple of weeks of sessions.
Drill, scrutiny, divide, cull, list, drill.
Parents are not allowed to observe.
At the end of it, there will be seven teams of ten boys, ranked from those with the highest skills, to those with the least.
With a few disappointed and noisy exceptions, everyone accepts the result because the process and each boy’s skills were open.
That’s how a weekend basketball sporting competition operates.
Those same boys - along with hundreds of thousands of others - progress through successive years of school in their same cohort behind closed doors for thirteen years - educated and drilled with a programme based solely on the date they were born.
That’s how thirteen years of school preparing each boy for life operates.
Easy.
Leadership is easy.
Be technically competent in your work.
Believe in something bigger beyond where you are.
Believe another believes in something bigger beyond where they are.
Be prepared to disappoint them.
Be prepared for their disappointment in you.
Care more about the something beyond where you are and the other - than the risk of disappointment.
Act.
Leadership is easy.
The hard bit is the Leading.
By Definition.
By definition, a leader is always on the wrong side of the debate, and on the right side of history.
By definition, organisations do not create, nor tolerate, leadership.
The only people following the words and deeds of a leader in an organisation - work in HR.
And the IT person HR tasked to monitor emails.
Four Words.
Four words to say to a punter that show more authentic leadership skills than you’d learn deep diving in a five day workshop:
‘What do you think?’
Reconnaissance.
The mediocre boss either fearfully waits for problems to solve, or creates problems for others to solve.
The good boss actively and eagerly reconnoitres for both emerging problems to fend away from fettering their workers, and solutions for problems yet to arise.
Behind You!
Lawyers spend our days reading stories.
Claims, allegations, affidavits, counter-claims, precedents, judgments, appeals.
Lawyers know more than anybody else how almost every story ends.
That’s why our job is to yell at our client:
‘Behind you! Behind you!’
