Have A Say.
'Whatever you do in life, policy, politics, commodities, consumer stuff, make sure the voter understands there's some opportunity at least – whether they take it on – for them to have a say. 'Cause otherwise, what's the point?'
- Mark Textor, Political Campaign and Corporate Strategist
Step 5 of the Five Steps to a Good Decision is to Give a Hearing.
It's an opportunity for the 'voter' - the person who will be affected by your decision - to have a say.
Here's how you do it:
'Based upon the following information I'm considering making X decision that may cause Y to you. You are invited to give me any reasons why I should not make this decision. I will take your reasons into account when deciding what to do.'
It's more than a token gesture.
It allows the decision maker to hear what should be the most compelling argument against their decision by the person who has the most to lose. That person has the greatest incentive to present every possible counter-argument.
Their response is one of the best antidotes to groupthink.
If a decision maker is reluctant to show his decision making reasoning to a person who may suffer loss as a result of it, then it calls into question how confident he is of his argument.
A sign that it won't be a good decision.
A Complicated Web of Events and Conditions.
The New Yorker published an article describing how prosecutors of a high profile defendant in New York made a wrong decision about a key piece of evidence. Instead of firing the lawyers responsible as expected, the District Attorney decided to inquire into the organisational errors that had led to the mistake.
She knew the lawyers were skilled professionals. She knew that they had not intended to make the error. 'What factors, she wondered, had caused competent people to make bad choices?'
The DA introduced a procedure well known to the health care and air transport industries where objective searches for causes of error take precedence over blame and personal liability.
What emerged was a 'complicated web of events and conditions'. It was 'a classic organisational error: a series of small slip-ups that cascaded into an important mistake'.
The DA concluded that 'even in a busy office like hers, she needed to create a step in which everyone could pause during certain complex or high-profile cases and have someone else take a fresh look at the evidence.'
Mistakes are treated as inevitable in decision making as successes and thus there needs to be the capacity for dealing with, and learning from them in a blame-free environment.
Another study of errors in prosecutions culminated in several jurisdictions agreeing to each doing a systems analysis of a high-profile criminal justice failure.
'In every case, the horrendous legal accident turned out to have multiple causes embedded in the legal system. There was no single bad actor. '
One case convened a group of more than thirty people representing every agency that had made contact with a repeat offender. It was discovered that 'in almost every incident, the people who made decisions about the boy had not seen his larger pattern of violent behavior because they did not have access to his complete records, or did not see them.'
In another involving a police officer who had committed multiple acts of professional misconduct, the review was able to 'identify seemingly minor perturbations—poor performance evaluations, excessive medical leaves, discourtesy complaints—as warning signs for early intervention.'
One participant in the studies said that 'the idea is to create a culture of learning from error—to look at what went wrong, what factored in the cases, and how to change the system so that doesn’t keep happening.'
As an expert adviser from air transport safety stated:
'I stressed the fact that, although it’s perfectly reasonable to be angry at a staff member who makes a mistake, you’re deluding yourself if you think simply firing someone gets to the underlying cause of the error in the first place.'
How Knot to Lead*.
333 BC: Alexander the Great slices through the Gordian knot with his sword, demonstrating how difficult problems can be solved with bold strokes.
332 BC: Decisive Leadership: How to Solve Difficult Problems Through the Application of Power released through Nile Publishing on Papyrus, Parchment, Spoken Word and Tablet.
331BC: First recorded bullying complaint.
330 BC: First evidence of complainant beheading.
329 BC: Date of first entombment of an Army of Human Resource Consultants alongside their Pharaoh.
*may contain traces of historical inaccuracies.
A Good Decision Takes as Long as A Good Decision Takes.
On 20 September 2013 two Qantas Airbus aircraft with a combined passenger load of more than 600, nearly collided 12km in the air almost above Adelaide.
The Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) began an investigation that day. It said it would be finished by September 2014 - almost a year later. In November 2014 and already two months overdue, it updated the investigation status to be that the report would be made available to the public by January 2015.
On 5 March 2015, almost two and a half years after the incident, six months longer than the date it was first promised, and two months past the amended reporting date, ATSB Transport Safety Report Aviation Occurrence Investigation AO-2013-161 was published.
Meanwhile, hundreds of aircraft carrying thousands of passengers continued to fly the same routes each day in the control of the same systems and people and decision making doing the same things that failed on 20 September 2013 and nearly killed 600 people.
The more important the decision, the longer it should take.
Decision makers can be tempted to do the opposite: Important decisions must be made quickly. Urgently. Decisively. Get it done. Get it over with.
Not so for the ATSB. The risk that the undiagnosed errors in person and machine could be repeated with catastrophic results did not compel it to compromise its decision making process.
How long should a decision take? It should take as long as a good decision takes. How long do the Five Steps take?
The ATSB process was not initiated by a complainant. Decision makers resolving complaints are under pressure to decide quickly. Complaints policies impose response times. Complainants demand answers. Neither serves good decision making.
This is one of many examples where a clear Widget cuts through the complexity. Does speed, appeasing a demanding complainant, or meeting an artificial time constraint in a policy or self-imposed serve the Widget?
The ATSB had a clear Widget:
'The ATSB’s function is to improve safety and public confidence in the aviation, marine and rail modes of transport through excellence in: independent investigation of transport accidents and other safety occurrences; safety data recording, analysis and research; fostering safety awareness, knowledge and action.'
As each self-imposed deadline for the report approached, the ATSB would have asked itself: 'Will publication on the promised date serve our Widget? Which is more important: the integrity of our deadlines or of our findings and recommendations about aviation safety?' Appropriately the answer was the latter. Let's update the information on our website and continue inquiring with excellence.
Time constraints - 'Complaints will be resolved in x days' - should only be added to decision making processes if they serve the decision maker's Widget. 'Your decisions take too long' is not sufficient reason alone to impose deadlines. Better to manage expectations. Under promise and over deliver. Next time ATSB - promise us a report in two years and delight us by publishing it in one and a half.
A deadline may be appropriate to improve the turnaround time for a broken toaster under warranty. Yet it may compromise the careful analysis needed to understand the failure of a complex system.
Such as why two 240 tonne aircraft with advanced navigation aids and under air traffic control converged at a closing speed of one and half times the speed of sound 38,000 feet above the earth.
Or why that person did that thing.
Harry is Unhappy.
'There's a critical question that I ask myself:
What do I need to do right now tend the root of inner wisdom that makes work fruitful?'
- Parker Palmer
Dear Harry
Thank you for your letter in which you requested that I make you happy.
I have considered your application in accordance with our Happiness Policy, in particular Clause 17.2 which makes me responsible for the happiness of the employees in my line of management.
As part of my consideration of your request, I sought advice from a number of people, including our Chief Happiness Officer, our Human Resources Officer, our Finance Officer, the Chaplain, Payroll, and your line manager. I also reviewed your employment history and your current duty statement.
On 17 July I wrote to you and summarised what each of them had to say and invited you to comment on any of it.
I carefully read your 427 page all caps reply and have taken each of your submissions into account in making my decision. I also want to express my sympathies about your cat, your football team, and your ongoing acne irritation.
In accordance with Clause 19.8 of the Happiness Policy that authorises me to make decisions about employee Happiness, I have decided that we have met all of our obligations to make you happy, namely:
- Paid you each fortnight
- Performed every other term of our employment agreement with you
- Listened to you whine about your unhappiness and considered whether we were responsible for it
Unfortunately the space-time continuum and the limitations of our technology budget do not allow us to send you back in time to get more hugs and fishing trips with your Poppy.
I encourage you to take advantage of our Employee Assistance Plan to support you as you grieve about Tiddles, suggest that you consider joining the company Rounders team to engage you with a winning recreational pursuit, and I will approve personal leave for you to seek medical advice about your zits.
I happily look forward to you doing your job.
Warmly.
The Root Cause of All Conflict.
You can fight the same battle each time: each dispute, each complaint, each conflict, each difficult conversation over and over.
Same skirmish, different combatants.
Or you can move upstream and address the root cause:
Come to the Edge.
Come to the edge.
We might fall.
Come to the edge.
It's too high!
COME TO THE EDGE!
And they came
And he pushed
And they flew.
A perk of being a lawyer is that you learn a little about a lot in the course of taking instructions from clients and asking questions about their work and lives that will help tailor the legal advice.
An airman explained to me about microfails. The way I remember it, every new aircraft type is put in a test laboratory and subjected to flexing and bending and other forces that replicate the stresses it will experience in flight. The airframe's responses are electronically measured and calibrated into units called 'micro fails'. When the airframe finally breaks, the engineers and designers know how many micro fails it took to do so and therefore its tolerance to the unpredictable forces of flight.
An airframe's life is calculated as being as long as it takes to suffer a certain number of micro fails. An aircraft that does a lot of high stress manoeuvres that result in G forces on it will suffer more micro fails in a flight than if it flew straight and level. It will therefore have a shorter life.
Instruments in the aircraft detect and record each micro fail. The engineers monitor the total and when it reaches certain amounts, they will replace parts of the airframe, and 'rewind' the micro fail measurement instrument to zero.
MIcro fails are invisible. As the name suggests, they are tiny fractures of the integrity of the airframe that gradually degrade its strength until the point when one too many stressors adds the micro fail that breaks the aeroplane.
The airman who came to see me was alleging that the engineers were rewinding the micro fail measuring instruments to avoid having to ground the aircraft and put them into maintenance.
People have micro fails in response to forces around them in the workplace.
Missed promotion. Bang. A hundred micro fails.
Frustrating meeting. Shudder. Ten micro fails.
Brusque email written in haste. Ouch. Two micro fails.
A name forgotten. One micro fail. Catastrophic explosive decompression resulting in loss of a sense of proportion and humour and crash landing into stress leave.
Everyone has a unique total micro fail capacity before they break. A boss can rarely predict the stressor that will push the worker beyond their limit. It's not always the obvious less than perfect act of management. It might be an innocent misunderstanding. Crack.
Organisations wrongly assume that a new employee starts on zero (ignoring the legacy of their last job and their life in general) and assume to standardise the total micro fails for each employee by their contract, policies, pay and values.
People also wrongly assume that quitting a job and finding a new one will reset their micro fail metre to zero. There's almost always leftover fatigue that transfers to the new boss.
Organisations have various ways of doing the people maintenance that they again assume allows them to rewind the individual and collective worker micro fail meters to zero from time to time
Pay increases.
Leave.
Promotions.
Public praise.
Sometimes bosses just replace the people frames for new ones.
Worse, they introduce the equivalent of fraudulently rewinding the meter by running a professional development or team building day, introducing some new values of code of conduct, or emailing out inspiring and motivating words.
After the butchers paper has been binned, the mandatory training has been completed, the all staff email has been deleted - a boss chips a worker in front of their peers and deep inside the metal of each witness staff member, fissures grow and the individual micro fail tally resumes its countdown to breakdown.
Legions of experts, lawyers, consultants, therapists and researchers make their living both inside and external to organisations from training, advising, measuring, mentoring, coaching, facilitating, supporting, assisting, delaying, mending and covering up the human equivalent of the micro fail.
It's mainly placebos. Good and bad bosses alike are never sure what act of theirs will be the one too many.
A bad boss can routinely be bad and his workers will keep on building Widgets.
A good boss may omit one name from a speech acknowledging thirty others and the entire office is sprayed with debris and body parts from the disintegrating staff member for months afterwards.
So we keep on legislating, regulating, training, coaching and parenting in a vain attempt to smooth out the turbulence of the workplace and keep everybody happy.
It's not working. It can't. We can keep rewinding the meter or flying straight and level and avoiding tight turns and gravity, but we're deluding ourselves and each other.
As M Scott Peck wrote in the opening sentence of his book 'The Road Less Travelled':
“Life is difficult. This is a great truth, one of the greatest truths. It is a great truth because once we truly see this truth, we transcend it. Once we truly know that life is difficult-once we truly understand and accept it-then life is no longer difficult. Because once it is accepted, the fact that life is difficult no longer matters.”
The workplace is part of Life. It's difficult. The more we seek to protect people from the stressors of doing their jobs with good and bad bosses, peers, subordinates, clients, customers, machines, and gravity, the greater disservice we do to them by denying them the opportunity to confront Peck's Great Truth, learn from it, and to transcend it. All in a relatively safe environment - the workplace - compared to the unpredictability of the rest of Life where there is no boss to blame for what befalls us, and often no Widget to measure our bearings from.
I checked with my Aeronautical Engineer friend Francisco about my memory of micro fails. He'd never heard of them. He works on modern Boeing 787s.
'I think that you're referring to aircraft structures of the past that were built with a safe life,' he said. 'Newer aircraft are fail safe.'
We need to rethink our 'work frame' design and maintenance. We need to evolve from our artificial 'safe life' philosophy of minimising the consequences of engaging with the healthy human stressors that arise from doing any job that's worthwhile - ie Life. We need to stop demanding that the boss shields us from the natural turbulence and forces of doing innovative, creative, speed-of-sound work.
We need workers to become the equivalent of fail safe and bosses with the wisdom and bravery to allow it.
We need to come to the edge so that we can fly.
Peace Among the Thorns.
Per Ardua Ad Astra - Through Difficulties to the Stars.
The Latin motto of the Royal Australian Air Force.
Pax Inter Spinas - Peace Among the Thorns.
The Latin motto of the Benedictine monks.
This is that motto in a logo form as it was in the mid 20th century.
See the Pax - Peace - clearly surrounded by thorns with three nails at its base.
This is that motto in a logo form in 2014.
See the thorns that once surrounded the Pax have been softened into a laurel wreath? The three nails replaced by the 'Three Mounds of Perfection'? (Faith, Hope, Love.)?
I can hear the Marketing Consultant: 'The Peace bit is awesome. People will love that. Not so much the Thorns bit though. Like...Lose the Thorns. And Love. Can you, like, add something about Love? Love's a sure winner. Yeah. Peace and Love. And you know what? Wrap them in a laurel wreath. People love laurel wreaths. Olympics and all that. Awesome!'
In 2014 we want the Peace. We won't suffer thorns to find it.
Save us from Difficulties.
Just give us the Stars.
Challenge Them Into the Future.
Dr Fiona Wood, AM is one of the world's leading plastic surgeons who specialises in burns patients. Earlier this year she was interviewed about what she had learned from her surgical research and practice about Good Decision Making and Leadership.
She started where all Leadership and Good Decision Making begins - the Widget - or 'purpose' as Dr Wood described it:
'I think decision making is something that you have to really take on - I was almost going to say a level of aggression - but a level of purpose might be a better term. Because you have to make a decision. There is someone in front of you that needs your help - you have to make a decision.
Dr Wood acknowledged that decision making is cumulative - that each decision informs the next:
'That decision may not be right – you have to take that. You have to understand that the decision you've made, the action you've taken, has led to then making the next decision. Sometimes it will be right, sometimes wrong. You've just got do deal with it with a level of purpose. And so you bring to the table all your experience - the knowledge that brought you to that point. And it's a question really of visualising the outcome.'
Her Widget focus is paramount in her thinking, and relies on the systems that have been developed to support it:
'I see this individual....If you meet me as a professional you're having a bad day. So they are damaged, and now I want to use everything in my power, in our systems that we work in, in our systems and the knowledge that is out there to make their path to the outcome the very best it can be.'
Even though in each operation she is focussed on the person before her on that day, she maintains her disciplined focus on a more strategic Widget. Each patient illuminates the path to her Widget, yet in such a way that nether the immediate needs of her patient, or the longer term Widget journey is compromised:
'And the outcome that I've visualised for many, many years is scarless healing. We've changed the goalpost. We've inched doggedly there...are we there all the time? Absolutely not. But we're making progress. So it's visualising that outcome and making every play such that you can move it closer to that outcome day by day. And it's learning. It's always taking the blinkers off and learning so that whatever the decisions you've made today, you make sure that you make better ones tomorrow. And that has been actually an entrenched coping strategy to make sure that you critically analyse the work of today to make sure that tomorrow is better.'
Dr Wood's focus does not mean that she is blind to other new information that can serve her Widget:
'I see people out there that do nanotechnology, or genetics or all sorts of different things - psychology, neuroscience and they've got parts of my jigsaw. I need to get parts of that jigsaw and bring it in to play here. And therefore you have to make decisions on lots of different levels. But when you pare that all away you look at the person in front of you, you've got to get the removal of the dead tissue without them bleeding out such that you can repair them the best you can with today's technology such that you set them up for the best outcome.'
Her Widget focus allows her to quickly engage a surgical team with the needs of each patient:
'I teach my guys: As you walk in you make sure you connect with everybody in the room and if there's people you've never seen before you write everything on the board that you're going to do. You should not be making the decisions while you're doing it. You should have visualised it - you go in knowing what you're going to do and knowing your escape routes. So all of that has to be in your mind. And you have to see the landscape. What is it that you've got to work with in terms of your human resources - and engage them. Make sure they understand what you're trying to do and feel the passion - feel that for that period of time the only focus is for that individual. And that's a really important part of the whole. Engaging everyone.'
Dr Wood explained how the path towards the Widget is a meandering one, and that we should not measure our progress on the result of one decision alone:
'The outcomes have got to get better every day. And it's not linear. I don't live in an environment where every day that passes your chance of survival increases. It's not linear - it's a roller coaster. The waves of infection come relentlessly over, unless we've completely sealed - the person weakens and weakens and weakens. A third of the patients who don't survive will survive somewhere around three months. And they're hard days.'
Dr Wood affirmed Step 1: Step Back as being important in good decision making:
'We have this concept that 'Oh, it's macho to keep going'. But it isn't macho to keep going if your performance falls away. And so for a long, long time I've been very aware of people around me and trying to work out who needs to be rotated out...and so it's having that awareness and as I've got older, I don't stay in and so part of it is rotating yourself out, so that it becomes acceptable....
Dr Wood's ideas on leadership are consistent with Creating the Space and Defining the Purpose and inviting people into that space and using the focus on the Purpose as vehicles to reach their potential:
'I think leadership…Vision...is really interesting. Because I believe that everybody can dream. I think leadership is giving people permission to dream. Because I think if you take the time to listen to people you'd be amazed at what they dream. And then you encompass that dream into a vision.'
Yet always the laser Widget focus:
'I saw a child in 1985 and it changed my life. I thought 'That child is so badly injured from a cup of coffee?' We've got to be able to do better. I've carried that photograph around with me for a long time.'
Dr Wood addressed the potential for conflict between Widget focus and learning where we are in relation to our Widget, and the need to get the day-to-day work done. She described the importance of being disciplined in routine and preparation in order to be creative:
'What we want to be is innovative problem solvers but we want to generate outcomes on a regular basis. In every field of endeavour that is a conflict - on the surface of it. But when you start to dig a little bit deeper… I indicated that it is not appropriate to be making decisions about where you cut when it's right there in front of you. You've made those decisions previously. You've visualised. you've gone to the table - whatever table it is - with your outcome in mind and understanding the opportunities you've got to get there. So there’s an element of planning almost on the run all the time. It's getting into the habit.'
She affirmed the idea that good decision making is being confident enough about what you know, to be attentively curious about what you don't:
'What is it that I bring to the table? What's my experience? What's my knowledge? The lawyers do it all the time with precedent, looking back at old cases. Get into the habit that it's always ticking over. Questioning the landscape. And I think underpinning that is a fundamental belief that today is not as good as it gets. Not in that you criticise today. It's not bad. It's the best it can be - today.'
Dr Wood's approach to learning is to seek out feedback. She goes beyond a healthy belief in relying on the power of complaints to provide it. In fact, why wait for a complaint to inform you, and assume that if there is none that you are doing okay? She advocates declaring your understanding of your Widget to the world and inviting it to comment:
'As you've finished, as you've closed up and you walk away, you don't strut. You actually think 'Okay - given that same situation happens tomorrow, how could I have analysed it better, and then you go through the whole exercise again…the debrief. That's not specifically surgery, It's not specifically sport. It's part of exercising your mind. And the next step is doing that in public. Because that's when it starts getting exciting because there's absolutely no doubt we're in an environment where you need multiple minds to solve problems. And so you have to have that level of inquiry and sort of ticking over and then you connect. And you start to develop a language of innovation and visualisation. So you can push forward.'
Dr Wood shared her belief in the value of 'trauma' as a stimulus to growth, extending the literal trauma to her patients' longer term recovery and resilience, to a metaphor about character:
'I can track periods of my life where I went through post traumatic growth. And it wasn't painless. The hardest thing for me post Bali was that people wanted to know my name. Yet I recognised that as part of that I became stronger. And I became able to engage in this positive energy, in this positive good news stories. And I had my blinkers taken off such that i engaged with the community in a broader sense....How we can use energy that is so profoundly negative and turn that around - I think that's fascinating. It's tiring sometimes. And it's hard. But part of that post traumatic growth is having the infrastructure around you, having the people and connectivity around you that give you the ability to lead.'
She had some powerful advice to give on how to deal with criticism and how innovation challenges conventional thought about 'the way things are done':
'There's an element of inertia in practice. Whether that be clinical practice or business practice...This level of inertia is really quite an interesting animal. Because it's useful, but it's also a hindrance. We need to have a level of capacity to maintain things moving forward at a pace that can be managed. And equally, we have to have people testing out the front. And so I have engaged with surgical inertia up front and centre and I've had to make the decision not to engage in that negative energy but to continue to be driven by the positive outcome, collect the data, present the data. And as the things roll forward, the data will speak for itself. And so that inertia starts to be overcome. And I think that the challenge when you're in a situation with that level of inertia is to understand you've got a choice. You turn around and you fight it…and it's bigger than you. Or you stay out the front and you wait for them to catch up. And they get there.'
Yet always returning to the supremacy of the Widget - and the need for a leader to be clear about defining it to the team, regardless of how clear it is to her or how passionate she is about it:
'I had a really interesting lesson in leadership inadvertently in the early 90s. 1991 I hit the ground running. I was very focussed on time to healing. Every day in a burns unit is a day too long. I aggressively engaged in a skin culture programme....the social worker at the time who was a bit older than the rest of us came and said 'Stop!' I thought 'What do you mean, Stop? ‘Sit down. I need to talk to you. I've been asked to come and speak with you. Well you're too intimidating.’ (Give me a break! )‘We understand that what you're doing has got to be right. It's got to have some real benefit. But we don't know what it is. We can feel your passion. We have no idea how we can explain it to the parents, to the patients, to their relatives, to the new nurses when they come on. We're all at sea…’
Dr Wood learned the definition that a leader is someone who makes good decisions that others choose to follow:
'Leadership 101. No team - no leader. Done. The elastic was at breaking point and almost snapping behind me. And had I not had that energy that they all got caught up in, it would have snapped well and truly. So that's the point when I said 'Right. Everybody who's at this table is here for a reason. You've got to be able to be leaders in your own right....Passion on its own doesn't cut it. The communication bit has to be strong.'
A Leader retreats:
There is absolutely no point in me being so entrenched that as I get through my final kick, everything fades away. Succession is so important. It's not because I want to be remembered. It's because the people need treating! And they need to be treated better and better and better. So for me, it's delegation. But delegation with meaning. Empowerment in a real sense. I need to let them deliver. Such that I can get out of my head, get it on paper and challenge them into the future. But in a way that is not intrusive. Not imposing my surgical inertia on them. But allowing them to grow.
Dr Wood leads a team in Good Decision Making in life and death situations. It's not just theory to her. She is still able to use the language of 'dreams', 'visualisation', 'mistakes', 'passion', 'innovation' and 'personal growth' while literally operating at the leading edge of science.
If Dr Wood can save lives while still creating the space for these ideals that allow others to become who they are, then most workplaces have no excuse.
President Obama is Disappointed in Me.
'You've got to know when to hold 'em
Know when to fold 'em
Know when to walk away
And know when to run.'
- The Gambler, Kenny Rogers
President Obama is disappointed in me.
In you. In all of us.
He's trying to lead the World.
And our inertia is frustrating him.
St Benedict reluctantly abandoned his sixth century hermit life after monks pleaded with him to become the Abbot of their monastery.
He set doing what he'd been asked to do - lead the monks.
They rebelled and tried to kill him.
Benedict defied the hero leader model.
He shrugged his shoulders and walked out.
As Gregory the Great explains in his Dialogues on the life of the Saint, if he hadn't done so, Benedict risked 'losing himself' and 'not found them.' If you 'perceive [your] labour to be fruitless in one place....remove straight to another, where more good may be done.'
Benedict went on to found twelve more monasteries, perform many miracles, and most importantly for us, write his Rule of St Benedict, containing everything he'd learned about how to live in community under the authority of an Abbot. His Rule influenced the secular rule of law in Western Europe and beyond. All because he abandoned his leadership post.
One of the many myths in Leadership Lore is that leaders don't quit.
Giving up is the antithesis of mythical leadership.
So leaders persist beyond when they should have followed Benedict and 'removed' themselves.
If you're a leader and no-one is following - hand in your badge.
Even the well-meaning leaders keep standing at our cell door they've opened for us, frustrated that we won't budge. (I'm looking at you, President Obama.)
The bad ones rely on positional power and our need for currency and calories.
Both losing themselves and everyone who suffers them.
If the President of the United States can feel that we've let him down, so can you.
Leader or worker:
If your labour is fruitless
If you're out of aces.
Quit.
Go and give reforming Western Europe a go. It might be easier.
Or stay and do your job.
But whatever you do -
Don't quit and stay.
The Root of All Conflict.
All conflict is this:
Did you make your Widget.
In every courtroom this is the case for the plaintiff, applicant, appellant, prosecution:
Where's the Widget you promised?
Where's the speed you said you'd drive at when we licensed you?
Where's the house you said you'd build in our contract?
Where's the work you said you'd do when we employed you?
Where's the safe workplace you said you'd provide for us?
The judges who rule on these questions can't build those Widgets. They have their opinions but that's Hell, not justice.
Judges assume that you're the best person to define your Widget specifications. In the contract you signed, the law that binds you, the policies that you wrote.
The judges decide like this:
'We've never built your Widget. But we can read the Widget blueprint in your policies, contract, agreement, legislation.'
'We've heard the evidence of what you delivered.'
'Is there a gap?'
'Did you drive at the speed you agreed to when you got your licence?' (Judges aren't experts in town planning, physics, or metallurgy.)
'Did you build the house with the brand of bathroom tiles your contract promised?' (Judges aren't experts in Interior Design or Italian slate.)
'Did you do what the company's code of conduct required of you?' (Judges don't assume that their values are yours.)
Judges trust that you're the best Widget definer.
If what you made isn't what you promised - then the Judges order: 'Make what you said you'd make', or alternatively 'Do what you agreed you'd do if you didn't.' (Pay a fine, go to prison, pay compensation.)
Do what you said you were going to do.
Make your Widget.
It's called 'Integrity.'
It's all about the Widget.
Precision Ordinance onto a Target.
'All the departments are vital to make a jet fly off the carrier and put a piece of precision ordinance onto a target as per national tasking. Without one department- without Religious Ministries without the Legal department without the Reactor Department without Supply Department without hot water without cold water and steam for the catapults - none of it works.'
- Officer on the nuclear powered aircraft carrier USS Nimitz
Few organisations have the Widget clarity of the literal or figurative precision of ordinance striking its target.
Yet the military camouflages its Widget - 'Applying the maximum amount of violence permitted by law onto the enemy' behind 'Defending Australia and its national interests'.
If that more palatable language promotes the people and the government to provide the defence force with resources and recruits to to inflict violence on the enemy - then its Widget is served.
If Religious Ministries helps launch weapons platforms into the skies to drop explosives that shred property and flesh - then praise the Lord and pass the ammunition!
If 'People are our most important resource' increases the share price, then preach!
Without one department - none of it works.
The bombs don't hit targets.
The share value doesn't rise.
The Widget doesn't get made.
Be honest with yourself about the Widget that you choose to give your time and attention.
Words matter.
Naming the Widget.
'All consciousness begins with an act of disobedience.'
- Carl Jung.
The Widget can inspire rebellion.
'My life is not just making Widgets'.
'I'm a people person not a Widget person.'
'My work is not reducible to a Widget.'
'I don't like the idea of a Widget.'
'It's not that simple.'
Okay.
What is your life about then?
What does being a people person mean?
What is your work?
Why is it complicated?
Naming the Widget - the thing we serve eight hours a day, five days a week - may be confronting.
We awaken to how meaningful - or meaningless - our life is.
Or we confront that we don't know what it is that we doing with our hours.
Or we respond with the not the Widgets.
We declare: 'That's not what I do, not who I am, not what I stand for.'
'That's not what I've sacrificed my hours, my dreams, my relationships, my time with my children, my integrity, my soul for.'
The Widget is a reference point that can tell us were we are - or where we're not.
It can have as much or as little value or connection to reality for us as time, a clock, a compass, a map, our age, our name, our job description, our boss's feedback, or the money in our bank.
Our reaction to the concept of a Widget can teach us.
Even its rejection announces: We have a pulse!
The Secret Deal With the Boss.
'Leaders and followers collude in the imagining of leadership as heroic feats that will fix problems and usher in a new era. These practices are seductive because they release individuals from the work of leading themselves, from taking responsibility for thinking through difficult problems and for critical decision-making.'
- Amanda Sinclair, Leadership for the Disillusioned
The dominant narrative in Leadership is the Leader as hero, protector, parent.
A recent article in Bloomberg Businessweek is evidence of the power this story has in our culture.
It also shows the myth of 'If only I had more power, things would be different'.
The President of the United States is the most powerful man in the world.
The article quoted 'administration veterans' as saying that President Obama responds to crises in 'a very rational way, trying to gather facts, rely on the best expert advice, and mobilise the necessary resources'. He is said to treat a crisis 'as an intellectual inquiry' where he 'develops his response through an intensely rational process'.
'As former CIA Director Leon Panetta said recently in a TV interview, “He approaches things like a law professor in presenting the logic of his position.”'
In doing so, he is said to 'adhere to intellectual rigour, regardless of the public's emotional needs'.
President Obama 'disdains the performative aspects of his job' and resists 'the theatrical nature to the presidency.'
These characteristics of the President were cited as weaknesses.
The article quoted a poll that found that 65 percent of Americans say they fear a widespread outbreak of Ebola in the U.S, despite the facts showing otherwise. 'People fear what they can’t control, and when the government can’t control it either, the fear ratchets up to panic.'
(26 per cent of Americans also think that the Sun revolves around the Earth and more of them think that President Obama is a Muslim than believe in the theory of Evolution.)
The President was said to be 'hampered' by 'an unwillingness or inability to demonstrate the forcefulness Americans expect of their president in an emergency.'
'A thought bubble over his head seems to say: “I can’t believe everybody’s flipping out about this stuff!” But as Panetta also said, “My experience in Washington is that logic alone doesn’t work.”'
The article acknowledges that President Obama's record 'even on issues where he’s drawn heavy criticism', is often much better than the initial impression would lead one to believe.
'He may tackle crises in a way that ignores the public mood, yet things generally turn out pretty well in the end. He and his economic team, though deeply unpopular, halted the financial panic and brought about a recovery that’s added jobs for 55 consecutive months. His signature health-care law addressed a slower-moving crisis; while similarly unpopular, it has delivered health insurance to more than 10 million people. Even Deepwater Horizon was nothing like the environmental cataclysm it threatened to become. “It really became a parable of how government can mobilize to solve a big problem,” Axelrod says. And he adds, “Bush didn’t get bin Laden—Obama did.”
And yet...
Author Peter Block noted the dominant 'patriarchal leadership narrative' when he said that:
'Obama is reluctant to attack Syria. When he decides to consult with Congress on it he's considered like he's waffling...and then when Russia comes along and says 'Wait a second you don't have to attack I think we can reach an agreement' and they play a good third party role, [it is portrayed as] a sign of Presidential weakness that he allowed another country not so friendly to us to be decisive in bringing peace and avoiding war in the world. That interpretation of events is what we're dealing with. There needs to be an alternative narrative - an alternative story telling.'
One of the hardest demands on a new leader is to resist the pressure to take people to where they already are.
A leader invites people to go where they otherwise wouldn't.
She needs confidence in her Widget before she can invite us to join her in its creation.
She assumes the best in us that we crave to be discovered and acknowledged.
She draws us out of the comfort of our fears and prejudices and oppressive, suffocating narratives, cadences and routines - and into the anxiety that is the surest sign that we are free.
Just Sit.
I asked Cheryl, a fellow Director of Professional Standards for another Anglican Diocese:
'How do you respond to complainants after they've disclosed their childhood sexual abuse?'.
'I don't,' she said.
'I just sit with them.'
Satisfaction.
'When I'm watchin' my TV
And a man comes on and tells me
How white my shirts can be
But he can't be a man 'cause he doesn't smoke
The same cigarrettes as me.'
- 'Satisfaction' - Jagger/Richards
You want to resolve complaints to the satisfaction of the complainant?
You want someone else's happiness to be a measure of your decisions?
Good luck.
Rebellion.
'For nonconformity the world whips you with its displeasure.'
- Emerson
Creativity is bringing something new into the world.
Ideas. Suggestions. Alternatives. Inventions. New information.
The organisation does not like this.
Egos do not like this.
Your next meeting will not like this.
Those at the table will hear:
'Your technology is outdated. Your seat at the table is under threat.'
'What you knew is about to become redundant. Draw swords. Defend what you know! Charge!'
In the face of this the creator must choose:
Retreat.
Or Rebellion.
Most of us choose Retreat.
Every single day. Every meeting where we don't speak. Every honest conversation that we don't have. Every idea that we don't put forward.
No point fighting the boss.
(That's why organisations call it 'Engagement'. It's combat.)
White flags fluttering from every cubicle and office.
We're not engaged at work because we can't be bothered fighting.
We remain in our barracks and polish our boots and share stories about the last war. Rising occasionally to jealously discharge a sniper round at a passing Rebel.
While the Rebel Few bravely advance with their ideas, suggestions, alternatives, inventions, new information.
Civil war breaks out between the forces of Is and Could Be.
Charging beneath their banners coloured My Opinion and Your Opinion.
The original idea, suggestion, alternative, invention, information that ignited the war- is forgotten.
(Who shot the Archduke and why? No-one remembers. We honour the combatants of the Great War that followed.)
The organisation's rules, policies, hierarchies, performance reviews, promotions, compliance, accountability, value statements and reserved parking bays are like unguarded minefields.
Mostly maiming the Rebels.
Freedom.
'No science will give them bread as long as they remain free. In the end, they will lay their freedom at our feet and say to us, "make us your slaves, but feed us."
'So long as man remains free, he strives for nothing so incessantly and so painfully as to find someone to worship."
'I tell Thee that man is tormented by no greater anxiety than to find someone quickly to whom he can hand over that gift of freedom with which the ill-fated creature is born."
- Fydor Dostoevsky, 'The Grand Inquisitor'.
The boss gives us bread in exchange for our days.
The boss is an altar upon which we lay our laments.
The boss relieves us from the anxiety of freedom.
The boss is our alibi.
Wrapping.
A complaint is information wrapped in the complainant's emotion.
The wrapping must be respectfully separated and put aside amidst the eagerness to get to the gift of information inside.
To decide what that information tells you about your Widget.
It's information.
About.
Your Widget.
A Judgment delivered by the Federal Court yesterday affirmed this, namely:
- The organisation gets to decide how to respond to a complaint - not the complainant
- Labelling a complaint as ‘formal’ or ‘informal’ is irrelevant to how its dealt with
It's information.
About.
Your Widget.
As with any gift-once the information has been handed to the organisation, it's the organisation's to use as it sees fit.
One difference between a complaint and the other information that thuds daily onto a decision maker's desk is it has an owner.
That's a good thing. It's healthy for an organisation to deliver a public performance from time to time of its information management and decision-making.
As long as the decision maker remembers:
The complainant may own the complaint.
The organisation owns the outcome.
Debate.
The boss is busy. He's important. He's got so many important things to worry about. Meetings to attend. Emails to write. Reports to read. It's unreasonable to expect him to have time to spend consulting with you. Anyway, his matters are lofty and serious. He doesn't have to explain himself to you. You wouldn't understand anyway because it's very complicated. He knows what he's doing because he's the boss. It's serious work being a boss. Don't waste his time and just get your work done so he can do his. The boss is busy.
In mid-1942 Prime Minister Winston Churchill rose to address the House of Commons. The Second World War was in its third year and the British Army was in full retreat in North Africa. The German Afrika Corps was forty miles from Alexandria and eighty from Cairo. Prime Minister Churchill was debating a vote of no confidence in his leadership. He was being accused of allowing the Axis forces of Germany and Japan to conquer and enslave the remaining free world.
Churchill did not use fighting a World War as an excuse for not preparing for and engaging in open debate on his decision making. On the contrary, 'What a remarkable example it has been of the unbridled freedom of our Parliamentary institutions in time of war,' he said.
The boss can't be expected to know everything that's going on. How can he be responsible for something that was done two or three levels below him?
'The question of whether Tobruk could be held or not is difficult and disputable. It is one of those questions which are more easy to decide after the event than before it...But those who are responsible for carrying on the war have no such easy options open. They have to decide beforehand. The decision to hold Tobruk and the dispositions made for that purpose were taken by General Auchinleck, but I should like to say that we, the War Cabinet and our professional advisers, thoroughly agreed with General Auchinleck beforehand, and, although in tactical matters the Commander-in-Chief in any war theatre is supreme and his decision is final, we consider that, if he was wrong, we were wrong too, and I am very ready on behalf of His Majesty's Government to take my full share of responsibility.'
Why can't someone just make a decision? Everything takes so long. There is so much bureaucracy. Ask anyone what needs to be done and they will tell you. The boss is useless.
'Complaint has been made that the newspapers have been full of information of a very rosy character. Several Hon. Members have referred to that in the Debate, and that the Government have declared themselves less fully informed than newspapers...The war correspondents have nothing to do except to collect information, write their despatches and get them through the censor. On the other hand, the generals who are conducting the battle have other preoccupations. They have to fight the enemy.'
The boss wants to be briefed. He wants to have everything run past him. He wants to approve every decision. He wants papers. He wants meetings. He wants pre-meeting meetings. He wants updates. He wants to step in if necessary.
'Although we have always asked that they should keep us informed as much as possible, our policy has been not to worry them but to leave them alone to do their job. Now and then I send messages of encouragement and sometimes a query or a suggestion, but it is absolutely impossible to fight battles from Westminster or Whitehall. The less one interferes the better, and certainly I do not want generals in close battle, and these desert battles are close, prolonged and often peculiarly indeterminate, to burden themselves by writing full stories on matters upon which, in the nature of things, the home Government is not called upon to give any decision...Therefore, the Government are more accurately, but less speedily, less fully and less colourfully informed than the newspapers.'
The boss likes people who work late. Who show how much they care by the number of furrows in their brow.
'Some people assume too readily that, because a Government keeps cool and has steady nerves under reverses, its members do not feel the public misfortunes as keenly as do independent critics. On the contrary, I doubt whether anyone feels greater sorrow or pain than those who are responsible for the general conduct of our affairs.'
The boss wants to know why the plan went wrong.
'Sir, I do not know what actually happened in the fighting of that day. I am only concerned to give the facts to the House, and it is for the House to decide whether these facts result from the faulty central direction of the war, for which of course I take responsibility, or whether they resulted from the terrible hazards and unforeseeable accidents of battle.'
The boss wants to scrutinise every decision. He won't approve anything until he's absolutely certain that it is perfect.
'How do you make a tank? People design it, they argue about it, they plan it and make it, and then you take the tank and test and re-test it. When you have got it absolutely settled you go into production, and only then do you go into production. But we have never been able to indulge in the luxury of that precise and leisurely process. We have had to take it straight off the drawing board and go into full production, and take the chance of the many errors which the construction will show coming out after hundreds and thousands of them have been made.'
The boss has a serious job. He's a serious man making very, very serious and important decisions. Don't mock the boss. He deserves our respect.
'This tank, the A.22, was ordered off the drawing board, and large numbers went into production very quickly. As might be expected, it had many defects and teething troubles, and when these became apparent the tank was appropriately re-christened the "Churchill."'
The boss doesn't like mistakes. He wants the job done right the first time. If not, he'll lay the blame where it belongs. He can't be held responsible for what others do.
'I cannot pretend to form a judgment upon what has happened in this battle. I like commanders on land and sea and in the air to feel that between them and all forms of public criticism the Government stand like a strong bulkhead. They ought to have a fair chance, and more than one chance. Men may make mistakes and learn from their mistakes. Men may have bad luck, and their luck may change. But anyhow you will not get generals to run risks unless they feel they have behind them a strong Government. They will not run risks unless they feel that they need not look over their shoulders or worry about what is happening at home, unless they feel they can concentrate their gaze upon the enemy.'
It's a serious business being a boss. It's no laughing matter. He's engaged in important things.
'I have stuck hard to my blood, toil, tears and sweat, to which I have added muddle and mismanagement...'
The boss acts on instinct. He makes decisions and expects his authority to be carried out. No questions. If something goes wrong, let's spin ourselves out of it. Don't admit anything.
'Nearly all my work has been done in writing, and a complete record exists of all the directions I have given, the inquiries I have made and the telegrams I have drafted. I shall be perfectly content to be judged by them.'