The Decision Making Momentum.

 'Very often when we're asked to approve the use of targeted lethal force, it can only be in a matter of minutes.  And so there's a lot of momentum to that. So to say no is like stepping in front of a 90-car freight train.'

- Jeh Johnson, Homeland Security Secretary and former Pentagon General Counsel

There can be a lot of momentum behind a issue requiring a decision.

President Kennedy learned this during the Cuban Missile Crisis.

It took enormous courage for him to absorb the momentum of opinion from the military and many of his advisers that he should start a nuclear war or risk losing one.

Few decision makers will confront these consequences.

There is a momentum of expectations acting upon all decision making.

The momentum of the experts and advisers that have contributed information and opinions towards their preferred decision and want to be right.

The momentum of the people who will be affected by the decision and who want to feel safe.

The momentum of those whose needs would be met by a decision in their favour and who want to be affirmed.

The momentum of the mythology of the hero leader/decision maker who is decisive and bold and thrives on urgency.

The momentum of the reputations of those who appointed the decision maker and can't be let down.

The momentum of the way it has always been done.

The momentum of a parent who didn't give enough hugs.

The momentum of the fear of being wrong.

The Five Steps to a good decision serve as shock absorbers that dissipate momentum and transfer its energy into outward visible inquiry, rather than internal, hidden friction.

The President Gives a Lesson on the Five Steps.

'Today the United States, together with our allies and partners, has reached a historic understanding with Iran which, if fully implemented, will prevent it from obtaining a nuclear weapon. As President and Commander in Chief I have no greater responsibility than the security of the American people. And I am convinced that if this framework leads to a final comprehensive deal it will make our country, our allies, and our world safer.'

- President Barack Obama announcing the Iran Nuclear Agreement.

President Obama begins a twenty minute explanation of a major decision by reminding his bosses - the American people - and the rest of the world, of his Widget:

'The security of the American people.'

He is saying 'There are many Widgets that may not be served by my decision and therefore as many critics of it. So when you're evaluating my decision and its criticisms, remember my Widget that you elected me to serve.'

He proceeds to explain to the American people and the world - his good decision making.

He's the most powerful person on earth - and yet unlike many lesser bosses - he doesn't rely on his positional power to get what he wants done.

He shows his working out. 'You may not agree with my decision,' he is saying, 'but at least you can see how I arrived at it.'

Most importantly the President is saying:

'I am going to share with you all the information that I have. I trust you - everyone from the Wall Street Banker to the farmer in Oregon - to be smart enough to see how I reasoned my way to this decision - as if you had been sitting alongside me at every table along the negotiating pathway to my decision.' That's a profound statement of both self-confidence and trust. 

President Obama addresses four of the Five Steps to a Good Decision.

(We shouldn't expect any decision maker - particularly the President of the United States - to reveal her Step 1. To do so would risk undermining the purpose of the First Step: to allow the decision maker to purge themselves of emotions that may detract from her ability to address the decision on its merits. 'I ranted to the First Lady about how stubborn the Iranian leaders were and how political and pig-headed Congress is, and then had a couple of stiff drinks before watching a couple of episodes of West Wing followed by ten laps of the White House pool and several covert cigarettes in the Rose Garden while the Secret Service kept a look out. Then I went back to work making my decision.')

Step 2: Define the Issue. (Also the first job of a leader: Define reality.)

'By the time I took office, Iran was operating thousands of centrifuges, which can produce the materials for a nuclear bomb. And Iran was concealing a covert nuclear facility.'

In other words - 'My Widget, the security of the American people - wasn't being made.'

Step 3: Assess the Information.

'Because of our diplomatic efforts, the world stood with us, and we were joined at the negotiating table by the world's major powers: the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Russia and China as well as the European Union.'

In other words 'I won't bore you with all the technical details in this speech, however other nations have looked at the same information that we did - and come to the same conclusions.'

Step 4: Check for Bias.

'In [my] conversations [with Congress], I will underscore that the issues at stake here are bigger than politics. These are matters of war and peace. And they should be evaluated based on the facts, and what is ultimately best for the American people and for our national security.'

In other words 'I'm not doing this for my own ego or glory or to ensure my place in history. What better way to prove this than for me to argue my case before Congress and teach Congress the same lesson of objectivity.' (We teach best what we most need to learn. If we want to ensure we're not being biased, teach someone else how to rid themselves of bias.)

Step 5: Give a Hearing.

'Given the importance of this issue, I have instructed my negotiators to fully brief Congress and the American people on the substance the deal. And I welcome a robust debate in the weeks and months to come.'

In other words 'Let me know if you've got anything to add to my thinking and the many decisions that still need to be made.'
 

President Obama began by defining reality. He concludes as all good leaders do - by saying Thank You.

'And most of all, on behalf of our nation, I want to express my thanks to our tireless — and I mean tireless — Secretary of State John Kerry and our entire negotiating team. They have worked so hard to make this progress. They represent the best tradition of American diplomacy.'

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.

The Controller Accepted Jurisdiction

'I....do swear that I will truly and honestly demean myself in the practice of a barrister and solicitor of the Supreme Court of Western Australia according to the best of my knowledge and ability.'

- Oath taken on admission as a legal practitioner.

The Report on Investigation into Loss of separation between Airbus A330 VH-EBO and Airbus A330 VH-EBS near Adelaide SA on 20 September 2013 referred a number of times to the air traffic controllers 'accepting jurisdiction'. For example:

'The controller accepted jurisdiction for the track of the eastbound 747 at 1204:58.'

'Accepted jurisdiction.' What a great way of saying 'The controller accepted authority to act.'

I had a boss in the corporate world who used to ask when he wanted a report on the progress of a client engagement: 'Who owns that relationship?'

Step 2 of the Five Steps to a Good Decision is to Define the Issue.

One way of the decision maker defining her issue amidst the noise of opinions and competing self-interests is to ask herself: 'Do I have the authority to make a decision that will advance my boss's Widget?'

Do I have the power? The authority? The jurisdiction? Where can I find the source of that power? In my contract of employment? A policy? What elements need to be in play to trigger my power to act? If I don't have the power - who does so I may 'offer them jurisdiction'.

Jurisdiction is a fine word for another reason.

The controller was required to make decisions. Not at their whim and discretion and subjective opinion. The origin of the word 'jurisdiction' is the Latin jur - law - dictio - saying.

To have jurisdiction - decision making power - requires the decision maker to speak the law. To give effect to a higher power. The controller's job was to serve and animate the will of a higher authority.

Or put another way, the controller's job was not to meet their needs - but the needs of their boss's Widget.

'Demean' is a word not often used, and when it is, it is in a pejorative context. It is about as unfashionable as the word 'obedience'.

Law graduates seeking admission to practice used to have to swear to demean ourselves to the Law. To humble ourselves. To put ourselves beneath. To serve.

I think this concept may be what organisations are grasping for when they speak of being 'committed to...'. They mean - demean. To make everything else secondary.

When we truly accept the jurisdiction for our Widget - to 'speak its truth';  
When we undertake to demean ourselves in the building of our Widget - put our egos aside and serve it;  
Then we liberate ourselves from so much of the distractions, self-interest and trivialities that sabotage good decision making.

Too much? Too heavy? Too...demeaning?

Then don't accept the job. Or quit.

Crime and Punishment.

'The sole objective of the investigation of an accident or incident shall be the prevention of accidents and incidents. It is not the purpose of this activity to apportion blame or liability.'
 
-  Clause 3.1 to Annex 13 to the International Convention on Civil Aviation

Vengeance. Retribution. Revenge.

Deterrence. Punishment. Justice.

Blame.

We have a powerful longing for these outcomes from decisions that follow errors.

Maybe its a carryover from our childhood. Parents. School. Discipline.

If there's an error and no-one gets publicly named and shamed, it's like an enthusiastic waiter has cleared our coffee cup from our table before we've drunk the last mouthful.

Perhaps we're trained in our thinking and expectations by stories from books, movies, and the news about the adversarial winner-loser criminal justice system that relish arrest, prosecution, trial,confession, admission, guilt, judgment, verdict, conviction, sentencing, penalty. 

There are no blockbuster movies where the hero rises to her feet in the middle of an Administrative Appeals Tribunal hearing and shouts 'You can't handle procedural fairness and natural justice and correct or preferable decision making in the inquisitorial process!' It's Crime and Punishment that is the classic bestselling literary novel. Not Ultra Vires and Certiorari.

Listen for assumptions about blame and punishment lurking ominously just beneath the surface of the benign, dull, haze-grey drone of our organisational language. 'Accountability' doesn't mean 'We'll celebrate and reward you and eagerly learn from you when it all goes well.' We know it really means 'Don't you screw it up - or you'll pay for it.'

Laws that were designed as shields to protect people are brandished like swords and waved menacingly towards us. Or instead of serving as cobblestones meant to pave society's streets of mutual progress, laws are seized by an aggrieved person grasping for reasons for some calamity and prised loose from their intended legal context to be used as missiles to hurl and draw blood from anyone deemed at fault.

The inquisitorial system is so alien to our thinking compared to the adversarial one, and our Whodunnit expectation so strong that it must be managed. Watch and listen to  Datuk Kok Soo Chon, the Investigator in Charge of the Malaysian Airlines MH370 disappearance, solemnly repeat word for word Clause 3.1 to Annex 13 of the ICAO Convention as part of his Interim Report on the investigation as he looks down the barrel of the camera at you and me. 'You'll not find blame here,' he's saying. 'We're not going to give you a head on a  platter,' he's warning us in more austere bureaucratic language. 'There's nothing more to see here except lessons for a better future.'

To paraphrase Clause 3, the sole purpose of a good decision should be to make a better decision next time.

There's also a lot of learning between 'It fell' and 'I dropped it'.

We don't become who we are on the back of the shamed and fallen.

Our Shelter Amidst the Chaos of Information.

'The best way to learn about normal structures and normal function I think is to study disordered functions and disordered structures. When one has spent that amount of time studying abnormalities one develops an enormously healthy respect for normal, an enormously healthy respect for how equilibrium is maintained.'

- Sherwin Nuland, Surgeon

Decision making is an act of creating certainty from chaos. 
 

Buffeted by new information our compass spins and our map is ripped from our hands.

A good decision making process is a structure that shelters us from the push and pull of wild gusts of instinct and bias and the howling of opinions and creates a space for us to think.

We emerge with our decision beneath cloudless skies, a zephyr caressing our cheeks and clutching a new map with new terrain and a compass needle pointing steadily towards our Widget.

We step forth into the arc of a raindrop and the distant roll of thunder and our compass needle wobbles.

Who Cares What You Think?

'His Honour made the orders in respect of which there is now an alleged contravention. [The Respondent] was quite open in saying that she did not agree with His Honour's finding on that day.'

She said "It was just what he thought".'

- Judgment of His Honour Judge Bennett, Federal Magistrates Court of Australia - Family Law, in the case of B&B

Thankfully for our justice system and the maintenance of social order, unlike Ms B the great majority of people honours the decisions of judges. We take that obedience for granted.

Today, in hundreds of Australian courts, judges will say: 'Here is what I think.'

People will go to prison, be fined, lose a licence, their source of income, their homes, their children. The effects will ripple through families, businesses and communities. All because an unelected person in a robe on a chair behind a bench on a raised platform in a beige courtroom will decide: 'Here's what I think should happen'.

Some will not agree with the judge and choose to appeal the decision. In about 95% of those cases the appellate tribunal will decide: 'We agree with what he thought.'

Why is Ms B's dismissal of the judge based on it being 'just what he thought' and her defiance of his orders the exception? It can't all be explained by the deterrence of courts' enforcement powers.

Could it be because those affected by the judge's decision see, and often even participate in, the process leading up to it and witness that the judge:

• Is dispassionate,
• Applies rules,
• Relies on evidence,
• Is unbiased, and
• Allows both parties to be heard?

Could decision makers in other fields with far less consequences earn similar respect and compliance with their decisions if, instead of making decisions based on:

• I'm smarter than you.
• I was at the meeting and you weren't.
• I know someone who told me things.
• My job title has manager/leader/chief in it.
• A university gave me a degree.
• I've been on the payroll longer.
• I can sack you.

They openly:

• Stepped Back
• Named the Issue
• Assessed the information
• Checked for Bias
• Allowed for a hearing

Could it be that the lack of engagement, hundreds of billions of dollars spent on compliance, low productivity and unhappiness in our workplaces are because so many of us who are affected by decision makers can't see or understand how those decisions are made? Are we just like Ms B? -

Meh. That's just what the boss thought.

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:

Decision making.

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.

- Christopher Logue

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.

Life's Forcing Functions Ask: Who Do I Want to Become?

My friend Michael gave advice about operating gadgets that I often reflect on: 'If you have to force something, it's not the right way. You'll break it.'

A 'forcing function' is a step in a process designed to interrupt us. It forces us to pause and think before proceeding to the next step. It's usually a safety feature.

Closing a door before a microwave will operate is a forcing function. Child proof locks on the caps of bottles of medicine are another example.

Life has naturally occurring forcing functions:

• Time.
• Sleep.
• Emotion.
• Laws.

Organisations add to or tailor them:

• Contracts.
• Policies.
• Values.
• Budgets.
• Other People.

Each of these constraints forces us to pause in our stream of consciousness workflow, instinctive, opinion-based decision making - and to pay attention to what we're doing.

Be attentively curious.

Yes - we could open the screw top faster if we didn't have to grip it at specified points and apply downward pressure while unscrewing.

Yes - we can get more work done by emailing in the evening and on weekends.

Yes - we can avoid the difficult conversation and ignore the poor performance.

Yes - we can use our positional power to override policies, ethics, emotions.

Yes - we can make decisions in one step instead of Five.

Yes - a monk could find God without having to live in community with other monks.

Yes - we can bypass the fiddly cap by smashing the bottle open.

Yet the higher and more permanent the stakes (prison, unemployment, loss of trust, eternal life), the more our evolution, jurisprudence and spiritual systems have designed the equivalents of the child-proof cap to interrupt our instinctive flow towards a decision so that we pay attention to what we're doing.

There's a good reason that the criminal justice system can take years to potentially put a person in prison. That an employee can't lose their job unless their boss follows the steps of procedural fairness. That we feel a twinge in our stomach at the thought of having a difficult conversation. That the more important the decision, the longer it should take. That it takes years for a monk to make final vows.

Forcing functions. 

Not blocking our progress - just making us mindful of it.

We pause and deliberate on what we're doing, who we're doing it to, and who we want to become.

One of the top myths in Leadership Lore is that Leadership is hard and reserved for a special few because it demands high stakes decisions to be made under pressure that are too difficult intellectually or emotionally for lesser, more timid beings.

Many leaders - new and experienced - conclude that their sole job is to deploy their positional power to ignore or bypass the laws, policies, processes, values, emotions, promises, information and other forcing functions that have hindered the non-leaders from making a decision.

If the leader won't use their power - then what's the point of having it?

Leadership Lore says that the function of the leader is to bypass forcing functions and get things done.

Yet even a 12 year old knows this is not the bravery that defines Leadership.

Where does the leader of Leadership Lore get this power?

We give it to them.

When we encounter something that is hard - in work or in Life - we pine for a Leader.

Not for their wisdom, patience, humility, trust, curiosity, compromise, intellect, pacifism, service, vulnerability, love...

We want their power.

Our Leader smashes the bottle open.

Hooray! Decisive! Effective! Uncompromising! Fast! Courageous! Heroic!

We return to our desks and homes - relieved that someone has Led.

Tiny shards of fear embedded in our souls.

The Widget is the Salve, Balm and Lotion for Every Ill.

"Purpose and principle, clearly understood and articulated, and commonly shared, are the genetic code of any healthy organisation.  To the degree that you hold purpose and principles in common among you, you can dispense with command and control.  People will know how to behave in accordance with them, and they'll do it in thousands of unimaginable, creative ways.  The organisation will become a vital, living set of beliefs." -

Dee Hock
CEO Emeritus, Visa International

Define your Widget!

Imagine whatever your employer produces is a car. What part do you contribute on the assembly line?  What is your metaphorical nut, bolt, wheel, axel, driveshaft, transmission, piston, engine..?

Go and ask your boss. Say: 'Boss - what do you rely on me to do so that you can do  your job?' (Be prepared for your boss not to answer straight away.)

Define your Widget!

Widget clarity is the answer to EVERYTHING!

Feeling disengaged? Instant re-engagement happens the moment you start thinking about what your Widget is.

Feeling disconnected from your boss? Say: 'Boss - what is it that you need from me to do your job?' Click! Connected!

Feeling unsupported by your staff? Say: 'Staff - I can't do my job (Widget) for my boss if you don't do yours (Widget) for me.' Wow. She's just like us! 

Feeling bullied? Say: 'Boss, I'm finding it hard to make that Widget for you that you said you needed to make your Widget while Frank makes me sad by calling me names.' What? Frank's endangering my Widget?! Frank! Get in here!

Feeling underpaid? Say: 'Boss - here's what it takes for me to make this Widget for you that you need to make your Widget. I think that's worth a lot to you.' You're right. You are indispensable!

The only thing that you can be sure that you have in common with your boss, your staff, Frank, your boss's boss and that other team of strangers on the third floor who you're supposed to be cross-functional with - is the Widget.

It's the atmosphere you're all breathing, the language you're all speaking, the thing that's paying all your mortgages.

You don't have to get a consultant in to tell you that.

You don't have to hold hands with Frank at an off-site team building day and each share a secret to tell you that.

Find out what your Widget is.

Then make it.

For this boss.

Or another one.

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.

Directly Involved Parties.

'They that have the power to hurt, and will do none...

...they rightly do inherit heaven's graces.'

- William Shakespeare, Sonnet 94

The Investigation into the loss of separation between Airbus A330 VH-EBO and Airbus A330 VH-EBS near Adelaide SA on 20 September 2013 continues.

It was estimated to finish 'no later than September 2014'.

On 17 November 2014, two months after it was expected to conclude, there was a progress update:

'Completion of the draft investigation report has been delayed due to other investigation priorities, and the draft report is now anticipated for release to directly involved parties (DIPs) for comment in December 2014. Any comments over the 28-day DIP period will be considered for inclusion in the final report, which is anticipated to be released to the public in January 2015.'

'Released to DIPs for comment' and 'any comments...will be considered for inclusion in the final report.'

Step 5 in the Five Steps to a  Good Decision: Give a Hearing.

Allow any person who may be adversely affected by the decision the opportunity to consider your reasons for potentially reaching that decision, and to offer an argument why you should come to a different one.

Inviting a person affected by a decision is a powerful tool in good decision making:

• It harnesses the perspective, energy, focus and power of another brain (and heart) to contribute to your thinking (and feeling) while still works in progress and open to change.
• It informs you with the strongest argument against your own thinking - thus testing it - yet without the artificiality of appointing the 'devil's advocate' within your own team.
• It provides a forcing function to counter rote, systemic, thinking.
• It gives you a dress rehearsal of the likely criticisms that may follow your decision.
• It can counter groupthink.
• It reminds you of what is at stake for other people and thus focusses your attention.
• Those invited to contribute are more likely to accept the ultimate decision if it goes against them.
• It buys you time - thus creating more space (a mini- Step 1).
• It meets part of the procedural fairness required by law in many decision making processes.
• It shows transparency and evidence-based decision making.

Despite this impressive list in its favour, many decision makers avoid offering a hearing for fear that they will find out something that may undo all the time and energy invested so far; that it may create an expectation that they will be persuaded to change their minds; and that such an invitation undermines their authority.

A good decision maker acknowledges these fears, (perhaps even taking another Step 1: Step Back to indulge and then purge them) - then reminds herself of the logic of the benefits listed above, drafts the invitation to be heard such that it manages expectations, and reads Shakespeare or the writings of any good leader to understand that real power is demonstrated in the restraint in its exercise.

One Bold Black Line.

''Maybe if you played something like you used to when you played that song, you might like it again? Things might be better if you do it the way you used to?'

'But why?  Why do they want that? Why would I want to do that?'

'Well, that's you. You're the one who wrote the song, and did it that way, and it was great.'

'Yeah, but why would I want to do that? Why, when I've aready done it?'

Until that moment I'd never quite understood Miles Davis; his deliberate dissection of form. His insistence on playing one long note, or turning his back to the audience. in the same way I had a hard time appreciating contemporary artists like Mondrian, who painted one perfect black line across a canvas and called it a day.

But, sitting there with my old friend Peter Green, all of it made sense to me, and it has ever since. It was almost too much to bear. Peter had been so far ahead, he'd done all of what the rest of us had considered the only thing to do. He'd done all that could be done within the confines of structure so expertly that the only thing that made sense to him anymore was one bold black line on a blank page.'

- Mick Fleetwood in his autobiography Play On, recalling a conversation with co-founder of Fleetwood Mac, and 'best guitarist ever' Peter Green.

Leadership, leadership, leadership, leadership, leadership, leadership, leadership, leadership, leadership, leadership, leadership, leadership, leadership, leadership, leadership, leadership, leadership, leadership, leadership, leadership, leadership, leadership, leadership, leadership, leadership...blah, blah, blah.

Everyone's wanting leadership.

Really?

Leaders like Peter Green, Miles Davis or Mondrian?

The workplace won't tolerate the equivalent of the one black line worker.

Step outside the confines of structure in your job and you step into a one way conversation with your line manager assisted by a representative from HR.

Despite the leadership talk in organisations, they are inherently hostile to it. The workplace can't accommodate lots of people doing their own thing. It doesn't 'scale'. It's too chaotic and unmanageable. It's a threat to those in power.

The person who breaks structure, by definition breaks the organisation.

The person who plays one long note, or turns their back on the audience, or paints a single brush stroke - tends not to attract followers. Clients. Investors. Promotion.

They also rely on the First Follower if their rebellion is to evolve into Leadership.

Organisations and the people in them who call for more Leadership should be careful for what they wish for.

And know that - like Peter Green - anoint the rebel as Leader and she'll probably quit the band.

If she's not already been sacked.

The Receptionist is a Leader.

''Decision'...or... 'Choice'?' Jonathon asked me.

'Same thing,' I said.

I was wrong.

''Choice' is selecting one of at least two options,' I later corrected myself to Jonathon. ''Decision' is the product of a good decision making process.'

I was happier with this distinction.

Until I read a 1980 article Shared Responsibility in Ecclesial Decision-Making by Robert T. Kennedy, a Canon Lawyer.

 He calls decision-makers 'choice makers'.

The decision/choice maker chooses between two or more options presented by what Kennedy calls 'idea people' - creative people who who have contributed their ideas towards a decision making process that arrives at the choices that are presented to the decision maker.

This view of decision making dramatically and constructively shifts deep and unsatisfying assumptions about power that are the source of much of the tension in workplaces.

As Kennedy says: 

‘To decide well, there is need for many, diverse talents. The rarity of finding all such talents in a single individual gives rise to the need for participation by many people. Influence and power, so far from being concentrated solely in the moment of choice, are diffused throughout all stages of the decision-making process. Responsibility for a decision does not rest solely with the choice-makers.’

'If the choice makers are choosing between two or more options presented by idea people – who really holds the power?'
 
‘Choice-makers are often held captive (for better or worse) by idea people.'

Kennedy's analysis flattens the hierarchy in organisations and communities between those who have authority to make decisions and the rest.

It also adds to our understanding of the role of the leader.

Kennedy says that what an organisation most needs from its leaders is 'facilitation of the decision making process'. The leader is responsible for identifying, drawing forward and coordinating the 'necessary gifts' among the team in service of the Widget.

Indeed, Kennedy says that 'A leader need not be a choice-maker, or data or idea person, or implementor or evaluator. The service of a leader is quite different and requires quite different talents.’

The Receptionist is a leader.

Kennedy also addresses the majority of disengaged workers who haunt our workplaces:
 
‘Irresponsible refusal to participate, moreover, is in its own way a form of sharing responsibility for a decision. We are responsible not only for what we do but also for what we refuse to do; withholding the contribution of our talent, therefore, creates responsibility in us for decisions poorly made because of our failure to participate.’

If we engage with the decision maker by applying our talents to the creation of choices that are presented to her, we are co-responsible for the decision - even if the 'choice' was not one that we presented. By adding our ideas to the options before the decision-maker, we have influenced her choice by allowing her to compare and contrast alternatives. She was only able to not choose our option because she had it as a comparison.

Kennedy's 'choice maker' analysis is also a powerful reminder to decision-makers and leaders that good decision making demands authentic relationships with the 'idea people' so that their gifts may be discerned and recruited to nourish the decision making process.
 

Broomsticks with Feedback.

'Being right is occasionally useful in bars but it's very useless in life. It just doesn't open avenues for learning. 

[Hospitals] engage in serious errors. The nature of Lourdes is that they don't get better at miracles because they're not learning from their mistakes. 

400 years ago everyone believed that broomsticks could fly. Then these views of the world bifurcate and we have broomsticks that still don't fly terribly well and Jumbos that fly rather well. Jumbo Jets are just broomsticks with feedback.'

- David Walsh

A Leader's decisions create errors that teach and invite us (educate - educare - 'to draw out') to overtake her, and make different errors for others to learn from and overtake us.

Contempt for the mistakes of others and fear of making our own are why true Leaders are rare.

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.