The Decision Making Spiral.

A good decision is one that advance us towards where we want to be.

The decision making process isn't a straight line.

It's a circle. More a spiral.

The end of our decision process is to take us back to where we started; albeit with the benefit of the information gathered, we have a more advanced understanding of our position in relation to where we want to be - our Widget.

(Which is really a better understanding of ourselves.)

Think of a coil - like as in a spring. Follow the coil one full rotation until it's back on the same plane as where you started - although further along the horizontal axis. That's the decision making path of inquiry.

Each decision builds on the one before it and is connected to it - as it will be to the ones after it.

When we circumvent the decision making process by using positional power, or instinct, or guesswork to get directly to where we want to be, we don't lay a coil of reasoning and learning behind us that we can build upon to spring us into our next decision. We just arrive at a place, with no understanding of how we got there except that we are the boss, or high enough up HR's wire diagram, or play tennis with someone who is.

No path for anyone else to follow us, therefore no possibility of Leadership. Or of Learning.

Our decision making process is like the rifling in a gun barrel; the Five Steps are the grooves that guide the bullet into a spin on its axis as it propels along the barrel of thought, thus stabilising its flight and therefore its accuracy towards its target.

Our Widget.

The Leader as Orchestra Conductor.

'The conductor, often referred to as the orchestra 'leader', does not play a musical instrument, nor sing an aria; He does not recite lines; he appears in no chorus or ballet. He does none of those things. Indeed, for want of the talents they require, he could not do any of those things. Yet he renders an indispensible service. He draws out the gifts of others; he coordinates, motivates, inspires; quietly and almost unnoticed, he makes the entire production happen. Such a picture of leadership should perhaps find an analogue in the administrative decision making processes..'

- Robert T. Kennedy 'Shared Responsibility in Ecclesial Decision Making'
 

The leader as conductor of an orchestra is an excellent metaphor that has been explored in many books.

James Jeffery, a journalist, recently wrote about his experience in conducting the Sydney Symphony Orchestra. Read these extracts and recognise in a conductor, the qualities of the authentic Leader in any field.

'When you’re conducting...part of what you’re having to do is process everything in as close to real time as you possibly can. You have to both process the now, what’s going on right when you’ve heard it; and the things that are constantly getting further in the past, making decisions whether there are things that need to be referred to, whether it’s something you can do the next time, whether it’s something you need to stop on, whether there’s a particular player or section that has a problem and if they need your attention visually while the music is still going on. And then you’re constantly aware of what is coming so you can be prepared to make the gestures that allow that music to happen.

'So there’s this almost field theory way of looking at time, where you don’t just exist in the now, you exist in the present, past and future simultaneously.

'It’s about creating an environment in which everybody feels not only that they can give their best but that they can take chances. Great things don’t happen without people really trying to take chances.

'Part of your job is to make it so that the musicians have the best chance collectively to engage with the music and to get better as a group as (well as) they possibly can — so you’re also kind of involved in cognitive psychology. What is it that allows people to do their best, how do they perceive information and take it in, what amount can you give things, what’s the best way to handle the group dynamic at any particular moment?

'What [orchestra members] respond to most is trust. I’ll be honest, none of [the orchestra members] trusted you at all. It had nothing to do with the way you were moving your arms, it was the terror in your eyes, the ‘Oh my God, what am I doing here?”....While we were instinctively able to follow your arm movements, we knew instinctively that you were not to be trusted.

'If you look back in history at the sort of figures conductors cut, you look at Bernstein, you look at (Herbert) von Karajan, walking around with cashmere jackets draped over their shoulders, walking in as if they owned, well, they did own the place. The way they walk into the rehearsal affects the way we start to play.

'The hardest thing for a conductor to do is to have the conviction of their beliefs, to tell 100 people in front of them, who know the music inside out, that their way is correct. That is why they have such thick skin, and why they’re paid so much more money, because they have to believe it, make us believe it, and make the audience believe it. And that’s what they’re there for, otherwise it’s a committee.

'In a sense, the complexities of conducting equal the complexities of communication between people....There’s a certain point at which you become like Wittgenstein — ‘Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.’ At the same time, Laurie Anderson quite correctly in her response to that says, ‘But can you point at it?’ So there is a sense in which you try to bring out the ineffable, but you’re not able to do it, so you just point at it.'

Be Yourself.

“Take that [rhythm] you’ve got in your foot and put it into your arm,” the maestro urges.'

- Sydney Symphony Orchestra Conductor David Robertson's advice to journalist and first time conductor, James Jeffrey

'I was telling my students about your little leadership habit,' Flight Lieutenant Waugh said when we caught up over lunch in the RAAF Base Point Cook Officers Mess. Kathy had been my Directing Staff or 'DS' during my Officer Training a few months earlier. I was intrigued. What did I, a newly-minted Air Force Officer, have to teach anyone about leadership?

'I told them about how you wrote down in your calendar when your Corporal said that she was having her hair done over the weekend so that you could remember to compliment her on it when you saw her on Monday.'

Something didn't feel right about that then, and it still doesn't.
 

The management books are full of 'fake it 'til you make it' advice to would-be leaders. Tips and tricks to look like you care about your people so that they will be motivated to work harder for you. I think I had been joking with Kathy about my calendar reminder, but I've been a bad boss so I've faked sincerity in other ways.

New and aspiring bosses get caught in the no man's land between remembering what they wished their boss had done for them, and not knowing how, or having the self-confidence, to do it for their workers. So we read the leadership books and do a bit of management by walking around, noting of people's children's names, and try to look interested during long winded responses to our rote 'How was your weekend?' questions.

It's hard.

As one of my bosses, the Abbot of New Norcia used to say to me:

Be yourself.

Take that steady rhythm of humanity in your heart, the wounds from so many bad bosses, your own fear that you recognise in our faces, the optimism and belief in the fundamental goodness in us all - including yourself - and put it into your baton.

Then lead us in playing each of our instruments in your original composition.

We Don't Need Another Leader.

Everyone is under pressure to be leading.

It's because we're not doing our job. We're not going where our boss wants us to go. We're not making her Widget to her satisfaction.

Our bosses don't know what to do about us not doing our jobs (ie they don't know how to do their jobs). 

So the bosses train or recruit people whose job is to get us to do our jobs - ie do the boss's job for them. 

We call those people 'Leaders', and call them getting us to do our jobs 'Leadership', because 'Leader' is sexier than 'Person who Gets Us To Do Our Jobs Because the Boss Can't.'

Then many of the 'leaders' don't do their jobs to the boss's satisfaction.

So they need someone to get them to do their jobs - ie a 'leader'.

Wash. Rinse. Repeat.

Throw in some expensive 'Accountability' (compliance) to measure whether the leaders are effective or to find evidence to sack them.

Eventually, faster than we can chant 'We're totally committed to the highest standards of...'

We're working in a bureaucracy. 
 

We don't need more Leaders.

We just need to do our jobs the way our boss wants them done.

Doing our jobs means making good decisions.

Most of us (including our bosses) don't know how to make good decisions.

It's a skill we need to learn and practise.

Transfer the Leadership Training budget into Good Decision Making Training.
 

Good decisions advance us towards where our boss wants us to be.

If, during our advance, we turn around and one person is following us: 
 

Leader.

Six Gun in the Holster of Power.

'I understand executive decision making - which is making tough calls in tough times with high stakes for which you're prepared to be held accountable.'

- Carly Fiorina, former CEO of Hewlett Packard, responding to a question as to why she may nominate for election as President of the United States.
 

Ms Fiorina declares that the quality that makes her the best person to lead the most powerful nation in the world is her understanding of decision making.

Her statement reveals why decision making is so poorly understood and executed and therefore why so many people are unhappy in their work.

Ms Fiorina is confident that good decision making is such a rare and precious quality that her possession of it makes her stand out from an already élite class - presidential candidates.

She comfortably assumes that the 240 million American voters will nod in agreement.

'Goodness! She knows about decision making! Let's make her President!'

Not just any sort of decision making - executive decision making. Apparently that's a superior form of decision making than the decision making on the factory floor.

You and I could never dream to understand executive decision making so best stand back and clutch our pearls as Ms Fiorina and all the bosses and other clever people take charge and command our timid souls what to do.
 

This cult of the hero leader - the tough decision maker making tough calls in tough times with high stakes - is at the heart of so much organisational failure and personal dissatisfaction. 

It reinforces the myth that decision making is the six gun in the holster of Power.

Instead of the Five Steps  we each can take towards where we want to be.

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.

Nothing Can Be Loved at Speed.

'Nothing can be loved at speed.'

- Michael Leunig.
 

If our decision making is to be an act of love towards those affected (Yes, I'm looking at you Christians and fellow Golden Rule followers), then we need to slow down.

Avoid being seduced by the myth of decisiveness.

Avoid the myth of the Hero Leader.

Loving others beings with loving ourselves.

Step 1: Step Back.

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.'

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.'

Boundaries Set Us Free.

Create the Space.

Decision Making Force Multipliers.

'The only real power a manager has is to call a meeting.'

- Anonymous
 

A decision maker needs at least one of five things if her decision is to achieve its intended result:

• Time
• Positional Power
• Expertise
• Information
• Luck

She improves the likelihood of success by increasing any of them.

She can compensate for deficiencies in any of them by increasing one of the others.

Find more time, earn a promotion, learn more skills, attend more meetings...carry more good luck charms.

Or she could become a manager.

A manager should only use her positional power to gather the right people around her and to harness their time, expertise and access to information as force multipliers of her own capacities - or deficiencies - in each.

Or she could engage a consultant to use his time and rely on her positional power to gather information and expertise, and present her with the results.

The decisions she makes are the product of her hard work and skill in selecting, supporting - and getting out of the way of - those people as they do their work on her behalf. Phew. That's the labour of management.

Given the unique skills, trust and self-confidence this approach demands of a manager, any wonder that so many rely solely on their positional power - and the exclusive access it gives them to information - as the basis for their decision making.

Knowledge Workers Wear Badges.

Terry was a fast jet pilot who was my neighbour in the Officers Mess.

He was still in bed when I left for my office in the morning and I'd find him reclined on my couch in my room watching my TV when I'd return after work. It wasn't his fault. His Squadron flew Macchis and they spent a lot of time grounded with mechanical problems.

'What's the definition of an optimist?' I'd say within his earshot at the Mess bar. 'A 79 Squadron pilot in his flying suit.'

Terry's response was to take me flying, let me have a go for a bit, then turn off the cockpit air conditioning so hot air blew at my oxygen mask encased face, then do high G force aerobatics until I threw up.

One evening I'd been downstairs in the Mess Bar and returned to get something from my room. Terry jumped up when I walked in.

'Mate! Who are the chicky babes I saw you with you in the Mess?'

I explained that they were Uni students who were members of the Air Force Undergraduate Scheme, and as a graduate of the Scheme, I had been asked to host their orientation visit to the Base.

'Well, I'd better demonstrate my Officer Qualities, put on my flying suit, and go downstairs and introduce myself,' Terry said. After he'd changed, I watched him stride down the corridor, stop, look down and pat the empty velcro patches on his puffed out chest, glance and slap at each blank velcro square on both shoulders of his flying suit, then do an about turn.

'Badges! Not enough squadron badges! I need to put my badges on! Chicks dig flying suits with badges!'

Knowledge workers wear badges designed to impress. 

'Let's scrub in on stakeholder engagement and designate a high performing team to drill down and exploit the leverage at our next all-hands meeting and get buy in on being fully committed to this project, going forward.'

Sewn into our writing and speech.

'To better position our team to compete in a highly fragmented and competitive market, we'll reach out and engage a thought leader to partner with us to think outside the box and transition to new markets.'

Declaring our organisational status.

'There's been a paradigm shift that has impacted the level playing field and re-tooled the key performance indicators for our deliverables so we need to get some skin in the game and shoe horn our people into places at the table.'

Someone successful adorns their language with badges. We want to be seen as successful. We clothe our writing and speech in them like faded army greatcoats bought from a surplus store.

Words matter.

Shortly before I transferred to the Air Force Reserve, someone decided to introduce a badge showing that a person had met their fitness and weapons handling standards. Yet if an Air Force member didn't pass those annual tests, they would be discharged. Therefore everyone wore the badge. It effectively said: 'I'm in the Air Force.' It was meaningless. It had the status of a button.

Same with this language. It's a recycled tacky plastic badge. It presents my credentials in a one way conversation. It betrays that I'm not confident in the substance of what I have to offer you. Terry didn't wear his badges when he was doing his job with his Squadron. He was judged on how he made his Widget of perfecting the strafing of ground targets. He deployed his badges to impress civilians who didn't know any better.

While we're at it, let's purge the valedictory 'Warmly's, 'Sincerely's, 'Faithfully's and other standardised, one-size-fits all regardless of the text that went before it - endings to emails. (I've often received an angry tirade in an email from a member of clergy expressing contempt for me that has closed with a variation of 'Christ's Blessings and Peace Be Upon You'.)

Stand out. Make the effort to use plain language. Step out from behind the mass produced patches. Delight us. Show us you trust us with - you.

Become who you are.

Try it. 

Here's some templates to begin with that can be easily tailored for different contexts:

'Let's meet with Tom and Harry and get their help to decide what we want to do.'

'Our client is unhappy and we need to fix that.'

'I'd like to speak with you about the idea you had.'

'You were right. I was wrong. I'm sorry.'

'You did a good job.'

'Thank you.'

Words matter. 

Monks Do What Monks Do.

'We monks should do what monks do. Here.'

- Abbot Placid Spearritt, Sixth Abbot of New Norcia
 

New Norcia needed 12 million dollars to maintain its heritage buildings.

One of my jobs was to help the monks to fund it.

The businessman was offering us lots of money in return for the use of the New Norcia brand to market his product.

'I'll need to take it to the brethren of course,' the Abbot said after I'd briefed him. 'I should warn you that I'll be voting against it. The proposal doesn't fit with our European, Aboriginal or Monastic heritage. I also need to be mindful not to distract the brethren away from their prayers. There are plenty of worthy tourist icons that could do with the money. As for us, we monks should do what monks do. Here.'

Widget Thinking.

The Abbot of a Benedictine Monastery, the Air Officer Commanding Western Australia, the Chief of the Defence Force; each had clarity of Purpose - their Widget - to guide them when faced with a right-versus-right decision.

Monks seek God - therefore they pray. Yet they interrupt their prayer to find Him in each visitor to their monastery.

The Air Officer Commanding WA seeks to develop positive relationships with the local civilian community to ensure its support of his jets screaming over its homes - therefore he allows families onto his Air Force Base to cool off in the taxpayer funded swimming pool built to to train military jet pilots to survive a ditching into the ocean.

The Chief of the Defence Force seeks to defend Australia and her interests - therefore he deploys forces beyond our shores.

Teachers should teach.
Doctors should heal.
Bakers should bake.

Leaders of the above - principals, medical directors, bakery owners -  should create the space and hire managers to keep it free of distractions from teaching or healing or baking.

Decision makers and their advisers faced with right versus right decisions should ask themselves: What's my Widget? Which decision will build it?

Good decision making begins with Widget clarity. Knowing where we want to be helps us to focus our time and attention, and that of those who support us, on making decisions that get us there.

The Abbot did approve another proposal - the New Norcia Abbey Ale. 'Monks have always brewed beer,' he said.

Decision Laundering.

'Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?’

‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.’
Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life.

- The Gospel of Matthew

'If anyone has material possessions and sees his brother in need but has no pity on him, how can the love of God be in him? Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth.'

- 1 John 3: 17-18

The Catholic Archdiocese of San Francisco decided to install sprinklers timed to soak and therefore deter homeless people from sleeping in the entranceways to its Cathedral.

The Archdiocese apologised in an unsigned media release.

It explained that the sprinklers were the solution to the 'problem' of 'needles, faces and other dangerous items' that were left in the 'hidden doorways' to the Cathedral.

The idea came from the use of sprinklers in 'the Financial District' as a 'safety, security and cleanliness' measure.

The dangerous items left in the hidden doorways were a risk to 'students and elderly people' who regularly passed the locations 'on their way to school and mass every day.'
 

We've all attended the equivalent kind of The Meeting where it was decided to install the sprinklers. We know it goes something like this:
 

Chairperson: 'Let the Minutes show that the Archdiocese Interfaith Council recorded yet another successful year of helping many thousands of people through food, housing, shelter programs for people at risk including homeless mothers and families, and in countless other ways. Well done and God bless to all concerned. Now moving on to Item 19 on the Agenda: 'Dangerous Items Left in Cathedral Hidden Doorways'. We've read Bob's excellent Facilities Management Report on the problem. Bob?'

Bob: 'Thank you Archbishop. My staff spend hours each week cleaning up shi... sorry Archbishop - human excrement - needles, and refuse from the hidden doorways around the Cathedral. It's time consuming. It distracts them from tending to the gardens. There's risk a needle stick injury.'

Harry: 'We have duty of care.'

Bob: 'Yes! Duty of care.'

Frank: 'To them and the children and the elderly coming to mass.'

Joe: 'We had this problem when I was with the bank. We installed sprinklers that were on timers to spray the areas where people gathered. It worked. And quite cheap too. I know someone who did the job. I can get a quote. They're Catholic so they'll do us a good price.'


Someone needed to apply the Widget Thinking brakes.

What's our Widget, Archbishop?  Eternal Life? And how do we make that again? Parable of the Good Samaritan any help? Didn't Jesus say something about if we love our neighbour we will find Eternal Life? Isn't that also the origin of our secular 'duty of care'?

The interrupter (I think they're called a Leader) needs the courage to persevere beyond the inward and outward eye-rolls around the table, and Frank's response that will begin with an irritated 'That's all very well, but...' and end with all eyes glaring at her.

It's the right versus right decisions that are the tough ones. Choosing between the well being of the homeless and the safety of children and the elderly. Choosing between People Are Our Most Important Asset and cashflow says we need to make some of them redundant. Choosing between openness and transparency (I think that used to be called 'honesty') and the risk both brings to The Brand.

St Benedict, whose writings influenced European governance, said to begin all work with a prayer. Remind ourselves of what we're here to do. What's our Widget? Thanks for that idea Joe - and while we appreciate your wisdom with our budget, a bank's Widget is different to the Church's Widget.

All organisations are guilty of what the decision makers in the Archdiocese of San Francisco did.

All organisations engage in Decision Laundering.

They exploit the distraction of a 'secondary' problem with a soft and attractive outer moral layer - the risk to children and the elderly mass goers -  to harness the analytical skills of good workers away from the 'primary' hard core failure of difficult decision making - the plight of the homeless and drug addicted. The diligent workers fix the secondary 'problem' and feel good about themselves and the organisation. The knotty primary problem remains.

Another more common version of Decision Laundering is to engage workers' intellect and eagerness to problem solve for their boss - in fixing the fallout from the boss's bad primary decision. 'Hey Larry - we need your expertise to wordsmith a media release that puts this sprinkler business into context by honouring all the hard work that our volunteers do in our homeless shelters. We don't want to jeopardise the donations we need to keep them operating.'

The bad primary decision is laundered into a good one by the workers employing Good Decision Making in the secondary decision. The workers will loyally (and rightly) defend their secondary decision making and thus the organisation - allowing their bosses and their flawed primary decision to desert under the cover of the smokescreen of the secondary decision's integrity. Imagine Larry on the phone to the San Francisco Chronicle: 'We'd like to invite you to do an exclusive story to raise awareness of the plight of women in our refuge and the grave consequences for them if we don't make our fundraising target this year.' Good work, Larry. What sprinklers?

Good workers' decision making can be like the water efficiently and effectively cascading down the sides of St Mary's Cathedral like clockwork - cleansing it of the risk to health and safety - and with it, the evidence of the unfulfilled Widget - the path to Eternal Life.
 

The prime job of a leader is to remind the organisation to become more like the thing it says it wants to be. To say to the Archbishop - we need to put the poor ahead of mass attendance. To say to the CEO - our brand will survive our apology. To say to the boss - I disagree and here's why. Then to stick around to help deal with the aftermath of that dissent. This is very, very hard. Which is why real Leaders are rare.


It took two years after their installation and an investigative journalist's exposure for the Archdiocese to acknowledge its decision. It will be redeemed if what it learned advances the faithful towards Eternal Life. Meanwhile, the homeless people just used umbrellas and raincoats.

God must despair. His followers fouling the entrance to His Kingdom. Filthy with our hypocrisy and egos.

He may yet deploy sprinklers.

What Does Excellence Look Like?

My friend Ian coined the Deperdussin Theory.

The Deperdussin was the first aircraft to serve in the Australian Flying Corps, the predecessor to the Royal Australian Air Force. The Theory is that if a lost tribe looked up through the forest canopy and saw a Deperdussin flying overhead (max speed 210 km/h), they would declare it was the most remarkable and awe inspiring magic flying machine. It would become the benchmark against which they would measure everything else they saw or did.

Only because they'd never seen an F-111 (max speed 2665 km/h).
 

What does 'Excellence' look like?

It looks like the last thing that we thought was excellent.

So boss you'd better hope that it was an F-111 and not a Deperdussin.

Or better still - don't assume we know what you mean by Excellent. Instead, show us your Excellent. Or whatever other Adjective you want us to be.

(I think that's called 'Leadership'.)

And boss - keep innovating your Excellence because the RAAF retired the F-111 from service 18 months ago.

(Even good theories need updating.)

Lead Us to The Widget.

'It has been an over-engineered, over-proceduralised process whereby workers spend more and more time driving desks than actually visiting and seeing children.

[W]e have an over-engineered system which has created its own paradox whereby in trying to seek to be compliant with all of the instructions and requirements and procedures and policies that workers are inadvertently now spending more time engaging in that element of the work and less time in actually building a relationship, which takes time, it is a time-consuming principle of our practice, and unless we start inverting that pyramid or inverting that, then we will continue to struggle to engage our workers in the things that they intuitively know they need to do and the voices of the child in that space are loud and clear. The voices in the theory are loud and clear, but we have created an architecture which I believe prevents workers from engaging in that in a purposeful and meaningful way.'

- Tony Kemp, Deputy Secretary of Tasmania's Human Services Department

In his evidence to the Royal Commission Into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, Mr Kemp cited the 'well established theory' that staff should spend eighty percent of their time with children and twenty percent to administration. He said that this had been reversed in recent years.

Mr Kemp's Department is not unique. Australian organisations spend $250 Billion a year on compliance - evenly split between government and the private sector.

Pournelle's Iron Law of Bureaucracy states that in any bureaucratic organisation there will be two kinds of people:

• Those who are devoted to the goals of the organisation. Teachers in a school, nurses in a hospital, soldiers in an Army.
• Those who are dedicated to the organisation itself. Administrators in an education system, hospital management, generals.

The Iron Law states that in every case the second kind will gain and keep control of the organisation. It will write the rules, and control the first kind's career advancement.

The demoralising inevitability that Pournelle's Iron Law means the organisation ends up being its own Widget - its dedicated staff conquering the devoted ones - has an antidote.

Widget Thinking.

The second 'dedicated' kind must make its decisions in service of the same Widget as the first 'devoted' group is making.  

The second kind should start every meeting, every decision making process with a prayer:

'Lead us to the Widget, and deliver us from our egos.

Amen'.

Everything You Do Sends a Message.

'All the riches will not buy a man. But promise him a ribbon and he will offer his life.'

- An Unknown General.
 

General Dwight Eisenhower was a career soldier who was responsible for the planning and execution of the D Day landings and subsequent invasions of France and Germany. He led the armed forces that liberated Nazi occupied territory in World War II and rescued Western Civilisation. He was NATO Supreme Commander and after retiring from the Army he served two terms as President of the United States.

President Eisenhower made his farewell speech at the height of the Cold War as Soviet and US nuclear missiles sat in their silos waiting to destroy the earth. His decades in uniform immersed in Army tribalism and identity did not blind him to warning of the threat to civil liberties of 'the military-industrial complex'. He used the word 'I' eighteen times.

President Eisenhower concluded with:

'We pray that peoples of all faiths, all races, all nations, may have their great human needs satisfied; that those now denied opportunity shall come to enjoy it to the full; that all who yearn for freedom may experience its spiritual blessings; that those who have freedom will understand, also, its heavy responsibilities; that all who are insensitive to the needs of others will learn charity; that the scourges of poverty, disease and ignorance will be made to disappear from the earth, and that, in the goodness of time, all peoples will come to live together in a peace guaranteed by the binding force of mutual respect and love.'

General Eisenhower was awarded ten US and decorations and chose to wear only a handful of them. He is buried in uniform, with his wife of 53 years, wearing only three.

General David Petraeus commanded all coalition forces in Iraq. He retired from the Army as the United States was struggling to contain guerrillas in Afghanistan.

His final speech was twice as long as General Eisenhower's. He affirmed the 'need to maintain the full-spectrum [military] capability that we have developed'. General Petraeus shouted 'Hoo-ah!' three times and said 'I' 79 times. He concluded with:

'May God bless each of you, our great country, and most importantly our men and women in uniform and their families.'

Fifteen months after his retirement speech, General Petraeus resigned as Director of the CIA after an alleged extra-marital affair with his biographer. He subsequently pleaded guilty to a charge of mishandling classified information that he had given to her. 

General Petraeus wore over 30 ribbons and badges.

The Cruisers Club.

'If we become preoccupied with prescribing, recording and counting the ordinary, and defining procedures for doing those things, then there is little opportunity to even tolerate, let alone promote the extraordinary.'

- Associate Professor Stephen Cohen
 

We heard the Corporal Physical Training Instructor in the pre-dawn black before we saw him. Which is why we were chatting and shuffling because we thought he was waiting for us back at the gym from where we started our 5km run twenty minutes earlier. The routine was that the PTI told us to walk around the gym in a clockwise - or as we called it 'PT-wise' - direction for three laps accompanied by The B-52s' Roam  - then sent us off to the other side of the airfield and back. Not this morning.

'Sirs! Stop!'

We fell silent and halted in front of the muscle bound shape of the Corporal. He didn't speak for a few seconds to allow the silence to betray our lack of panting and further incriminate us.

'Sirs, youse are the the last group.' We saw his head look back to where we had come from. 'Except for Ma'am - youse are the last.' 'Ma'am' was one of our Officers Training School course members who we had nicknamed 'Twenty One Forty' after the time it had taken her to run our initial 2.4km Physical Fitness Test (PFT) in our first week on Course. The pass time was 11 minutes.

The PTI put his hands on his hips and I could see his head slowly scanning us like a sideshow alley clown. 'I've caught youse out. I could make you turn around and do it again. But I'm not going to do that. Why not? Because the only people youse are letting down - are yourselves, Sirs. Because you're Cruisers. And you know what?'

'No, Corporal!' we said in unison. He was junior in rank to us but had our respect because he he could give us pushups and make us hold them mid push. ('That's not six inches Sir! I'll show you six inches!')

Another pause for dramatic effect. 'Because, Sirs, Cruisers...Are Losers!'

And thus the 1/90 Junior Officers Initial Course 'Cruisers Club' was born.

Our membership grew each morning as other Course members eased off their pace and fell back to join our shuffling chats. As long as we passed our fortnightly PFT, the Corporals surrendered and folded their muscular arms, shook their heads and let us Cruise. In the spirit of Cruising, we started a competition to see who could get as close to the 11 minute PFT 2.4km run pass time and thus not waste effort. The record was 10.59. We broadened our Club activities to stealing the Group Captain pennants from the Parade Ground and the senior course's bar fridge from their common room.

The Air Force taught me lots of things - the best of them unintentionally. Rules - many of them dumb and annoying and redundant for the majority of time when we weren't trying to kill an enemy and they weren't trying to kill us (for me that was all the time, thankfully) - can be catalysts for creativity, self-mocking, and fun. Otherwise 'accountability' mostly promotes mediocrity and compliance and not excellence and innovation.

The Corporal PFTs were right. We weren't accountable to their baselines. We were responsible for ourselves.

The inaugural members of the Cruisers Club conquered our self-letting-down and graduated from OTS with Distinctions, with one (not me) winning the Officer Qualities Prize. Twenty One Forty never caught up and was back coursed. She eventually passed and I understand overcame her inability to run fast to become a very good Nursing Officer.

The Cruisers Club had honoured the call of The B52s each morning before we shuffled off:

'Fly the great big sky see the great big sea
Kick through continents bustin' boundaries.'

Joe Defines Our Widget.

'All Australians share aspirations for economic security and an even more prosperous future — a better place for our children and the generations beyond.

But it is not enough that we share this aspiration. We need to make choices today to build a strong and resilient economy and lay the foundation for future prosperity.'

- 2015 Intergenerational Report: Australia in 2055

The Australian Government has been doing some Widget Thinking.

Yesterday its Treasurer The Honourable Joe Hockey published its five yearly Intergenerational Report which assesses 'the long-term sustainability of current Government policies and how changes to Australia’s population size and age profile may impact [sic] economic growth, workforce and public finances over the following 40 years.'

It begins by defining its Widget:

'All Australians share aspirations for economic security and an even more prosperous future — a better place for our children and the generations beyond.'

Bang.
Widget.
A big Widget.

Welcome aboard, Australian citizens. This is Joe speaking. Me and my successors will be your Captain on our journey to Economic Security and An Even More Prosperous Future. Our flight time is 40 years and the estimated arrival time is 2055. There will be some turbulence from the left wing during take off and weather at our destination in 40 years is sunny with the occasional rainbow and unicorn.
 

The Widget is reinforced in the Report with a solid foundation for good decision making:
 

'The term Australian Government is used when referring to the Government and the decisions and activities made by the Government on behalf of the [legal entity] of the Commonwealth of Australia.' (Emphasis added.)
 

The Government is - defined by its DECISIONS and by its ACTIONS - on behalf of the Commonwealth of Australia. If the government does not decide and act - it does not exist. Put more practically, the electors vote it out.

An organisation isn't what it says it's going to do. An organisation is defined by its workers' DECISIONS and their ACTIONS. An organisation does not exist if it does not decide and act.

Organisations are abstract constructs that come to life in the decisions made by their decision makers.

This is why decision making is the DNA of an organisation and why it needs to be good.
 

'The projections in this report are very unlikely to unfold over the next 40 years exactly as outlined. Things will happen that are not anticipated in the report’s assumptions, and government policy will change. The projections are not intended to be a prediction of the future as it will actually be, rather they are designed to capture some of the fundamental trends that will influence economic and budgetary outcomes should policies remain similar to current settings. They help to inform us about where there are opportunities to be seized, and where there are challenges to be overcome.'


The Report recognises that a good decision is one that advances us towards where we want to be. A decision is made from what we know now. The world's response to our making it will reveal more information that tells us new things about the world and our Widget that we will incorporate in our next decision.

The Report is the Government taking Step 5 of the Five Steps to a Good Decision.

It invites the Australian people to be heard. It is the Government saying:

'Here is the information that we have about the state of our country and which we will use to make decisions that will affect you, your children and your grandchildren. Please let us know what you think because you have the most at stake and you might teach us something that we missed and which will make us change our decisions.'

The Report says 'Here we are. Here's where we want to be. Here's how we think we'll get there.' To which Australians can in turn decide 'Yay' or 'Boo' or 'Meh' or 'Vote Labor' or 'I'm emigrating.'

Or as The Honourable Joe Hockey told Parliament when releasing the Report :

'This is the conversation that the nation wants to have and we are ready for it.'

Leadership Perfection.

'Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he had come from God and was going to God...began to wash the disciples’ feet...'

- The Gospel of John

The most powerful entity in the Universe.
He can do anything.
Be Anything.
Yet -
He chooses to kneel and do the job of a servant.
Washing the filthy feet of a friend who will fatally betray him.

All the libraries and rhetoric on Leadership offer less than this act.

'I have set you an example that you should do as I have done for you,' he tells them - and us.

Believe him the Son of God or a man of fiction, one could aspire to model their entire leadership philosophy and behaviour on this lesson of Jesus Christ.
 

'One is never so big
As when one stoops down.'

- David Byrne, Never So Big