Decision Laundering III

Decision laundering is the process whereby the corrupted intent of a higher level decision maker is cleaned by each subsequent person in the chain of advice or execution applying their professional judgement. The original stain of the lie or fraud is removed by the good work of faithful subordinates who correct, execute, and defend the decision, usually (but not always) ignorant of the cause of the stain.

The result is one decision or many that, individually, have integrity.

Except when it isn’t.

There are always people who are inside enough, or smart enough, to know the original stain, and therefore their boss’s nudg-nudge, wink-wink dark beneath the white. They were at the meeting or read the report where the truth was spoken and labelled a risk and so the boss crafted a cover story. Those people know the organisation’s tolerance for lying.

The stain, and the process of cleaning it, weaken the threads binding an organisation - literally its integrity. Those threads include its people.

Decision laundering - while cosmetically strengthening an organisation by removing blemishes - weakens its fabric in multiple ways.

First, at least one person knows their boss, and even their boss’s boss, is a liar.

Second, those who know of the stain are often the ones to exploit their knowledge to rise higher in the organisation and exert more influence. They usually do so without the talent or skills to operate at their level of promotion. Their incompetence amplifies across the organisation, including through those they recruit. As the saying goes: Sevens recruit sixes and fives.

Third, the good and faithful servants running the laundry, initially buoyed by the challenges of bleaching those stains and getting their boss’s attaboys, grow tired and disillusioned, particularly as they see those sixes and fives joining and being promoted ahead of them, and making life harder.

Finally, and most dangerously, are those on the front line who see the shadow of the original stain as permission to exploit the corrupted intent in their actions. This is most catastrophic in organisations with noble missions who decision launder.

Faith organisations whose members exploit vulnerable people.

Governments whose bureaucrats overwhelm a dissenting citizen with red tape.

Defence forces whose combatants bend or break the laws of war.

Parents who burden their children with intergenerational guilt, shame, and fear.

The antidote to decision laundering is constructive subversion. At every opportunity reminding the organisation and its decision makers of their Widget. Not the small ‘w’ widget that may justify laundering if isolated from the Capital W Widget.

A good decision maker applies the Widget test every time.

Leaders stand back far enough to ask that question of their subordinates, and support the difficult conversations that follow.

Those good and faithful people down the line who put their livelihoods at risk by asking the same question, albeit without the positional power of the leader.

An organisation with some stains is more human.

More like you and me.