Complaint, Decision Making, Mistake Bernard Hill Complaint, Decision Making, Mistake Bernard Hill

Committed.

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The Australian Electoral Commission continues to model good decision making.

Just to recap.

The AEC conducted the election for Senators in Western Australia. It assembled its Widget.

It counted votes and the candidates with the most votes won Senate seats. It produced its Widget.

'The result was too close,' some people said. 'The Widget isn't right. Make another one.'

'The Widget's fine,' the Western Australian Electoral Commissioner said.

Some of the losing candidates complained. 'We don't like the Widget because we didn't get elected...er, no...because it's not the Widget we wanted...er, no...because there's too much doubt about the democratic process!'

'I agree that the Widget hasn't turned out the way that it should,' the Federal Electoral Commissioner said upholding the appeal and ordering a re-count. 'Not for the reasons given by the losers, but because our customers ordered a Confidence coloured Widget and its colour is flaking and fading. We have to remake it.'

The re-count began and found that votes were missing. The AEC searched and could not find them. It appointed an independent investigator.

Before the investigator could report back, the AEC said 'We know enough already. Our Widget is so important that we have to get it right. We think it's not good enough. We're not going to wait for someone else to complain about our Widget. We're going to do it. Let's ask the High Court to confirm that we failed and tell us what we need to do fix it.'

Remarkable.

This rare integrity in decision making is only possible when a decision maker has Widget authenticity and clarity.

 

Every organisation claims to be 'committed to...' something. Committed to excellence in... Committed to the welfare of... Committed to the safety of... Committed to our customers...

Committed.

'Committed to' implies that we've leapt. The bullet has been fired. The train has left the station. We won't be satisfied until we've produced excellence, welfare, safety, customer satisfaction. Nothing will stop us. There is nothing foreseen or unforeseen that will cause us to waver us from what we have committed ourselves to do. We have no choice now.

Yet the reality for most organisations is that Committed To is the excited language of the salesman and the marketer and the PR person being put into the mouth of the Widget maker to get people to buy the Widget. It rarely comes off the assembly line in that colour. It's too hard.

Which is why the decision making of the AEC is so extraordinary and very reassuring, as its role is:

to deliver the franchise: that is, an Australian citizen's right to vote, as established by the Commonwealth Electoral Act 1918.

 

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Complaint, Conflict, Decision Making, Leadership Bernard Hill Complaint, Conflict, Decision Making, Leadership Bernard Hill

Beard.

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There's an old man with a long white beard and a big book who sits at a large desk in a larger office at the head of every organisation. 

Even Liz concedes that it's a man and that he has a long white beard. 

That old man is very wise and has all the answers. 

('The Onion' ran an article along similar lines about a team of people in a room looking after the entire United States.) 

But he's kept in the dark by incompetent people in the management hierarchy below him and so bad things happen to people without his knowledge. 

If only we could get past our line manager, her line manager, and everyone in between us and the old man with the long white beard.

If only we knew his direct number and could bypass the help desk, customer service or call centre operator. 

If only we could appeal to him the decision that we didn't like. 

If only we could tell him our side of the story. 

He would listen. Nod. Stroke his long white beard. 

He would open up his big book and flick a few pages.  Run his finger down the wise words written in it.

He would look up, adjust his glasses, smile at us from behind his long white beard and say: 

'You're right. Sorry. I'll fix it for you.'

He would make things right.  

He would make us happy again. 


I worked for an organisation whose policies allowed a decision to be appealed up to six times - beyond the Chief Executive Officer and to a government minister. 

One appeal step was a review of the decision by a committee of experts and the complainant's peers. 

 'Nothing ever gets resolved,' complainants complained.

'Nothing ever gets resolved,' managers complained. 

 

Leaders nurture good decision making by supporting decisions made at the lowest appropriate level and at the earliest appropriate time. 

Because there is no old man with a long white beard. 


 

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Distance.

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Step One of Good Decision Making: Step Back.

Viktor Frankl wrote: 

 

'Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom. '

 

Stimulus: information. A complaint. Criticism. Bad news. New and unexpected data. A problem.

Instinctive reaction. Surprise. Shock. Anger. Defensiveness. Denial. React. Respond. Return fire. Fight. 

Impotence. 

Step Back. 

Lean back in your chair. Stare at the ceiling. Get up and walk. Down the corridor. To the kitchen for a cup of coffee. To a sympathetic colleague's office. Or home.

Have a lemonade or three. Vent to your spouse or pet. Take the cat for a walk. Go for a run. Smash a golf ball. Have another lemonade. Wallow. Feel sorry for yourself. Search the job ads. Watch a movie. Reclaim your freedom.

Be human. Not boss, manager, leader, decision-maker, company woman, parent, mother, father, son, daughter, prodigy. Be worried, annoyed, frustrated, sad, impatient, unreasonable. Wallow. Be selfish.

Allow yourself to be yourself so you can choose to become yourself.

Create the space. 

Expand it. 

Step up and begin doing what your boss is paying you to do and what you promised her that you'd do. (That's called 'Integrity.')

'I'll have an answer to you by next Friday.' (Aim to have it to them by Wednesday. Under-promise and over-deliver.) 

You feel your power returning. 

 The psychologist  Yaacov Trope argues that:

 

'Psychological distance may be one of the single most important steps you can take to improve thinking and decision-making. It can come in many forms: temporal, or distance in time (both future and past); spatial, or distance in space (how physically close or far you are from something); social, or distance between people (how someone else sees it); and hypothetical, or distance from reality (how things might have happened).

But whatever the form, all of these distances have something in common: they all require you to transcend the immediate moment in your mind. They all require you to take a step back.'

 

Begin the rest of the Good Decision Making Process unencumbered by the emotions that strangle your ability to analyse and assess data openly and logically and on its merits. Earn your salary. Build your Widget. Become who you are.

 

'You can't change what's already happened but you can change what happens next.' 

- Peter Baines, Disaster Management Specialist.

 

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