Follow.
Interviewer: 'We are supposed to do the right things...'
Retired US Navy SEAL: 'Do you know what the right thing is?'
Interviewer: 'Well...not to kill innocent civilians...'
Retired SEAL: 'You don't have any idea. Not to be rude or anything, but one person's...what they think is the right idea is, is completely opposite from what the other one is. That's why we have to solely focus on our Leadership, our Admirals, who have been around and have been through all of this and they make the calls and it flows all the way down to us and we follow our orders to the T. Being in the SEAL teams we're outside of the box thinkers. We're not idiots. Most SEALS have their degrees and a lot of them have their Masters and we've been in this game for a very, very long time. So the thing that we ask - not out loud - we hope and pray that the American public has enough trust and faith in us to do and make the right decision....It's war and there is no right or wrong answer...'
To dismiss this response as the predictably military gung-ho blind 'We just follow orders' is to ignore some powerful insights into good decision making in the most extreme circumstances that also translates to the every day.
Navigating a good decision requires a fixed north - the Widget.
The Widget is designated by the Leader.
The decision maker accepts the Widget as the creation of a person who they trust - even if that trust is that there will be money in their bank account each fortnight.
Implicit in the dynamic between Widget, Leader and decision maker is that the decision maker continues to choose the Widget.
If I sneer at this equation it's either because my Leaders are managers or I choose not to choose.
'Right' and 'Wrong' are irrelevant.
It's all about the Widget.
Encapsulates.
'When people ask me what I do I try and show them this. I am really proud of this clip - it encapsulates what I want to bring to every and any live performance I film or stage for the camera.'
- Hamish Hamilton, Director
What would I show someone if they asked me what I do?
Would it encapsulate what I try to bring to my Widget?
Would I be really proud of it?
Would it arouse goosebumps every time I showed it?
If not - why not?
Configuration
Flight NZ175 from Auckland to Perth was descending.
The passengers heard the whirr-thump of the wheels lowering and locking.
Then the even whine of the two Rolls Royce engines changed pitch to a roar and the aircraft accelerated into a climb.
Toppling the dominoes.
Landing slot with Air Traffic Control lost.
Ground crews, refuelers, caterers, baggage handlers reorganising themselves.
Every extra minute costing the airline $170 in fuel.
350 passengers, their waiting families, taxis, flight connections, hotel transport, crew changes delayed.
Thousands of dollars lost and hundreds of people inconvenienced.
While still airborne and circling in the landing pattern again, the pilot made an announcement.
He had aborted the landing because he had made 'a configuration error'.
Dan, my Air Traffic Controller friend confirmed that a 'configuration error' probably means that the pilot had not set the flaps correctly for the landing.
How naïve of the pilot to make such an admission of his error.
How reckless of him to say 'Hey everyone still buckled up back there that I'm carrying aloft at several hundred kilometres an hour several thousand feet above the ground and who are still relying on me to get you back to earth - I screwed up.'
Yet on reflection - how refreshing.
Honest. Confident. Respectful. Brave.
The pilot wasn't naïve. He knew what he was doing.
Just what you want in the bloke controlling the metal tube you're travelling in 10 kilometres above the ground.
Doubt.
'Perplext in faith, but pure in deeds,
At last he beat his music out.
There lives more faith in honest doubt,
Believe me, than in half the creeds.'
- Alfred, Lord Tennyson
'One of the reasons that a person is interested in what other people have to say is they know they don't know. Doubt is the place in me for you to affect me.'
- John Patrick Shanley
A Leader holds certainty with doubt.
A Leader is someone whom others choose to follow. People won't easily abandon their driftwood and tread water over to your raft if you're bailing water.
Doubt is never on the PowerPoint list of The 10 Qualities of a Leader.
Yet Leadership is inherently a transitional state between certainties. Leaders are on a journey from here towards their belief in Something Better Over Somewhere. Otherwise it's Management. (There's nothing wrong with that.)
People who complain about their Leaders almost always don't need Leadership. They need a Manager. Or a parent.
Almost by definition, if someone has certainty about where they're going and how they're going to get there, they are not a Leader. They're an airline pilot or a train driver. (There's nothing wrong with them either.)
Each of us hears the call towards Something Better Over Somewhere. Many of us respond, only to fall back as the tether between our ego and the opinions of the world tightens.
She breaks free and suffers the whiplash of our jealous displeasure.
She lays down a pathway of good decision making to a familiar beat of self-doubt that calls:
'Come! I am just like you.'
Joy.
It's half time during the NBA Playoffs. 10 million people are watching you at your desk making your Widget.
Hamish Hamilton is a Director whose work directing a U2 concert in Boston in 2001 was played live around the world during the 17 minute NBA half time. He was filmed at work and these images were included in the U2 Elevation DVD.
It doesn't take an expert to recognise that we are watching a pristine practical example of how good decision making, technical excellence, widget thinking, teamwork, structure and artistry come together to create excellence.
Listen to Hamish spontaneously and sincerely praise others' work as they do it. (He doesn't wait for the annual performance review to give them feedback.) Listen to him urge the team on with raw passion. (He doesn't need to act serious, aloof and boss-like when he's really feeling like shouting 'C'mon!') Watch him sway, gesture, dance and even sing in sync with the band, losing his body in his work while his brain stays focussed on the complex director's steering wheel. (He doesn't have to wait for the staff social event and a few drinks to be himself.) Listen to him drop expletives of delight at his team's work. (He's built enough trust with his co-workers not to need to worry about a bullying or harassment complaint.) Listen to him shout 'This is what we're good at!' because he knows the real meaning of team. (He doesn't have to take them on an artificial off-site, outsourced team building day.) Hear him say 'Thank you'. (He's not so self-absorbed in his creativity to not be aware that there are people at the end of his barked directions.) Watch how he harnesses the chaos while his Assistant Director Hayley literally calls a cadence beat of structure amidst the noise, lights and confusion. Watch his sheer joy as he executes responsibility for co-ordinating dozens of people and millions of dollars worth of equipment to produce a widget that will be expected to make tens of millions in sales.
Here is proof that we can make our serious widget and dance.
Hamish is a worker who loves his job and is exceptionally good at it. He has directed an Academy Awards ceremony among other high profile events including the London Olympic ceremonies.
Yet the most powerful evidence that he is truly in the élite is among the 42 comments below the Youtube video of his work. Amidst the expressions of appreciation and praise for his direction is the inevitable criticism posted in 2012 for the world to read:
'Sorry to say this, but Hamish Hamilton was the WORST ACADEMY AWARDS DIRECTOR EVER after last year!!! The execution was such a mess, especially with "And the winner is..." replacing "And the Oscar goes to", and although I taped it I won't even bother dubbing it to DVD. I guess Louis J. Horvitz and Glenn Weiss were too busy, which is why they tapped Hamish instead. Thankfully, Don Mischer will be directing and co-producing this year's Oscarcast.'
This is the comment that Hamish Hamilton posted in response:
'Glad you liked it johnnyafairbank ! Don is indeed directing and co-producing the show this year. He will do an amazing job - he is a fantastic director, a gentleman and crucially will also be a co-producer. It may be worth noting that the show was nominated for more Emmys than any Oscars ceremony ever so some people did like it. Enjoy this years show's - your obviously glad its not me ! I can send you a DVD of last years if you wish. Respect Hamish'
The level of self-confidence that produces this measured, dignified response - written with subtle humour yet without a hint of malice or attempt at public retaliation or humiliation of his critic - can only come from someone who knows in their soul that their work is very very good.
If Hamish Hamilton hasn't found who he is - then he's very close to it.
Hamish was not misplaced in believing in 2012 that his decision-making speaks for itself. A few weeks ago it was announced that he will direct the 2014 Oscars broadcast.
Kanye.
Musician Kanye West explained how Good Decision Making and Widget Thinking help him to become who he is.
His life and creative process and therefore his mistakes are before the world. They are the product of Good Decision Making and therefore teach others so he can never be wrong:
'I'm opening up my notebook and I'm saying everything in there out loud. A lot of people are very sacred with their ideas, and there is something to protecting yourself in that way, but there's also something to idea sharing, or being the person who makes the mistake in public so people can study that.'
Kanye also understands that it's all about the Widget. And it's never about the Widget:
'It's more about the art of conversation, the companionship, the friendships, and the quality of life that you get out of working—it's about the creative process even more than the final product. I think there's something kind of depressing about a product being final, because the only time a product is really final is when you're in a casket.
My mission is about what I want to create.'
Seeing.
'You must love those you lead before you can be an effective leader, You can certainly command without that sense of commitment, but you cannot lead without it. And without leadership, command is a hollow experience, a vacuum often filled with mistrust and arrogance.'
General Eric Shinseki - Ex-US Army Chief of Staff
The Air Commodore saw the Flight Lieutenant waiting at the Orderly Room counter.
'How are you finding the job so far, Bernard?' He remembered my name. He was the Air Officer Commanding Training Command with hundreds on his immediate staff and thousands more at the units under his Command scattered around Australia and overseas. He remembered me after being introduced a month earlier when I began my first real Air Force posting.
'Busy?' he asked. I gave the only answer that I could to my boss's, boss's boss. 'Well, you need to find a couple of days to spare,' he said. 'How would you like to come with me on a Staff Visit to RAAF Base Wagga?'
The next day I accompanied the Air Commodore and his senior staff to all his meetings with the various commanding officers of units at RAAF Wagga. 'I think it's important that all junior officers get to see what we do first hand,' he told me in his car on the way there. 'You need to get out of Headquarters as much as you can to see what our people do.'
I watched how a One Star commander listened, spoke, deliberated, questioned, joked, sat, responded, decided, commanded. No other boss ever gave me an opportunity like that, let alone a boss's, boss's boss. The second most senior commander in the Air Force.
No other boss saw me.
On the drive back to Melbourne he asked me 'What did you think?'
A good boss sees.
She sees you and stops to help you [to become who you are].
She sees because she is looking.
She is looking because she is confident that she doesn't know and that you may.
She hands you her map and says 'Take us there'.
Simplicity.
'Everything in war is simple, but the simplest thing is difficult.'
- Carl von Clausewitz
The more business education about decision making, the worse the decisions.
The more complex the decision-making environment, the more need for simplicity of decision making process and tools.
These were the conclusions from a PhD thesis.
The participants in the experiments who were given a simple objective - make a profit - made the best decisions. Those who made the worst decisions were the ones who were distracted by information about their competition and the need to maintain market share.
The participants who were given simple tools to work through their decisions had the flexibility to adapt to dynamic circumstances.
Widget Thinking and the Five Steps provide both the simplicity and the 'sense making' that serve good decision making.
Good decision makers check their progress against their Widget as their True North.
In 1983 John Bertrand and the crew of Australia II were down 1-3 in the seven race Americas Cup final. This was his response at a press conference:
'Basically, nothing has changed. After Sunday afternoon, we had to win three boat races. Today we still have to win three boat races.'
He held his nerve and Australia won the next three races and the Cup.
Leaders don't measure their progress by where they are with respect to anyone else. They make good decisions and the rest takes care of itself.
I.
'There is a lot of learning between 'It fell' and 'I dropped it'.
- Anonymous
'You got a sec?,' the strike pilot asked me. His cheeks still had the outline of his oxygen mask.
I followed him to another room and he pushed a video casette into the VCR.
'This is vision from the package that I just led.'
The black and white infra red images filmed from an F111C aircraft earlier that night three nautical miles away at 600 knots began playing. He was about to narrate when he paused, smiled, leaned back in his chair and gently closed the door from where three pilots from one of our allies were looking in.
'See the cross-hairs?' he resumed. 'You'll see me move them over the corner of this intersection.' He jabbed at the screen where the white cross was settling on the outline of the top of a building. 'This was our target. The telephone exchange in the centre of the city. Top left hand corner. Remember it?'
I nodded. I had reviewed and approved all the strike package targets for the Commander earlier in the day.
'See those numbers here?' He pointed at one of several sets of readouts along the edge of the image. 'They are simulating my laser guided bomb coming in. Three, two, one. Perfect. Bang on. Target destroyed. Well, simulated. Now watch.'
The cross hairs remained in place for a few seconds. Then glided to the ghostly outline of the building on the bottom right of the intersection. Then back up. Pause. Then diagonally down. The image flickered to black.
'Wrong building,' he said, punching the tape out of the recorder. 'I bombed the wrong corner of the intersection. I need you to tell me the consequences. I need you to brief me and the rest of the Squadron on the legal implications of my error. Can you do that?'
'Yes, Sir.'
'Good,' he said. 'Thank you.'
There was a knock at the door then it opened to five bearded, filthy and grinning Special Forces soldiers.
'Come in fellas,' the Air Commodore said, then to me 'Sorry - these blokes just want to see the video of us tracking them along a creek bed last night from five miles away. They're curious. Didn't hear a thing. Want to sit in?'
Rejection.
We want to belong.
Yet each time we make a decision we risk rejection.
Creativity - by definition - demands decisions that extend us beyond what is, towards what may be.
(Mind the gap.)
Creative people - by definition - make decisions that expose themselves up there for us to see. And reject.
Dancers, singers, musicians, conductors, poets, painters.
Leaders.
A recent study concluded that 'bolstering independence of self-concept' (ie self-confidence) can develop resilience and potentially enhance creativity. Good news.
It suggests that our decisions lead to creativity, that leads to resilience, that leads towards becoming who we are, that leads to decisions that lead to creativity that leads to reslience, that leads us towards becoming who we are...
Leading.
Artists are brave.
Journey.
'Some journeys are direct, and some are circuitous; some are heroic, and some are fearful and muddled. But every journey, honestly undertaken, stands a chance of taking us toward the place where our deep gladness meets the world's deep need.'
- Parker Palmer
Translated into Widget Thinking:
Do what makes me glad - Weekend Widget.
Find someone who needs my Weekend Widget enough to pay for it.
Mind the gap. Jump.
Weekend Widget becomes Weekday Widget.
Bliss.
Most of us go about it the other way around.
We want independence, food, shelter, status. We find a boss who pays us - it doesn't really matter what to do and enjoying it is a bonus after all it is called 'work' - to fund these needs. Which leads us to dependence.
We pine for our Weekend Widget - our deep gladness. While the world is denied the benefit of our honestly undertaken journey.
Stop blaming the boss.
Stop blaming the bank.
Begin the journey.
The world needs you.
Transition.
‘How did it go?'
Her face was flushed and sweaty after her first day of leading tour groups around New Norcia.
‘Good. No - Excellent. Well, nervous at first. And I nearly lost it at one stage.
'I was walking along with fifteen people behind me and I turned to ask Belinda something. And then I realised that Belinda wasn’t there anymore. It was just me.
'I looked back and saw all those people following me. Me! I started to freak. It hit me that I was It. I’d never thought about what it would be like until then. My stomach started churning and I just wanted to run. I suddenly felt all this responsibility. It happened in a rush.’
‘You obviously didn’t run.’
‘No. I looked over my shoulder and saw that they were all still following behind me. So I just kept walking. Kept leading them to the next stop on the tour. And then the next one after that.
About halfway through I began to relax. I realised that I just had to keep walking and that they would follow me. I know the town history and they wanted to hear about it. I almost started laughing at one point because I knew that I could go anywhere and say anything and that they would follow and listen and nod. Scary to think what I could have done without them knowing any different and anyone to tell them otherwise.
'By the end, I was enjoying it.'
True Leaders - not PowerPoint ones - you remember the feeling of transition.
The churning stomach. The weight of other people's decision making loading upon your shoulders like discarded rifles surrendered by a defeated army.
The sound of a serious stranger's voice coming from your mouth with your Father's words, or a teacher's, or a book, or a movie - from somewhere but not from your heart.
That first decision that you made to lead those people somewhere that you eventually learned - or are still learning - is leading you back to yourself.
Leaders are brave.
Process.
Good decision making objectifies the outcome.
It puts distance between the result and our self worth.
It builds a firewall between our process and whatever happens next.
The more that we see our decisions as an extension of our personalities the less we are able to let go.
Step Back.
Identify the Issue.
Assess the Information.
Check for Bias.
Give a Hearing.
Make the decision.
Watch what happens next.
Learn.
Repeat.
Do your job.
Get paid.
Go home.
Visible.
A Leader makes the work visible.
In knowledge work, decisions build upon other decisions as they move along the assembly line to emerge as the organisation's Widget.
A Leader makes decisions that are visible in process and outcome to others who need to follow.
The word educate comes from educare which means to ‘draw out’.
Leaders draw out followers by making decisions that in turn open up space for them to make their own decisions that they know will be supported by the Leader.
We will follow someone whose decision making processes are transparent and predictable. We gain the confidence to make our own decisions that build upon and enable the decisions of our Leader.
Leaders are teachers and teachers are leaders because through their decisions they draw others into engagement with the world.
Many ‘leaders’ do the opposite. They make decisions in isolation and using processes and reasons only known to them. They sit in meetings where they have exclusive access to information that they use to make decisions. They then expect their followers to act on their decisions based on positional power alone.
A Leader whose decisions are based on policies or other visible processes and who is not afraid or too busy to explain her reasoning, particularly in response to criticism or complaint – or...her own mistakes...is more likely to draw out her followers from their bunkers of fear or suspicion.
'The decision about what to do next is even more important than the labor spent executing it. A modern productive worker is someone who does a great job in figuring out what to do next.'
Seth Godin
Consequences.
The Australian Electoral Commission gave another example of Good Decision Making today.
Ed Killesteyn the AEC Commissioner was interviewed on Radio National on the decision by the AEC to declare the Senate result in Western Australia despite the disappearance of 1375 votes.
He began by acknowledging the 'gravity' of the situation and apologising to the electors.
He said that he was left with 'a nagging and almost irreconcilable doubt' about the result of the WA Senate election.
The journalist then asked him if this was the case, 'Why on earth is the AEC going to declare the Senate result in WA this afternoon?'
'I have no choice,' Mr Killesteyn replied. 'I am obligated to declare the result. Legally I have no other choice.'
'So you need to do this so that it can be referred to the courts?' the journalist asked.
'That's correct. The 40 day petition period to the courts is only enlivened once the last of all the writs has been returned. '
The Commissioner then summarised to the Australian public, via the journalist, everything that he had done to find the missing votes.
The AEC had already begun an inquiry into the missing votes and was reviewing its procedures.
Mr Killesteyn understands that he is a servant of the Law, which says that he must declare the election. Despite some withering criticism, he recognises that he must make this decision to allow the consequences to begin flowing from it, whatever they may be.
He steps back from his own doubt and uncertainty and does his job. He produces his Widget so that others may produce theirs.
Like most good leaders, Mr Killesteyn is not in the heroic model. He is a career public servant who appears to have discharged his duties without fanfare or fuss.
In a 2009 speech he listed the four principles under which the AEC operated in order to build public confidence in its impartiality, one of which was 'decision-making in accordance with objective application of the law'.
He quoted from a speech given by the Indian Chief Election Commissioner, who said that the Indian organisation was able to retain the confidence of the electors because it was 'a listening Commission'.
Listening.
The Indian Commissioner concluded by saying:
'Being human, we can be wrong sometimes, but our intention should never be impure.'
Mr Killesteyn's words and tone of speech showed that he understood and accepted that his organisation had failed in fulfilling its public duty to deliver on nothing short of the democratic process of a Federal Election.
Yet his voice during the interview was calm, measured, steady and without the edge that one expects from someone under so much criticism. Possibly because he was liberated by the knowledge that while he had failed in his Widget, his decision making was flawless.
His response today was even more remarkable given that it was he who decided to overrule the WA Electoral Commissioner's original decision and to allow the re-count that has ultimately revealed his organisation's errors and undermined public confidence in it, and in him.
Leaders are Brave.
Dance.
Dance, as with most art, can teach us about how to harness the tension between order and creativity in an organisation and in ourselves.
An hour spent watching professional dancers rehearse is a humbling experience. Their discipline, intrinsic drive to perfect the smallest of moves, facial expressions, even the position of their fingers are inspirational for most workers whose main driver is whether Dorothy put doughnuts in the boardroom for morning tea.
The Weekend Australian newspaper had an article about the work of the choreographer Stephanie Lake that captured the paradox of creating beautiful art.
"When I watch her create movement phrases, to me it's the musical equivalent of listening to Bach improvise a fugue," says Fox, a renowned composer and sound artist. "It's incredibly intuitive but brilliantly precise at the same time."
Lake says of her collaboration with Fox on A Small Prometheus: "We have pushed each other into this place and we have ended up with a piece that has quite a lot of tension in it. We didn't set out to make that; it's where we have been led."
Lake says she often works with dancers in an improvisatory way and then selects those passages she wants to "fix", or retain in the final piece.
But for A Small Prometheus she wanted the dance to suggest instability, or constant flux, so some passages are fixed and others are a little unplanned. "Bodies melt, cascade, fall into each other," she says. "Often things go wrong. It hasn't been lethal, but it's risky. There are sections in this work - which is new for me - that are essentially loose and unpredictable."
Intuitive.
Precise.
Space.
Tension.
Led.
Improvisatory
Instability.
Flux.
Wrong.
Risky.
Unpredictable.
These are the nouns of an authentic life of a person and an organisation. We suppress them at our peril.
Almost all of us read these as signs of error, failure, disaster, impending job loss. Leaders not only allow these elements to exist, they fan them.
That's why Leaders are brave and rare. Not for the reason we traditionally assume - ie that they need courage to make the tough, unpopular decisions needed to preserve order.
A Leader is called to create the space and hold all of these contradictions within, amidst the fear, anger, anxiety, conflict and uncertainty that inevitably arise. The Leader perseveres despite the failures and the criticisms because this is what she is called to do. There is almost no choice for her.
As Stephanie Lake said about her work:
'We didn't set out to make that; it's where we have been led. '
Competition.
The ABC programme Landline had a story on Chinese investment in the Ord River region of Western Australia on the Northern Territory border.
A local sugar farmer said something that was a rare and refreshing example of an ability to think beyond a simplistic and impulsive response to the government supporting the entry of a huge competitor. One would think that he would be wary and resistant to a large foreign company competing with his livelihood.
Yet here's what he said:
'I think it would radically change it in a positive way, and I think often, we all oppose change. It's a scary thing. It can be very hurtful and difficult, but it's a positive thing. It brings out the best in people. We're a very open community, we embrace new people. I'm really looking forward to having some new farmers come in and show us up a bit, you know, 'cause hopefully they're better than us.'
SPEAR.
She summarised it all.
Cadets. Law School. Officers Training School. Basic Staff Course. Masters of Defence Studies. Consulting. Workshops. Seminars. Books. Lots of books. All the PowerPoints, training films, lectures, military exercises, manuals, exams, yelling, drill, marching, chains of command, legislation, tutorials, performance reviews and on the job experience.
She was 12 years old.
I had finished teaching spear throwing to a group of Year 7s who were at New Norcia on a Leadership Camp. They were sitting cross-legged in the shade of the trees at the end of the oval and I was trying to draw leadership lessons from the last hour of throwing Gidgies - the Aboriginal spear - using the Miro. It was impromptu. I was making it up as I went along. I had an inbox full of emails back in my office.
'Did you learn anything today about being Leaders?' I asked them.
A hand went up.
'You're the New Norcia Town Manager and you led the activity today?' the boy said with a child's typical upward inflection.
'Well, yes. And was there anything that I did that you thought was what leaders do?'
A different hand went up.
'You drew a line in the dirt and told us that we weren't to go over the line unless you said that we could?'
'Was that because I was bossy?'
'No. You didn't want one of us to accidentally get speared.'
'That's right. So I explained the boundaries of our activity. Good. Anything else?'
Hand up.
'You put that cardboard box full of straw in front of us and told us it was a pretend kangaroo and that was our target that we had to spear?'
'Good. I gave you something to aim for. Anything else that I did that you think a leader might do?'
'You gave us each a Gidgie and Miro and taught us how to use them?'
'Yes. Anything else?' I reckoned I'd exhausted all the lessons. One last opportunity to squeeze thoughts out of their capped heads.
Hand up. I'm surprised. I nod towards the boy squinting up at me.
'After each throw you told us what we did right and what we did wrong? We kept missing the box - er - kangaroo but we got closer each time?'
I was impressed. 'Good. So I was giving you feedback. Yes. Leaders give feedback in a way that encourages or affirms.'
I reckoned that was about it. I was feeling quite chuffed about how much we'd extracted given I'd done no planning. Most had lost eye contact with me and were tugging at the tufts of dead grass. I glanced at my watch. Five minutes left.
'So does anyone have anything else to add? Any questions about our activity?'
Silence. Then her hand slowly rose from the middle of the group.
'Yes?'
'You got out of the way?' she said. A few giggles.
I started to smile. But didn't. I wondered.
'What do you mean?' I'm wondering if...
'Well, the last thing that you did was that you moved to the side and just let us throw the spears. You waited for us all to finish and didn't say anything. You just watched us. And then you came over and let us know how we'd gone so that we could do it better next time.'
I felt a tingle.
'That's right. I got out of the way. There was nothing more for me to do.' I paused to remember the list of things that they'd told me I'd done. 'I'd shown you the area or space that you had to do the activity in. I shown you what the purpose was - to spear the kangaroo. I gave you all the equipment and taught you how to use it. I gave you feedback after each throw so that you learned how to do it better. And then - I got out of your way and let you get on with it.'
Wow.
I scanned their bored faces. They didn't share my excitement at the significance of that exchange. They were thinking about afternoon tea and then Aboriginal tool making with Lester. But my mind was humming.
And then this.
The same girl's hand rises. 'Yes?'
'Is that why they say that leaders are brave?'
My tingles tingled.
'What do you mean?'
She blinked. Cocked her head slightly. Waved away a fly.
'Well...it must be really hard for a leader to just stand back and let people do their jobs and not keep yelling at them or taking over and doing it themselves. To know that some people might do it wrong and it's the leader who gets blamed. I think it must take lots of bravery to be a leader.'
Then off they trotted up the hill behind their teachers to their biscuits and cordial and more lessons about Leadership.
Space.
Purpose.
Equip.
Affirm.
Retreat.
Participation.
The Philosopher Kwame Anthony Appiah said in an interview something that we all know:
People who have been heard, and whose position is understood, tend to be more willing to accept an outcome that they wouldn't have chosen because they feel that they've had a voice, that they've participated in the process.
This is consistent with Step 5 of the Five Step Good Decision Making Process - Hearing.
The 'process' can be a single decision. Or the entire boss-worker relationship.
The job advertisement. 'This is our Widget. If you build Widgets that look like this, we need you to help us build our Widget.'
The interview. 'Have you read the contract of employment that says that if you build your Widget in the way that we describe then we will put money in your bank?'
The informal chat over a coffee. 'What sport do you play?'
The conversation over a copy of the employment agreement. 'Yes, we can add a clause that says that you can leave early on Tuesdays for State representative hockey practice in exchange for those overnight work trips interstate.'
The tour of the potential workplace. 'Here's your desk and your surroundings where you will spend a lot of hours of your life.'
The job is offered and accepted. 'Thank you for choosing to work with us.'
The Entry Interview. 'Why did you choose to work with us and what are you hoping for in this job?'
The three days of induction before touching a computer mouse. 'Here are our Values and let's take a tour of our factory floor so you can see the final Widget coming off the conveyor belt with the bit that we want you to build.'
The ad hoc conversations. 'I heard that the Hockeyroos are training down the road today. Let's have our weekly catch up over a sandwich at the oval.'
And so on.
A year on and the boss raises the potential new position in Singapore.
The boss chooses Geoffrey. Disappointment. Hurt. A sting to the ego. Self doubt.
Reflection. Recalibration.
There's a job in the Rio office. 2016 Olympics host city.
Hard.
A Leader recognises the tension between the uncertainty, anxiety and chaos that flow from navigating virgin territory, and the fear that this is evidence that she is failing and that she needs to turn back.
Leadership is Leadership because it is advancing where no-one has been before. Leadership is taking people in a direction that they otherwise wouldn't have chosen. It follows (no pun intended) that this will give rise to emotional turbulence in both the Leader and those following her.
It is hard.
Leaders are Leaders because they continue to advance towards where they want to be beyond the point where the PowerPoint leaders turn back because there's no path and it's hard and people are complaining.
The PowerPoint leader talks of leadership of leading of leaders of lead of leadership positions with the background hum of their wheels running over the smooth bitumen highway that was beaten, then surveyed, then graded, then laid out in front of them to travel on in air conditioned comfort with the cruise control on directed by the onboard navigation system while everyone's asleep in the back.
The PowerPoint leader then makes a decision in their voice to deviate. They immediately become disconcerted by the sound and unevenness of the gravel and the bumpy ride as they veer off someone else's route. Those in the back seat stir and mutter at being disturbed by the poor driving. They peer through the windows and feel anxious as they don't recognise their surroundings. They seek comfort and affirmation of the legitimacy of their fears in the other anxious fellow back seat faces. There's murmurs of dissent.
The PowerPoint leader makes another decision that relies on what they learned from their first decision. They veer off the track and into virgin terrain. The back seat grumbles grow into calls to turn back because surely the vibrations and the shaking and the noise and the uncertainty mean that this can't be the right direction.
Wrong way. Turn back. You must be lost. There's no track let alone marked highway and signs. Look around. Nobody else is on this route. Here - look at the map that proves you're wrong. Everyone in the back seat thinks you're wrong. We took a vote. Democracy.
The fear for the novice Leader transcending from PowerPoint slides is that the voices behind them and in their head might be right. Who do they think they are to deviate off the bitumen?
The real time symptoms of error are the same as those of Leadership. It's only those who may follow who can see the sense and predictability of the path.
Choosing to transcend the PowerPoint slides and into Leadership demands exceptional confidence that can survive the battering to ego and identity and the ceaseless gnawing of self-doubt that is louder than the critics' voices. Not motivated by any external goal or incentive because these may never be grasped.
But because to do so is to become who you are.