Certainty.

The only certainty is the process.

Theory.

'Whether you think you do or not, you do have a theory of human behaviour. The only choice is in deciding which theory you will use. And the choice is an important one. It will determine how you see people, how you treat them, your assumptions about them - including yourself. It will affect your values, your views about motivation, the quality of your interactions and your leadership.'

- Elliott Jaques

Requisite Organization: A Total System for Effective Managerial Organization

Dr Elliott Jaques was a psychoanalyst by profession. He believed that you don't change organisations by changing people, you change people by changing organisations. Or perhaps you free people to become who they are, by changing organisations.

He had a lot to say about decision making in his book Requisite Organisation. Here is a selection.

'Retrievals and calculations are often confused with decision-making, a confusion which weakens our understanding of true decision-making.'

'All human thinking, and therefore all human work, is a continual and powerful interplay between non-verbal mental processes and the knowledge which we use to direct and focus those processes.'

'The work which you experience as the effort in decision-making is the effort in giving energy and direction to the non-verbal mental processing and bringing or allowing the outcomes into verbalisable awareness, so that they an become part of your knowledge and available for conscious use in problem-solving.'

'Decision-making has to do with human uncertainty:

• It is precisely the uncertainty inherent in human work, the feeling of never being quite sure, that makes you close your eyes and agonise over decisions.
• You do not have all the words, and as you agonise you get hold of raw ideas, clothe them inwards, and dig them from the unverbalised recesses of your mind.
• If you are given tasks of complexity beyond your capability in a role with too long a time-span you become anxious and eventually confused - there is a longer run of uncertainty and more variables than you can cope with.'

'Decision-making and action call for judgement and discretion based upon non-verbal mental work. I term our ability to do this our complexity of mental processing.'

'But never forget, at the actual moment of choice, the choice or decision just gets made, as though on its own, and we become aware of what we have chosen only after we have committed ourselves to some specific particular choice.'

'Skilled knowledge helps to organise and simplify work by enabling a person to carry out parts of a problem-solving activity without having to think about them, thus freeing discretion and judgment which would  be otherwise engaged.'

'The important thing is not to confuse the skilled knowledge with the work.

• Skilled knowledge you do not have to think about: work is the part you have to attend to, think about, and make decisions about.
• When you are skilled at touch-typing you no longer have to think about which keys you are seeking - that is automatic: but you do have to think about whatever it is that you are using the typewriter to record.'

'The art of the good society and of the good organisation is to ensure opportunity for the use of their full potential by all of its people.'

'My whole orientation is towards the performance of individuals in carrying out purposeful goal-directed activities.'

'What we all really yearn for is to have work at a level consistent with our current potential and for progression in line with our maturation, and the chance to get the necessary education and training. That is the true democratic dream.'

'What is more, subordinates yearn for someone above them to sit down with them and discuss their careers and opportunities: and this includes not only those with growth in potential ahead of them but also those who know that they have matured to full potential and seek assurance of continued opportunity to work at that level.'

'You have no idea of the positive galvanising effect upon your people of having their intuitive awareness of their own true potential confirmed by understanding managers-once-removed who have been charged with this duty. Indifference is annulled and a flow of creative energy is released.'

'Manifest Organisation: the organisation structure as it is represented on the official organisation chart: at best a very rough approximation to what is actually going on, if you can even make sense of it.

Assumed Organisation: the structure as different people assume it really works; likely to have as many variations as you have people, and produces confusion.

Extant Organisation: the system as it actually functions, as demonstrated by systemic study. It will always be an approximate picture. It requires that you dig in and find who is actually being held acceptable for what, and what authority they are in fact able to exercise in relation to whom and toward what.'

'If you want each and very one of your managers - at all levels and in any and every function - to be able to be held accountable for deciding what outputs each of their immediate subordinates is producing...then you must ensure not only that they have the following minimum authority but also that they have been taught that they have it and have been instructed in how to use it:

• Veto any new appointment
• Decide types of work assignment
• Decide effectiveness appraisal
• Decide removal from role.'

'To ask a manager about specific tasks which she/he assigns to a subordinate comes as an unfamiliar experience for most - and the managers find replying equally strange and awkward until they get used to it.'

'There is a very important point to be noted here, which will save a lot of susbsquent confusion if taken into account.

• Work (and its complexity and difficulty) is not the traversing of known paths.
• The work is to choose pathways or construct new ones, and to adapt them as you encounter unanticipated difficulties in traversing them.
• Obeying known rules and regulations is not work: it does not constitute a problem: deciding how best to obey under particular circumstances may do so, for rules and regulations set boundaries (prescribed limits) within which your choice of pathways is constrained.'

Dangerous.

'The single most dangerous idea in this world is that you should be free.'

- Cassandra Wilkinson

Look at the image above.

Look very closely.

Can you see the sheep dog?

See?

Keep looking.

See it?

No?

There is no sheep dog.

Debate.

The boss is busy. He's important. He's got so many important things to worry about. Meetings to attend. Emails to write. Reports to read. It's unreasonable to expect him to have time to spend consulting with you. Anyway, his matters are lofty and serious. He doesn't have to explain himself to you. You wouldn't understand anyway because it's very complicated. He knows what he's doing because he's the boss. It's serious work being a boss. Don't waste his time and just get your work done so he can do his. The boss is busy.

In mid-1942 Prime Minister Winston Churchill rose to address the House of Commons. The Second World War was in its third year and the British Army was in full retreat in North Africa. The German Afrika Corps was forty miles from Alexandria and eighty from Cairo. Prime Minister Churchill was debating a vote of no confidence in his leadership. He was being accused of allowing the Axis forces of Germany and Japan to conquer and enslave the remaining free world.

Churchill did not use fighting a World War as an excuse for not preparing for and engaging in open debate on his decision making. On the contrary, 'What a remarkable example it has been of the unbridled freedom of our Parliamentary institutions in time of war,' he said.

The boss can't be expected to know everything that's going on. How can he be responsible for something that was done two or three levels below him?

'The question of whether Tobruk could be held or not is difficult and disputable. It is one of those questions which are more easy to decide after the event than before it...But those who are responsible for carrying on the war have no such easy options open. They have to decide beforehand. The decision to hold Tobruk and the dispositions made for that purpose were taken by General Auchinleck, but I should like to say that we, the War Cabinet and our professional advisers, thoroughly agreed with General Auchinleck beforehand, and, although in tactical matters the Commander-in-Chief in any war theatre is supreme and his decision is final, we consider that, if he was wrong, we were wrong too, and I am very ready on behalf of His Majesty's Government to take my full share of responsibility.'

Why can't someone just make a decision? Everything takes so long. There is so much bureaucracy. Ask anyone what needs to be done and they will tell you. The boss is useless. 

'Complaint has been made that the newspapers have been full of information of a very rosy character. Several Hon. Members have referred to that in the Debate, and that the Government have declared themselves less fully informed than newspapers...The war correspondents have nothing to do except to collect information, write their despatches and get them through the censor. On the other hand, the generals who are conducting the battle have other preoccupations. They have to fight the enemy.'

The boss wants to be briefed. He wants to have everything run past him. He wants to approve every decision. He wants papers. He wants meetings. He wants pre-meeting meetings. He wants updates. He wants to step in if necessary.

'Although we have always asked that they should keep us informed as much as possible, our policy has been not to worry them but to leave them alone to do their job. Now and then I send messages of encouragement and sometimes a query or a suggestion, but it is absolutely impossible to fight battles from Westminster or Whitehall. The less one interferes the better, and certainly I do not want generals in close battle, and these desert battles are close, prolonged and often peculiarly indeterminate, to burden themselves by writing full stories on matters upon which, in the nature of things, the home Government is not called upon to give any decision...Therefore, the Government are more accurately, but less speedily, less fully and less colourfully informed than the newspapers.'

The boss likes people who work late. Who show how much they care by the number of furrows in their brow.

'Some people assume too readily that, because a Government keeps cool and has steady nerves under reverses, its members do not feel the public misfortunes as keenly as do independent critics. On the contrary, I doubt whether anyone feels greater sorrow or pain than those who are responsible for the general conduct of our affairs.'

The boss wants to know why the plan went wrong.

 'Sir, I do not know what actually happened in the fighting of that day. I am only concerned to give the facts to the House, and it is for the House to decide whether these facts result from the faulty central direction of the war, for which of course I take responsibility, or whether they resulted from the terrible hazards and unforeseeable accidents of battle.'

The boss wants to scrutinise every decision. He won't approve anything until he's absolutely certain that it is perfect.

'How do you make a tank? People design it, they argue about it, they plan it and make it, and then you take the tank and test and re-test it. When you have got it absolutely settled you go into production, and only then do you go into production. But we have never been able to indulge in the luxury of that precise and leisurely process. We have had to take it straight off the drawing board and go into full production, and take the chance of the many errors which the construction will show coming out after hundreds and thousands of them have been made.'

The boss has a serious job. He's a serious man making very, very serious and important decisions. Don't mock the boss. He deserves our respect.

'This tank, the A.22, was ordered off the drawing board, and large numbers went into production very quickly. As might be expected, it had many defects and teething troubles, and when these became apparent the tank was appropriately re-christened the "Churchill."'

The boss doesn't like mistakes. He wants the job done right the first time. If not, he'll lay the blame where it belongs. He can't be held responsible for what others do.

'I cannot pretend to form a judgment upon what has happened in this battle. I like commanders on land and sea and in the air to feel that between them and all forms of public criticism the Government stand like a strong bulkhead. They ought to have a fair chance, and more than one chance. Men may make mistakes and learn from their mistakes. Men may have bad luck, and their luck may change. But anyhow you will not get generals to run risks unless they feel they have behind them a strong Government. They will not run risks unless they feel that they need not look over their shoulders or worry about what is happening at home, unless they feel they can concentrate their gaze upon the enemy.'

It's a serious business being a boss. It's no laughing matter. He's engaged in important things.

'I have stuck hard to my blood, toil, tears and sweat, to which I have added muddle and mismanagement...'

The boss acts on instinct. He makes decisions and expects his authority to be carried out. No questions. If something goes wrong, let's spin ourselves out of it. Don't admit anything.

'Nearly all my work has been done in writing, and a complete record exists of all the directions I have given, the inquiries I have made and the telegrams I have drafted. I shall be perfectly content to be judged by them.'

Inquiry.

'Whether it’s in political parties, juries, or boardrooms, groups of humans tend to make better decisions, and to be better at solving problems, when composed of individuals who see the world differently from each other.

- The New Statesman 

Good decision making is a deliberate process of inquiry that advances you towards where you want to be. 

Inquiry is a brave act. Risky. It declares 'I Don't Know'.

What boss will admit that? What other things might she not know? Why is she being paid the big bucks if she doesn't know?

Might she not know things that she needs to know for me to know things? I've got a job to do. Where does her not-knowing - leave me?

Not knowing.

Inquiry is a brave act. It levels the power scales. The boss and I are equally ignorant. We learn the new thing together. 

The good boss gathers people around her in her inquiry and invites them to tell her she's wrong and encourages me to watch. Brave. [The good boss is a teacher.]

Inquiry implies the boss isn't certain of her footing. She's unsure of the world and needs to know more. She's off balance. Vulnerable to a push from above or below.

Inquiry invites new information that may erase the old. It may call into question everything we assumed. It may even demand that the boss says: 'I was wrong.' Oh dear.

Inquiry is counter to the decisive, busy, brain-in-the-next-meeting, heroic boss.

Thus most bosses don't inquire. [Good bosses are rare.] They pretend to know. They make decisions using instinct. Or delegation (up or down). Or they do nothing and let entropy decide for them. We let them get away with it because he's the boss and we just want a decision - any decision - so that we can plug it into our Widget and have an alibi if the Widget doesn't work and go home and moan about the boss and our life.

A good boss inquires because she is curious. Because she is impatient in her advance towards her Widget which she knows lies beyond the Knowing.

A good boss doesn't decide with power. Or by keeping her workers ignorant. Or by pretending. Or mothering us by protecting us from the scary world of not-knowing.

A good boss knows that I Don't Know might be the three most powerful words in the dictionary.

Or not.

[Let's speak them and see what happens.]

CC.

If your email is about me and I'm not copied in - why not?

If your meeting is about me and I'm not invited - why not? 

If the new employee will work with me and I'm not consulted - why not? 

If your decision is about me and I'm not heard - why not? 

Look at each reason. Now search for any of the following capitalised nouns in your values, codes, policies, mission, speeches, website, LinkedIn page:

Transparent. Committed. Team. Collaborate. Engage. Learn. Accountable. People. Loyal. Inclusive. Serve. Innovative. Creative. Trust. Courage. Excellence.

Integrity.  

Leader. 

God.

Amend either deed or noun as appropriate. 

Or delete 'Integrity'. 

Or sack me. [I obviously can't be trusted.]

Or quit. [You can't trust yourself.]

Observed.

'For if we are observed in all matters, we are constantly under threat of correction, judgment, criticism, even plagiarism of our own uniqueness. We become children, fettered under watchful eyes, constantly fearful that -- either now or in the uncertain future -- patterns we leave behind will be brought back to implicate us, by whatever authority has now become focused upon our once-private and innocent acts.'

- Bruce Schneier

The Leader begins by creating the Space. She invites others into the Space to become who they are. She assumes that they will make mistakes. Get things wrong. Fail.

The Leader doesn't respond with regulation. The opposite. She ultimately Retreats - leaving us to do our work. To make more mistakes. To continue becoming. 

Her faith in us mostly doesn't end well in the measure of the world. We fear freedom. Getting it wrong. We don't know what to do. No-one has taught us. We want to be told. We want someone to blame for our choices. For our unhappiness.

We feel threatened when observed. [I'm not trusted.'] We feel threatened when unobserved. ['I don't get any feedback or gratitude.'] 

Eventually the Leader is replaced by a manager. He tells us what to do. He checks and corrects. We chafe and share our grievances with each other during our designated breaks and are secretly grateful that we are no longer responsible for our unhappiness.

Constantly fearful. 

Longing for Leadership. 

Slack.

'One thing I said I could help him with was Leadership. Because I was thrust into that with West Coast. 

'And I'll be honest as I have said to him privately...probably not publicly as much as I am about to now...but I probably let him down a few times giving him...probably cutting him too much slack to go home and do all those sorts of things.

'So I don't think I actually helped him. I thought I was doing the right thing by him keeping him happy so he would continue to play football which is...ultimately...I was trying to help the Club.

'But from a Leadership...from a pure Leadership point of view...would I have done that in [his home town of] Melbourne? Well...I would not have had to have done that in Melbourne...to give him a training session off here and there so he could stay back with family and friends back in Melbourne.

'But I thought to keep him happy...to keep him playing happy...I thought that was the most important thing from an early point...

'I went to him and said 'I've probably let you down'.'

- Guy McKenna, Coach of the Gold Coast Suns AFL Team, speaking about Gary Ablett.

The first job of a Leader is to create the Space. Allow people to stretch and become who they are. Whack them if they breach it. Not as discipline or punishment. Not as an exercise in power. Not to diminish the person. To invite them to become as she knows they are.

Evidence that Guy McKenna is a Leader. His humility. His honesty. His measure of himself by his service to others. He doesn't wait to be criticised - to be complained about - for him to proactively admit - 'I failed you. Sorry.'

A month after this interview, Guy McKenna was criticised for allowing Gary Ablett too much freedom leading up to a big game.

The day after the article was published Gary Ablett led in possessions as he captained the Gold Coast Suns to a 40 point win - its first ever - over his former club Geelong.

Advocate.

"The real hell of life is everyone has his reasons."

 - Jean Renoir

The Premier of Western Australia Mr Colin Barnett has not supported a push to remove one of his party members who continues to criticise his government, including calling for Mr Barnett to resign.

Another example of a leader who is on top of his game.

Allowing a critic to remain within the ranks is the sign of a confident leader. And not because of her ego blinding her to the criticism.

The good leader knows that there is wisdom in testing arguments and positions inside the tent before they are released into the wild.

As Dr Tim McDonald says: 'Private honesty. Public loyalty.' 

Mr Barnett's accommodation of a dissenting view is also his compliment to the community he serves. He assumes of us what he is demonstrating himself: the maturity to accept that difference is not to be feared.

Mr Barnett is not afraid that the voting public may assume that his party's internal dissent calls into question the ability of his government to run our hospitals and schools and keep our streets safe.

This is what leaders do. They create a space that invites us in to see the version of ourselves that we want to become. 'See?' Mr Barnett says to us. 'I can run an entire State amidst criticism from one of my own. I'm not fleeing. I'm not fighting. I'm smiling. Try it in your own family, workplace, community.'

Very, very few people or organisations can do this. Basically, we don't know how. We don't have the skills. We haven't practised accommodating dissonance. We actively discourage dissent - often quashing it under cover of a breach of 'values' or 'code of conduct'. We drive the our critics to the fringes - until they have to scream so loudly that any merit in their shouted message is dismissed with labels such as 'vexatious'. 

If you want to test the maturity and confidence of an organisation or person - say 'complaint'.

Mature people and organisations will seek out dissenters to join their decision making process to kick the tyres.

If they can't find such a critic, they will appoint one. The 'devil's advocate' was someone appointed by the Catholic Church to argue against the canonisation of a person into sainthood.

The mature organisation knows that a dissenter is one of the ways to avoid the trap of groupthink.

The critic - whether internal or external - demands that we explain ourselves - rather than just declare, or even be satisfied by giving reasons for a decision.

A recent study showed that people who were asked to give reasons for an opinion remained convinced of its rightness. While other people who were asked to give a step by step explanation of how they arrived at their opinion were more likely to recognise an error in their thinking and start reviewing their assumptions.

(Herein lies the value of the Five Steps to a Good Decision.)

Therein also lies both the solution and the problem.

Better to cling on to the flawed certainty of our understanding of the world than to expose ourselves to the panic of finding out that we've been wrong.

It's a rare person who can accommodate the distraction in time and energy of a critic.

Which is why we need leaders like Mr Barnett who have the confidence to show us that whether we label it criticism, dissent, disloyalty, or even treason, it's just information.

Another opportunity for us to measure how we're going with our Widget.

Good leaders are rare.

Answer.

'I know this stuff inherently,' the senior manager said with a shrug at the end of the presentation.

It's the boss's job to know the answer. Or to know that it's not about the answer.

Knowing - or not knowing - is the beginning. Not the end.

The Widget is our north point from which we measure our knowing.

A good boss knows so much about the Widget that she knows it's never about the Widget.

Good decision making is our boss's way to liberate us from her constraints.

Thus freed, she turns her attention to our cages.

Trigger.

The majority of people votes for politicians who elect a leader who consults with her Cabinet and makes a decision that she passes on to her General who promulgates orders that are issued down the chain of command to a 19 year old rifleman with the optical scope of his weapon pressed against the pimple on his cheek.

Along with hundreds of other soldiers sailors and airmen issuing orders, pushing buttons, pressing levers and delivering violence upon other humans on seas, in skies, from air conditioned cubicles and lying on other bits of dirt, the teenage Private pulls a trigger and kills a stranger and thus produces his Widget.

Trust is like the lubricant between the working parts of the teenage infantryman's rifle that respond to his index finger pressure and discharge the round at supersonic speeds towards its living target.

Without trust, the mechanism that delivers a decision from the elected leader to the finger of an infantryman will friction and fail.

The military trains Trust.

Navies, Armies and Air Forces have learned and refined over hundreds of years how to recruit, train, exercise, promote, educate, discipline and remember people who demand and honour high levels of trust.

The military's widget - applying maximum violence permitted by law upon the enemy - is designed a long way from where it is delivered by mostly young women and men. They do so while knowing that their own deaths or maiming are part of their adversary's widget.

Trust is a force multiplier.

Police forces demand similar levels of trust. A probationary constable can deprive a person of their liberty and moves among their community with a gun.

Meanwhile, in the open plan battlefield and amidst the chaos and din of values statements, codes of conduct, team building exercises, most managers distrust their workers.

After all, if they were trustworthy, why would they need managing?

Communication.

We grow up to the sound of cheers and boos.

Parents affirm our good behaviour and correct the bad.

Teachers grade our work.

Coaches urge us on and post our scores.

Peers select and reject us.

Employers do the same.

Right up until we give payroll our bank details and pull our chair into our desk and log on.

Then the stands fall silent.

'There's a lack of communication here,' we say.

'I don't get any feedback.'

'Not so much as a 'Thank You'.'

(As we transfer money from our savings account to our mortgage account.)

It's time to grow up.

When the Boss says nothing she's saying:

'I trust you to do the work.'

On pay day she's saying:

'Thank you.'

Said.

'Never lend the weight of a superior to an order.'

- Military maxim.

When we say:

'The Boss said...', or

'Human Resources said...', or

'The Rule says...'.

We're declaring:

'I'm not trustworthy and nor are you.'

We've weakened our workplace.

Trust.

'People do not have to love each other, or even like each other, to work together effectively. But they do have to trust each other in order to do so. Trust between people is the basic social glue: suspicion and mistrust are the prime enemies of reasonable human relationships.'

- Dr Elliott Jacques, 'Requisite Organization'.

A witness in the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse was asked why he didn't act on a report by one of his staff.

'Because I didn't think that I had enough information to act upon,' was the essence of his explanation.

'If you had witnessed the behaviour yourself, would you have acted upon it?'

'Yes,' he replied.

Here was a rare glimpse into the dirty little secret of almost every organisation and the root cause of their dysfunction.

Bosses won't delegate decision making power because no-one else has the skill to see and interpret information and act upon it as effectively as they can. They're the Boss, after all.

Workers who have delegated decision making power but don't use it because they assume their boss must have a superior understanding of the same information. They're the Boss, after all.

If we fail to act on information given to us by another in the same way that we would if we had first hand knowledge of that information, we declare:

'I don't trust you.'

In which case cancel the off-site team building exercises, Myers-Briggs Tests, Christmas party, external consultant reviews, coaching, values statements, and staff surveys.

And spend the savings on the glue in Payroll to retain the untrusted people who remain to service their mortgages, and to hire the extra managers needed to supervise them. 

Knowing.

Peggy: Did you park your white horse outside? Spare me the suspense and tell me what your Save the Day Plan is. 

Don: I don't have anything yet. The idea I had wasn't great. 

Peggy: It wasn't great. It was terrible. Now I want to hear the real one. Or are you just going to pull it out during the presentation?

Don: This idea is good. I think we can get the client to buy it.

Peggy: No you don't. Or you wouldn't have questioned it. 

Don: I'm going to do whatever you say. 

Peggy: So you're going to pitch the hell out of my shitty idea and I'm going to fail?

Don: Peggy, I'm here to help you do whatever you want to do. 

Peggy: Well how am I supposed to know?

Don: That's a tough one. 

Peggy: You love this. 

Don: Not really. I want you to feel good about what you're doing but you'll never know. That's just the job. 

Peggy: What's the job?

Don: Living in the "Not knowing". 

Peggy: You know I wouldn't have argued if it was me. I would have just given you a hundred ideas and never questioned why. You really want to help me? Show me how you think. Do it out loud. 

Don: You can't tell people what they want. It has to be what you want. 

Peggy: Well I want to go to the movies. 

Don: Whenever I'm really unsure of an idea, first I abuse the people whose help I need. And then I take a nap. 

Peggy: Done. 

Don: Then I start at the beginning again. And see if I end up in the same place. 

- Mad Men - Series 7 'The Strategy'.

Tolerance.

'What we don't realise is how much of our feelings, our actions, our beliefs are coming from our unconscious mind and I think that when we raise our consciousness about our unconscious, you're knowing yourself better. And to know yourself better I think is a good thing. You understand how you're going to react and you understand why you did things and you just have more understanding for yourself. So it not only helps you make better decisions economically, but it helps you make better decisions spiritually because you have in a way more tolerance for yourself as well as more understanding.'

- Leonard Mlodinow, Physicist.

Good decision making is a deliberate process of inquiry that advances us towards where we want to be.

I pay attention to my thinking.

I see the world as it is and not as I presumed it to be.

I learn about you.

I learn about me.

Mess.

'[The BBC gave us] total freedom. They gave us the freedom to mess up which is the best freedom you can have.

For our first series we made our own mistakes. We made lots of mistakes and we realised the control you had to have to get better - the things we needed to change and appreciate...and we were allowed a second series.'

- Jennifer Saunders

A good boss anchors the straining tension of paying her workers to build and break and build her Widget.

It takes intelligence, confidence, wisdom, patience, resilience, judgement, and humility to be that kind of boss.

Good bosses are rare.

Workers who are grown up enough to choose the anxiety that comes with the freedom of making their own mistakes - and to change and get better - and thus be worthy of such bosses - are also rare.

Most settle into the comfort and security of the tepid disgruntlement of being told what to do in return for the salary that funds their refuge in their Weekend Widget.

The emphasis on leadership and management in workplaces reinforces a message that Someone Else is responsible.

Someone Else is controlling us and therefore our mistakes.

The They will tell us when and how to get better.

The They will Manage and even Drive Change.

We are free to choose the boss that we deserve.

Rare.

Being a Leader is hard.

That's why it's rare to find her.

Organisations call 'Leaders' people who:

• Made a Widget well enough to supervise other people to make (often different) Widgets
• Did something in another organisation that their boss wants them to repeat for them
• Get invited to meetings with limited chairs to learn to advocate their boss's opinion 
• Umpire Widget conflicts (rarely) and interpersonal conflicts (mostly)
• Make their Widget better than anyone else in the organisation
• Control others so that the boss doesn't have to

Boss's call them 'leaders' to acknowledge what they want them to do is hard - yet not Leadership hard.

It's a rare boss who will pay you to make decisions that contradict her.

It's a rare boss who will trust you to trust others to change direction from the one she chose.

Rare good bosses means rarer Leaders.

Job.

The entertainment reporter Michael Idato gave us a rare and brilliant example of the relationship between Widget Thinking and Defining Moments in the workplace wild.

A leaked two year old internal email from the former executive producer of the 'Sunrise' television programme to Network management proposed replacing two presenters and the newsreader.

The leak led the 'Sunrise' presenters who remain on air to not just dismiss it, but to ridicule it and cite their continued tenure as evidence that the former producer was wrong and the email was meaningless.

Yet as Michael Idato observed:

'Sunrise's former executive producer....would not have been doing his job if, at every turn, he was not considering alternatives, lest the happy Sunrise family he had assembled passed their use-by date and started to creak with age. His first loyalty is not to them, it is to his employer, and the promise that he will deliver them an enduring hit.

'The same could be said for the Nine Network's management, who would not be delivering value for their stakeholders if they were not examining the on-air performance of their entire talent stable in minute detail, regularly, and willing to do whatever it takes - or sack and replace whoever they need to - to win.

'It was that attitude that saw Jessica Rowe wrenched from the Today line-up several years ago. Make no mistake it was appallingly handled at the time, but it was a brutal and vivid demonstration of the business of television and the very small role that human decency has to play in it.'

Amidst the denials and damage control rose the refreshing voice of Karl Stefanovic, host of the Sunrise rival, 'Today', who said (in a text book use of the three most powerful words in the English language - I Don't Care):

'I know that [network management] is actively planning to get rid of me, and I like it, I embrace it, I don't care....It's best to go, 'it's TV, eventually they will [get rid of me],' so I'm just gonna have a great time and sail on into the sunset.''

A similarly healthy response to the email came from former Sunrise co-host Melissa Doyle, who was one of the three presenters that the email suggested changing:

'It was one view....Television, radio, newspaper executives the world over are probably discussing staff, columnists, et cetera, all the time....I figure that's the nature of the job. It's television. If they didn't have that conversation then you would probably wonder.'

The producer who wrote the email was doing his job - deciding to give his best advice to ensure the success of the Widget - albeit at the public cost of three people's jobs.

The management did its job - deciding to reject the advice as not serving the Widget.

The three current presenters did their jobs - deciding to reassure viewers that they are one big-happy-family, which protects ratings, which dictate the price of advertising which brings in revenue which buoys the stock price which is their boss's Widget.

Three different decisions that may look in conflict on the surface but each serving the Widget.

Perhaps it's Karl and Mel who are the best examples of a healthy shrug at the inevitable clanging of our professional and personal Widgets.
 

Confidence.

'Once you surrender the idea of intrinsic, objective value, you start asking the question “if the value isn’t in there, where does it come from?” It’s obviously from the transaction: it’s the product of the quality of a relationship between me, the observer, and something else. So how is that relationship stimulated, enriched, given value? By creating an atmosphere of confidence where I am ready to engage with and perhaps surrender to the world it suggests.'

- Brian Eno

The information thuds onto our desk.

It lies there. Inanimate. Markings on paper. Pixels on glass.

We breathe in - and exhale our spirit into it.

We give it life.

We name it:

Complaint. Criticism. Appeal. Escalation. Grievance. Demand. 

Or we name it:

Feedback. Evaluation. Comment. Test. Observation. Assessment. Question. Gift.

The actions that we take in response to the information and its relationship to our Widget are what gives it value. We need to engage with it with the eagerness and curiosity that serve our Widget - not our ego.

We need to be brave enough to surrender our understanding of the world for a new one.

If we are all these things - then we invite more thuds upon our desks.