Simplicity in the Difficulties.
'Everything is very simple in war, but the simplest thing is difficult. These difficulties accumulate and produce a friction, which no man can imagine exactly who has not seen war.'
- Carl Von Clausewitz, On War
Every worker who has sought to engage in the workplace knows the friction of accumulated difficulties.
Widget clarity is the key to victory.
Simplicity in the difficulty begins with the duty statement, job description or whatever the boss calls the piece of paper that defines the Widget and how she wants it to be made.
Few organisations write good job descriptions. They rank second to policies as effective dust collectors. You're already in trouble before the artillery barrage of opinions has started.
The military is a good model of how to write good job descriptions. It needs its soldiers, sailors and airmen to have absolute clarity about who they need to kill, how and when. They need simplicity wherever possible amidst the chaos when the enemy is trying to kill them.
Precision starts at the top and cascades down. The boss needs to be clear about what her job is.
These extracts from the job description for the Chief of the Defence Force written by his boss the Minister of Defence are an excellent example of Widget clarity. (You can almost hear the hum of the tension in the leash of democracy restraining the application of maximum violence):
Preamble: In accordance with my powers under s8 of the Defence Act....I give you strategic direction to achieve the Government’s defence outcomes.
Accountability: You are accountable to me for Defence’s performance, having regard to our statutory responsibilities. Any authorisation or delegation of my authority with respect to Defence is through you within the limitations below.
Results: I expect you to deliver:
a. ....operational deployment of the ADF to enhance our national strategic interests and our alliance relationships, to strengthen regional security and to successfully conduct joint military exercises and operations
b. Identification, development and provision of current and future capability to enable our armed forces to defend Australia and its national interests;
c. Enhanced intelligence, strategic policy, scientific and information capabilities, responsive to whole-of-government requirements;
d. Timely, accurate, coordinated and considered advice to the Minister and Government;
e. Proper stewardship of people, through developing and maintaining workforce skills and career structures, building and maintaining Defence’s reputation and providing a living and working environment that attracts and retains people;
f. Sound management of financial and other resources, operating within budgeted financial performance, meeting statutory requirements for preparing financial statements and optimal management and use of the Defence estate; and
g. Appropriate planning, evaluation and reporting documents, including an annual Defence Management and Finance Plan, and periodic Strategic Reviews and White Papers incorporating the above.
Guidance: You should pursue these results through effective leadership and management; and should ensure that:
a. Your actions are prudent, ethical and lawful;
b. Your actions are consistent with:
i. Government Policy
...your role as principal military adviser and statutory responsibilities and authority as commander of the Defence Force under the Defence Act 1903; and
c. You make your decisions and offer advice considering
i. The impact on relationships with others who contribute to national security, including with the leadership of Foreign Armed Forces and other Australian agencies with national security interests,
ii. My separation Directive to the Chief Executive Officer of the Defence Materiel Organisation,
iii. The risk to the sustainable delivery of Defence outputs; and
iv. The CDF’s proposals for promotions to Brigadier equivalent and above are made in consultation with the Secretary, VCDF and the Service Chiefs.
Minister for Defence
Words matter.
Step Back and Sit a Little Closer.
The fox fell silent and looked steadily at the little prince for a long time.
'Please,' he said, 'tame me!'
'I should like to,' replied the little prince, 'but I don't have much time. I have friends to discover and many things to understand.'
'One only ever understands what one tames. People no longer have the time to understand anything. They buy everything ready-made from the shops. but there is no shop where friends can be bought, so people no longer have friends. If you want a friend, tame me!'
'What do I have to do?' said the little prince.
'You have to be very patient,' replied the fox. 'First, you will sit down a short distance away from me, like that, in the grass. I shall watch you out of the corner of my eye and you will say nothing; words are the source of misunderstandings. But each day you may sit a little closer to me.'
- The Little Prince, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
Step 1 in the Five Steps to a Good Decision is to Step Back.
We yield to the emotions triggered by information.
We sit with them. Wallow in them. Surrender to them.
Seconds. Minutes. Days. Months. However long we have.
The longer we sit, the less frightening the feelings become.
We tame them.
We understand them.
They become our friends. Teachers.
Our emotional responses to events aren't to be feared or ignored or avoided or overcome or denied.
They aren't to be crushed or suppressed as the Leadership Lore would have us believe.
Sit. Tame. Learn.
Become who you are.
The Mind Watching Itself.
'An intellectual is someone whose mind watches itself.'
Step 4 of the Five Steps to a Good Decision is to Check for Bias.
This is the mind watching itself.
'Hey! Preconceived assumption not supported by the evidence from Step 3! Get outa here!'
'Oi! Prejudice! Get off my neural pathways!'
'You! Yes you! Fight-or-Flight Reflex! Grow up!'
Indeed - so are Steps 1, 2, 3 and 5.
Good Decision Making in Three Words:
In two:
Watch yourself.
The Root Cause of All Conflict.
You can fight the same battle each time: each dispute, each complaint, each conflict, each difficult conversation over and over.
Same skirmish, different combatants.
Or you can move upstream and address the root cause:
Leave the Idiot Work to the Idiots.
'Leave the idiot work to the idiots.'
A bishop's answer when asked to define Subsidiarity - so the story goes.
The blunt interpretation is proof that even the noblest values can be demeaned and misappropriated.
Subsidiarity is the principle that says a decision should be made at the lowest appropriate level.
Subsidiarity allows each person their dignity.
It is a principle of social justice that, while used by the Roman Catholic Church, is wrongly attributed to it (and therefore possibly ignored!) It predates the Church and has universal application to good decision making. Its universality is demonstrated in the fact that it is part of the Treaty on European Union.
'Subsidiarity' stems from the Latin subsidies, which means 'help, assistance'. And here, as with all good ideas, is where it goes wrong.
The person who is interested in power, practices subsidiarity by choosing what power to delegate to those below him in the hierarchy. To him, subsidiarity is throwing crumbs from the decision making table. This apparent act of generosity and power sharing upon which most organisations operate has its sinister side. The person receiving the crumbs becomes dependent on the person throwing them.
The other version of where subsidiarity comes from is subsidiaries, which means 'of or belonging to the reserves'. In the Roman army, the reserves waited in the rear in case the front line army needed them to overcome a superior enemy. The reserve army did not initiate action, it waited to be called up. It strengthened, reinforced and perfected an act already begun.
In good decision making, subsidiarity presumes that a person should be left to make their own decisions - even 'wrong' ones - without interference from a superior authority. That 'superior' authority can be in a family, a community, an organisation, a state, or the world.
A person will concede part of their individuality as part of their membership of one of those groups. They may also concede some of their decision making authority. But only to the extent necessary to benefit the whole, from which they benefit.
If the authority that the person has conceded as part of their membership of the group is exercised 'beyond the necessary', then the group begins to destruct. The reason is that the person is unable to exercise the talents that they have brought to the group. As the group can only define itself by its works - the sum of each person's talents - then the loss of part of those talents means that the group is not able to function.
In short - subsidiarity requires that each person has as much autonomy and responsibility as possible, and as much control or intervention by a higher authority as necessary.
Individual initiative should only be limited where it is absolutely unavoidable.
The benefit of subsidiary to the higher authority is that it can focus with greater freedom and energy and effectiveness to tasks belonging to it, and to which it alone can accomplish.
Ironically, subsidiarity is one of the reasons to have a higher authority. Such authority exists to create the space to enable people to discover their potential. If the higher authority moves into that space then it contradicts its reason for being. If the boss starts interfering - for well meaning or other reasons - in the decisions and actions of the workers, the boss isn't doing his job.
The higher authority assists by removing obstacles to the person that the person can't remove themselves, or that are otherwise more effectively removed by the higher authority so that the person can focus on their core business.
A Leader practises subsidiarity when they create the space; when they define the purpose and invite the right person to stretch their potential towards it; when they equip the person with the tools that they need to leverage their talents, when they affirm without intervention, when they retreat...
Sadly, it is a perversion of subsidiarity that is most commonly practised. It is that a worker starts as an empty vessel - a human resource. The worker is loaded with information and authority and power by the boss to the extent that the boss feels necessary. The boss adds or removes that cargo as he thinks fit. The boss sets that vessel adrift, attached to a rope.
In short - the worker's power only exists in as much as it has been given to him by the boss. This is what most people mean by 'delegation'.
A healthy organisation recruits people who have existing talents that the organisation needs. It then lets them get on with the job. The boss's job is to remove the obstacles.
And stay out of the way.
Challenge Them Into the Future.
Dr Fiona Wood, AM is one of the world's leading plastic surgeons who specialises in burns patients. Earlier this year she was interviewed about what she had learned from her surgical research and practice about Good Decision Making and Leadership.
She started where all Leadership and Good Decision Making begins - the Widget - or 'purpose' as Dr Wood described it:
'I think decision making is something that you have to really take on - I was almost going to say a level of aggression - but a level of purpose might be a better term. Because you have to make a decision. There is someone in front of you that needs your help - you have to make a decision.
Dr Wood acknowledged that decision making is cumulative - that each decision informs the next:
'That decision may not be right – you have to take that. You have to understand that the decision you've made, the action you've taken, has led to then making the next decision. Sometimes it will be right, sometimes wrong. You've just got do deal with it with a level of purpose. And so you bring to the table all your experience - the knowledge that brought you to that point. And it's a question really of visualising the outcome.'
Her Widget focus is paramount in her thinking, and relies on the systems that have been developed to support it:
'I see this individual....If you meet me as a professional you're having a bad day. So they are damaged, and now I want to use everything in my power, in our systems that we work in, in our systems and the knowledge that is out there to make their path to the outcome the very best it can be.'
Even though in each operation she is focussed on the person before her on that day, she maintains her disciplined focus on a more strategic Widget. Each patient illuminates the path to her Widget, yet in such a way that nether the immediate needs of her patient, or the longer term Widget journey is compromised:
'And the outcome that I've visualised for many, many years is scarless healing. We've changed the goalpost. We've inched doggedly there...are we there all the time? Absolutely not. But we're making progress. So it's visualising that outcome and making every play such that you can move it closer to that outcome day by day. And it's learning. It's always taking the blinkers off and learning so that whatever the decisions you've made today, you make sure that you make better ones tomorrow. And that has been actually an entrenched coping strategy to make sure that you critically analyse the work of today to make sure that tomorrow is better.'
Dr Wood's focus does not mean that she is blind to other new information that can serve her Widget:
'I see people out there that do nanotechnology, or genetics or all sorts of different things - psychology, neuroscience and they've got parts of my jigsaw. I need to get parts of that jigsaw and bring it in to play here. And therefore you have to make decisions on lots of different levels. But when you pare that all away you look at the person in front of you, you've got to get the removal of the dead tissue without them bleeding out such that you can repair them the best you can with today's technology such that you set them up for the best outcome.'
Her Widget focus allows her to quickly engage a surgical team with the needs of each patient:
'I teach my guys: As you walk in you make sure you connect with everybody in the room and if there's people you've never seen before you write everything on the board that you're going to do. You should not be making the decisions while you're doing it. You should have visualised it - you go in knowing what you're going to do and knowing your escape routes. So all of that has to be in your mind. And you have to see the landscape. What is it that you've got to work with in terms of your human resources - and engage them. Make sure they understand what you're trying to do and feel the passion - feel that for that period of time the only focus is for that individual. And that's a really important part of the whole. Engaging everyone.'
Dr Wood explained how the path towards the Widget is a meandering one, and that we should not measure our progress on the result of one decision alone:
'The outcomes have got to get better every day. And it's not linear. I don't live in an environment where every day that passes your chance of survival increases. It's not linear - it's a roller coaster. The waves of infection come relentlessly over, unless we've completely sealed - the person weakens and weakens and weakens. A third of the patients who don't survive will survive somewhere around three months. And they're hard days.'
Dr Wood affirmed Step 1: Step Back as being important in good decision making:
'We have this concept that 'Oh, it's macho to keep going'. But it isn't macho to keep going if your performance falls away. And so for a long, long time I've been very aware of people around me and trying to work out who needs to be rotated out...and so it's having that awareness and as I've got older, I don't stay in and so part of it is rotating yourself out, so that it becomes acceptable....
Dr Wood's ideas on leadership are consistent with Creating the Space and Defining the Purpose and inviting people into that space and using the focus on the Purpose as vehicles to reach their potential:
'I think leadership…Vision...is really interesting. Because I believe that everybody can dream. I think leadership is giving people permission to dream. Because I think if you take the time to listen to people you'd be amazed at what they dream. And then you encompass that dream into a vision.'
Yet always the laser Widget focus:
'I saw a child in 1985 and it changed my life. I thought 'That child is so badly injured from a cup of coffee?' We've got to be able to do better. I've carried that photograph around with me for a long time.'
Dr Wood addressed the potential for conflict between Widget focus and learning where we are in relation to our Widget, and the need to get the day-to-day work done. She described the importance of being disciplined in routine and preparation in order to be creative:
'What we want to be is innovative problem solvers but we want to generate outcomes on a regular basis. In every field of endeavour that is a conflict - on the surface of it. But when you start to dig a little bit deeper… I indicated that it is not appropriate to be making decisions about where you cut when it's right there in front of you. You've made those decisions previously. You've visualised. you've gone to the table - whatever table it is - with your outcome in mind and understanding the opportunities you've got to get there. So there’s an element of planning almost on the run all the time. It's getting into the habit.'
She affirmed the idea that good decision making is being confident enough about what you know, to be attentively curious about what you don't:
'What is it that I bring to the table? What's my experience? What's my knowledge? The lawyers do it all the time with precedent, looking back at old cases. Get into the habit that it's always ticking over. Questioning the landscape. And I think underpinning that is a fundamental belief that today is not as good as it gets. Not in that you criticise today. It's not bad. It's the best it can be - today.'
Dr Wood's approach to learning is to seek out feedback. She goes beyond a healthy belief in relying on the power of complaints to provide it. In fact, why wait for a complaint to inform you, and assume that if there is none that you are doing okay? She advocates declaring your understanding of your Widget to the world and inviting it to comment:
'As you've finished, as you've closed up and you walk away, you don't strut. You actually think 'Okay - given that same situation happens tomorrow, how could I have analysed it better, and then you go through the whole exercise again…the debrief. That's not specifically surgery, It's not specifically sport. It's part of exercising your mind. And the next step is doing that in public. Because that's when it starts getting exciting because there's absolutely no doubt we're in an environment where you need multiple minds to solve problems. And so you have to have that level of inquiry and sort of ticking over and then you connect. And you start to develop a language of innovation and visualisation. So you can push forward.'
Dr Wood shared her belief in the value of 'trauma' as a stimulus to growth, extending the literal trauma to her patients' longer term recovery and resilience, to a metaphor about character:
'I can track periods of my life where I went through post traumatic growth. And it wasn't painless. The hardest thing for me post Bali was that people wanted to know my name. Yet I recognised that as part of that I became stronger. And I became able to engage in this positive energy, in this positive good news stories. And I had my blinkers taken off such that i engaged with the community in a broader sense....How we can use energy that is so profoundly negative and turn that around - I think that's fascinating. It's tiring sometimes. And it's hard. But part of that post traumatic growth is having the infrastructure around you, having the people and connectivity around you that give you the ability to lead.'
She had some powerful advice to give on how to deal with criticism and how innovation challenges conventional thought about 'the way things are done':
'There's an element of inertia in practice. Whether that be clinical practice or business practice...This level of inertia is really quite an interesting animal. Because it's useful, but it's also a hindrance. We need to have a level of capacity to maintain things moving forward at a pace that can be managed. And equally, we have to have people testing out the front. And so I have engaged with surgical inertia up front and centre and I've had to make the decision not to engage in that negative energy but to continue to be driven by the positive outcome, collect the data, present the data. And as the things roll forward, the data will speak for itself. And so that inertia starts to be overcome. And I think that the challenge when you're in a situation with that level of inertia is to understand you've got a choice. You turn around and you fight it…and it's bigger than you. Or you stay out the front and you wait for them to catch up. And they get there.'
Yet always returning to the supremacy of the Widget - and the need for a leader to be clear about defining it to the team, regardless of how clear it is to her or how passionate she is about it:
'I had a really interesting lesson in leadership inadvertently in the early 90s. 1991 I hit the ground running. I was very focussed on time to healing. Every day in a burns unit is a day too long. I aggressively engaged in a skin culture programme....the social worker at the time who was a bit older than the rest of us came and said 'Stop!' I thought 'What do you mean, Stop? ‘Sit down. I need to talk to you. I've been asked to come and speak with you. Well you're too intimidating.’ (Give me a break! )‘We understand that what you're doing has got to be right. It's got to have some real benefit. But we don't know what it is. We can feel your passion. We have no idea how we can explain it to the parents, to the patients, to their relatives, to the new nurses when they come on. We're all at sea…’
Dr Wood learned the definition that a leader is someone who makes good decisions that others choose to follow:
'Leadership 101. No team - no leader. Done. The elastic was at breaking point and almost snapping behind me. And had I not had that energy that they all got caught up in, it would have snapped well and truly. So that's the point when I said 'Right. Everybody who's at this table is here for a reason. You've got to be able to be leaders in your own right....Passion on its own doesn't cut it. The communication bit has to be strong.'
A Leader retreats:
There is absolutely no point in me being so entrenched that as I get through my final kick, everything fades away. Succession is so important. It's not because I want to be remembered. It's because the people need treating! And they need to be treated better and better and better. So for me, it's delegation. But delegation with meaning. Empowerment in a real sense. I need to let them deliver. Such that I can get out of my head, get it on paper and challenge them into the future. But in a way that is not intrusive. Not imposing my surgical inertia on them. But allowing them to grow.
Dr Wood leads a team in Good Decision Making in life and death situations. It's not just theory to her. She is still able to use the language of 'dreams', 'visualisation', 'mistakes', 'passion', 'innovation' and 'personal growth' while literally operating at the leading edge of science.
If Dr Wood can save lives while still creating the space for these ideals that allow others to become who they are, then most workplaces have no excuse.
I Am Involved in Mankind.
'No man is an island entire of itself; every man
is a piece of the continent, a part of the main;
if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe
is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as
well as any manner of thy friends or of thine
own were; any man's death diminishes me,
because I am involved in mankind.
And therefore never send to know for whom
the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.'
- John Donne
What information moves us?
One Australian cricketer is killed by a ball bowled during a game of cricket.
28 people are killed by missiles fired from drones for each terrorist suspect killed.
Step 4 of the Five Steps to a Good Decision: Check for Bias.
Information refracts and bends through our biases.
Recognise this and pay attention to it.
We're human.
The Self-Cleaning Decision.
'We should also pay particular attention to the first decision we make in what is going to be a long stream of decisions...When we face one decision it might seem to us that this is just one decision without large consequences. But in fact, the power of the first decision can have such a long lasting effect that it can percolate into our future decisions for years to come. Given this effect, the first decision is crucial and we should give it an appropriate amount of attention.'
- Dan Ariely, Predictably Irrational
It's rarely practical to trace and review the great-great-great-great grandmother Decision that gave birth to the successive generations of decisions right down to the one that is now in labour in our brain.
The Five Steps to a Good Decision perform the kind of audit recommended by Dan Ariely without the need to identify and scrutinise the First Decision.
In Step 1, we remove our finger from the fight-or-flight trigger and surrender to the surrounding forces of emotions. We allow them to capture us so we can wallow in our solitary confinement of self-pity. We don't even try to put on the camouflage of reason and return to the decision making front. We lie on our bunk and sulk.
In Step 2, purged of our inward looking selfish emotions, we return to the external task at hand - serving our Widget - and name the issue before us that is relevant to our Widget work. We focus on what needs to be done today, and not what we did yesterday.
In Step 3, we assess the information that we have today, and gather more if we need it with an inquiring mind. We're looking at facts and data, not precedent.
In Step 4, we check for bias. We deliberately scan our thinking for anything that is obscuring our view of our Widget. We're filtering out echoes from past decisions.
In Step 5, we allow a hearing. We invite anyone who may be affected by our decision to go over our reasoning and see whether it supports our likely conclusion. We're bringing in an external reviewer to see if our options are backed up by data.
The Five Steps not only lead us to a good decision, they self-clean our brains of any residue that may taint the next decision.
Be attentively curious.
Opinion is Currency.
'We live in an era where opinion is currency.'
- Andy Miller
So many meetings are just people taking turns to kick their opinions furtherest around a cul-de-sac.
In my opinion.
Do Your Job.
A minute into addressing the media on the death of his team mate Phillip Hughes, the Captain of the Australian Cricket Team Michael Clarke falters under the weight of his emotions.
He pauses.
He whispers to himself:
'Do your job.'
Then delivers his statement.
Widget Focus.
Life's Forcing Functions Ask: Who Do I Want to Become?
My friend Michael gave advice about operating gadgets that I often reflect on: 'If you have to force something, it's not the right way. You'll break it.'
A 'forcing function' is a step in a process designed to interrupt us. It forces us to pause and think before proceeding to the next step. It's usually a safety feature.
Closing a door before a microwave will operate is a forcing function. Child proof locks on the caps of bottles of medicine are another example.
Life has naturally occurring forcing functions:
- Time.
- Sleep.
- Emotion.
- Laws.
Organisations add to or tailor them:
- Contracts.
- Policies.
- Values.
- Budgets.
- Other People.
Each of these constraints forces us to pause in our stream of consciousness workflow, instinctive, opinion-based decision making - and to pay attention to what we're doing.
Yes - we could open the screw top faster if we didn't have to grip it at specified points and apply downward pressure while unscrewing.
Yes - we can get more work done by emailing in the evening and on weekends.
Yes - we can avoid the difficult conversation and ignore the poor performance.
Yes - we can use our positional power to override policies, ethics, emotions.
Yes - we can make decisions in one step instead of Five.
Yes - a monk could find God without having to live in community with other monks.
Yes - we can bypass the fiddly cap by smashing the bottle open.
Yet the higher and more permanent the stakes (prison, unemployment, loss of trust, eternal life), the more our evolution, jurisprudence and spiritual systems have designed the equivalents of the child-proof cap to interrupt our instinctive flow towards a decision so that we pay attention to what we're doing.
There's a good reason that the criminal justice system can take years to potentially put a person in prison. That an employee can't lose their job unless their boss follows the steps of procedural fairness. That we feel a twinge in our stomach at the thought of having a difficult conversation. That the more important the decision, the longer it should take. That it takes years for a monk to make final vows.
Forcing functions.
Not blocking our progress - just making us mindful of it.
We pause and deliberate on what we're doing, who we're doing it to, and who we want to become.
One of the top myths in Leadership Lore is that Leadership is hard and reserved for a special few because it demands high stakes decisions to be made under pressure that are too difficult intellectually or emotionally for lesser, more timid beings.
Many leaders - new and experienced - conclude that their sole job is to deploy their positional power to ignore or bypass the laws, policies, processes, values, emotions, promises, information and other forcing functions that have hindered the non-leaders from making a decision.
If the leader won't use their power - then what's the point of having it?
Leadership Lore says that the function of the leader is to bypass forcing functions and get things done.
Yet even a 12 year old knows this is not the bravery that defines Leadership.
Where does the leader of Leadership Lore get this power?
We give it to them.
When we encounter something that is hard - in work or in Life - we pine for a Leader.
Not for their wisdom, patience, humility, trust, curiosity, compromise, intellect, pacifism, service, vulnerability, love...
We want their power.
Our Leader smashes the bottle open.
Hooray! Decisive! Effective! Uncompromising! Fast! Courageous! Heroic!
We return to our desks and homes - relieved that someone has Led.
Tiny shards of fear embedded in our souls.
The Widget is the Salve, Balm and Lotion for Every Ill.
"Purpose and principle, clearly understood and articulated, and commonly shared, are the genetic code of any healthy organisation. To the degree that you hold purpose and principles in common among you, you can dispense with command and control. People will know how to behave in accordance with them, and they'll do it in thousands of unimaginable, creative ways. The organisation will become a vital, living set of beliefs." -
Dee Hock
CEO Emeritus, Visa International
Define your Widget!
Imagine whatever your employer produces is a car. What part do you contribute on the assembly line? What is your metaphorical nut, bolt, wheel, axel, driveshaft, transmission, piston, engine..?
Go and ask your boss. Say: 'Boss - what do you rely on me to do so that you can do your job?' (Be prepared for your boss not to answer straight away.)
Define your Widget!
Widget clarity is the answer to EVERYTHING!
Feeling disengaged? Instant re-engagement happens the moment you start thinking about what your Widget is.
Feeling disconnected from your boss? Say: 'Boss - what is it that you need from me to do your job?' Click! Connected!
Feeling unsupported by your staff? Say: 'Staff - I can't do my job (Widget) for my boss if you don't do yours (Widget) for me.' Wow. She's just like us!
Feeling bullied? Say: 'Boss, I'm finding it hard to make that Widget for you that you said you needed to make your Widget while Frank makes me sad by calling me names.' What? Frank's endangering my Widget?! Frank! Get in here!
Feeling underpaid? Say: 'Boss - here's what it takes for me to make this Widget for you that you need to make your Widget. I think that's worth a lot to you.' You're right. You are indispensable!
The only thing that you can be sure that you have in common with your boss, your staff, Frank, your boss's boss and that other team of strangers on the third floor who you're supposed to be cross-functional with - is the Widget.
It's the atmosphere you're all breathing, the language you're all speaking, the thing that's paying all your mortgages.
You don't have to get a consultant in to tell you that.
You don't have to hold hands with Frank at an off-site team building day and each share a secret to tell you that.
Find out what your Widget is.
Then make it.
For this boss.
Or another one.
Good Decision Making Is Hard.
'Attempt #158: I’ve finally mastered the tungsten carbide battle axe. I can rip through a Mimic’s endoskeleton with a flick of the wrist.'
'Learning what would get you killed and how to get your enemy killed— the only way to know a thing like that is to do it.'
- Hiroshi Sakurazaka, All You Need is Kill.
The movie Edge of Tomorrow is based on the Hiroshi Sakurazaka book.
'Attempt #158' refers to the 158th time that the main character Keiji Kiriya or Major William Cage in the movie, is fighting a battle against the 'Mimics' - alien invaders.
Major Cage is a slick public relations officer, a natural with the the PR patter, but with no combat experience. He finds himself on the front line where he is infected by a substance from one of the aliens when he's mortally wounded. It 'resets' him back to the beginning of the day of battle each time he's killed.
Each time he's reset, Major Cage has to relive the day from the beginning, although with the benefit of knowing what is going to happen. He uses this information to anticipate and evade the source of his death last time. He lives a little longer with each 'reset' - until a new threat happens and he dies - and is reset back to the morning of the battle.
Far from making life easier for Major Cage, his advanced knowledge of what lies ahead makes it harder. With each new life, he spends hours reviewing, training, planning, strategising and finally applying his growing skills to advance him a few seconds further in his quest to defeat the aliens, only to begin all over again.
The more that he learns, the harder he has to work at thinking and acting. The harder he works, the greater his exposure to new information about his battlefield surroundings and new ways to die. He inches his advance towards the alien control centre, and is challenged by more information that he has to incorporate into his understanding of his environment to be able to survive a few seconds more.
A good decision is one that advances us towards where we want to be.
Good decision making is a deliberate process of inquiry that advances us towards where we want to be.
A good decision teaches us about where we are in relation to where we want to be.
We incorporate that new understanding into our next decision, and so on.
We have three reference points - constants amidst the uncontrollable chaos:
- Where we are
- Where we want to be
- Our process.
The first obstacle to good decision making is if we don't know where we want to be - our Widget.
The second obstacle is that we don't have a fixed process into which we can plug each variable - new information.
The third obstacle to good decision making is that it's hard work.
The more good decisions that we make - the more we learn - the more we learn, the more we have to incorporate that learning and apply it. Repeat. Forever.
Each decision exposes us to new information and therefore to the shame of ignorance.
It resets us back to where we began.
Our truth is dead, or at least discarded in the same pile as other people's opinions.
Either way, it hurts.
Kahlil Gibran described pain as the breaking of our shell of understanding.
Good decision making is painful.
Bugger that - let's just stick with opinions, positional power, and instinct.
Directly Involved Parties.
'They that have the power to hurt, and will do none...
...they rightly do inherit heaven's graces.'
- William Shakespeare, Sonnet 94
The Investigation into the loss of separation between Airbus A330 VH-EBO and Airbus A330 VH-EBS near Adelaide SA on 20 September 2013 continues.
It was estimated to finish 'no later than September 2014'.
On 17 November 2014, two months after it was expected to conclude, there was a progress update:
'Completion of the draft investigation report has been delayed due to other investigation priorities, and the draft report is now anticipated for release to directly involved parties (DIPs) for comment in December 2014. Any comments over the 28-day DIP period will be considered for inclusion in the final report, which is anticipated to be released to the public in January 2015.'
'Released to DIPs for comment' and 'any comments...will be considered for inclusion in the final report.'
Step 5 in the Five Steps to a Good Decision: Give a Hearing.
Allow any person who may be adversely affected by the decision the opportunity to consider your reasons for potentially reaching that decision, and to offer an argument why you should come to a different one.
Inviting a person affected by a decision is a powerful tool in good decision making:
- It harnesses the perspective, energy, focus and power of another brain (and heart) to contribute to your thinking (and feeling) while still works in progress and open to change.
- It informs you with the strongest argument against your own thinking - thus testing it - yet without the artificiality of appointing the 'devil's advocate' within your own team.
- It provides a forcing function to counter rote, systemic, thinking.
- It gives you a dress rehearsal of the likely criticisms that may follow your decision.
- It can counter groupthink.
- It reminds you of what is at stake for other people and thus focusses your attention.
- Those invited to contribute are more likely to accept the ultimate decision if it goes against them.
- It buys you time - thus creating more space (a mini- Step 1).
- It meets part of the procedural fairness required by law in many decision making processes.
- It shows transparency and evidence-based decision making.
Despite this impressive list in its favour, many decision makers avoid offering a hearing for fear that they will find out something that may undo all the time and energy invested so far; that it may create an expectation that they will be persuaded to change their minds; and that such an invitation undermines their authority.
A good decision maker acknowledges these fears, (perhaps even taking another Step 1: Step Back to indulge and then purge them) - then reminds herself of the logic of the benefits listed above, drafts the invitation to be heard such that it manages expectations, and reads Shakespeare or the writings of any good leader to understand that real power is demonstrated in the restraint in its exercise.
Everything You Do Sends a Message.
'I have given you an example, that as I have done, so should you do.'
- Jesus Christ, The Gospel of St Matthew
Everything.
If You're Happy And You Know It - Thank Your Boss.
One would assume that our boss - one of the biggest influences on our well being and happiness, and thus productivity, and thus their own well being and happiness and productivity, is applying the results of years of research, data, education, pedagogy, heuristics and science on how to get the best out of us.
After all - aren't we our boss's 'most important asset'?
She's done all that training, right? She's attended courses on everything - First Aid, Equal Opportunity, Work Health and Safety, Mental Well-being, iPads, Performance Management, Mediation and Meditation, Work-Life Balance, Difficult Conversations, Code of Conduct, Recycling, Train the Trainer, and of course, Good Decision Making.
She's got KPIs and budgets and 360 degree feedback and performance reviews and lists 'Teamwork' and 'People Person' and 'Leading High Performance Teams' on her LinkedIn page.
She's being measured and measuring within an inch or 2.54mm of her life.
It's all evidence based - isn't it? This whole management thing?...
(Psst....We have proof. She's making it up as she goes along. Every boss in the World is.)
A discussion paper released by researchers in Germany has found 'little research' anywhere in the World on how bosses affect the quality of the lives of their workers. Indeed, it claims its data and findings are the first of their kind.
It's okay. The research evidence supports what a good boss has worked out for themselves.
The evidence 'is consistent with the view that boss competence is central to employee well-being and thus to the behavior of labor markets'.
The paper cites 'growing evidence' that ‘happier’ workers are more productive. (In true researcher style, they took into account potential for bias in more cheerful employees reporting higher levels of job satisfaction and boss competence.)
The researchers write:
'Bosses are, in principle, special workers because they are in charge. They make a range of important organizational decisions. Therefore, it may be desirable not to view a boss as just another factor of production, or as altering only the quality of an employee’s input through greater marginal product in the production function. Instead, it may be appropriate to view a boss as being able to shape the nature of the organization itself.'
The workers surveyed showed that while most thought that their boss couldn't do the worker's job if the worker was absent, their bosses were good at being....bosses.
Employees enjoy their jobs far more where the supervisor is assessed as 'technically competent'.
Indeed, the data shows that the technical competence of the supervisor has double the effect on employee satisfaction than does the employee's wage.
The researchers conclude from the data that 'the quality of workers’ lives is higher if the supervisor is highly competent, in a technical sense, at his or her job.'
They acknowledge that the results are so intuitive as to be 'obvious'. But they argue that now we have proof that our boss can make us happy and therefore more productive, we need to do more research on how our boss can make us happy.
Perhaps it will show that a boss will be more likely to make us happy if she is happy.
And what might make our boss happy?
Probably us doing our job.
(Could it be that there's other stuff that bosses are making up as they go along?)
The Receptionist is a Leader.
''Decision'...or... 'Choice'?' Jonathon asked me.
'Same thing,' I said.
I was wrong.
''Choice' is selecting one of at least two options,' I later corrected myself to Jonathon. ''Decision' is the product of a good decision making process.'
I was happier with this distinction.
Until I read a 1980 article Shared Responsibility in Ecclesial Decision-Making by Robert T. Kennedy, a Canon Lawyer.
He calls decision-makers 'choice makers'.
The decision/choice maker chooses between two or more options presented by what Kennedy calls 'idea people' - creative people who who have contributed their ideas towards a decision making process that arrives at the choices that are presented to the decision maker.
This view of decision making dramatically and constructively shifts deep and unsatisfying assumptions about power that are the source of much of the tension in workplaces.
As Kennedy says:
‘To decide well, there is need for many, diverse talents. The rarity of finding all such talents in a single individual gives rise to the need for participation by many people. Influence and power, so far from being concentrated solely in the moment of choice, are diffused throughout all stages of the decision-making process. Responsibility for a decision does not rest solely with the choice-makers.’
'If the choice makers are choosing between two or more options presented by idea people – who really holds the power?'
‘Choice-makers are often held captive (for better or worse) by idea people.'
Kennedy's analysis flattens the hierarchy in organisations and communities between those who have authority to make decisions and the rest.
It also adds to our understanding of the role of the leader.
Kennedy says that what an organisation most needs from its leaders is 'facilitation of the decision making process'. The leader is responsible for identifying, drawing forward and coordinating the 'necessary gifts' among the team in service of the Widget.
Indeed, Kennedy says that 'A leader need not be a choice-maker, or data or idea person, or implementor or evaluator. The service of a leader is quite different and requires quite different talents.’
The Receptionist is a leader.
Kennedy also addresses the majority of disengaged workers who haunt our workplaces:
‘Irresponsible refusal to participate, moreover, is in its own way a form of sharing responsibility for a decision. We are responsible not only for what we do but also for what we refuse to do; withholding the contribution of our talent, therefore, creates responsibility in us for decisions poorly made because of our failure to participate.’
If we engage with the decision maker by applying our talents to the creation of choices that are presented to her, we are co-responsible for the decision - even if the 'choice' was not one that we presented. By adding our ideas to the options before the decision-maker, we have influenced her choice by allowing her to compare and contrast alternatives. She was only able to not choose our option because she had it as a comparison.
Kennedy's 'choice maker' analysis is also a powerful reminder to decision-makers and leaders that good decision making demands authentic relationships with the 'idea people' so that their gifts may be discerned and recruited to nourish the decision making process.
It's Not Working.
John is a manager who tosses a coin to decide half his decisions, only implements about two out of ten effectively anyway, and bases the majority on practices that are proven to fail.
John should be terminated.
Yet John is the average manager.
45% of managers use instinct to make decisions.
Only 15% of organisations can make and implement important decisions effectively.
Two of every three business decisions are based on failure prone practices.
95% of a typical workforce does not understand the organisation’s strategy.
90% of organisations fail to execute on strategies.
86% of executive teams spend less than one hour per month discussing strategy.
76% of Australian workers are disengaged from their jobs.
Australian bosses lose an average of three months per year productivity from each worker due to disengagement.
Australia ranks second last on productivity growth – ahead of Botswana.
Is the above average worker profile any wonder when John is her boss?
There is evidence that many organisations' priorities are not defined by productivity, customer or community service, share value or sales growth. They are defined by self-interest.
And yet...
Prescriptive decision making strategies [ie The Five Steps] in workplaces were more successful no matter what the urgency, importance, resource level, initial support, decision-maker level, industry sector or type of decision.
Want to be a 'high performing team'?
Teach and apply good decision making.
Broomsticks with Feedback.
'Being right is occasionally useful in bars but it's very useless in life. It just doesn't open avenues for learning.
[Hospitals] engage in serious errors. The nature of Lourdes is that they don't get better at miracles because they're not learning from their mistakes.
400 years ago everyone believed that broomsticks could fly. Then these views of the world bifurcate and we have broomsticks that still don't fly terribly well and Jumbos that fly rather well. Jumbo Jets are just broomsticks with feedback.'
A Leader's decisions create errors that teach and invite us (educate - educare - 'to draw out') to overtake her, and make different errors for others to learn from and overtake us.
Contempt for the mistakes of others and fear of making our own are why true Leaders are rare.
We're the They.
'No us and them. Just us.'
- Fr Greg Boyle
It sounded like a good idea.
She scheduled dozens of meetings to personally present the draft new workplace agreement to every one of the hundreds of staff members.
'We think that these new conditions are reasonable,' she repeated to each audience. 'But the Union disagrees. They won't negotiate with us. They are holding up the process.'
'We think that the increase in pay is generous,' she declared. 'But the Union wants more money and we can't afford it and so They are stalling your pay rises.'
The Union represented the staff in the agreement negotiations. One in five of the people in each audience was a Union member.
We were the They.
The manager calls a meeting to get advice.
'We need to confidentially access some staff computer and mobile phone logs to find evidence of misconduct.'
The IT Manager says 'We can do it and They won't know'. The Lawyer says 'We have legal authority and They don't need to consent.' The HR Adviser says 'We have contracts and They have agreed We have that power.' The Compliance Manager says 'We'll record that They did not need to consent.' The Line Manager says 'Good idea and They should know that We monitor them.' The Personal Assistant takes Minutes about what We will do to They. We nod that We agree with what needs to be done about They.
We vacate our chairs without making eye contact with a different team of advisers coming to meet with the manager and he closes his Open Door door.
We return to our respective desks, and resume being They.
Advisers come and go from the manager's office closing the Open Door door.
Our spouses, work and social friends all wonder why we've changed to Gmail and have a new personal phone number and use it to text during business hours instead of email and don't update our Facebook and can't book the children's concert tickets online at 9am before they're sold out and don't come to Friday drinks with the boss as much and haven't re-nominated for the social committee and take a few more sick days and have asked the boss from our last job to be a referee.
The manager pays consultants to help him improve teamwork and morale.
'We'll run off-site trust games. They will love them. We'll put blindfolds on them and They will fall backwards and We'll catch them.'