Decision Laundering.
'Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?’
‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.’
Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life.
- The Gospel of Matthew
'If anyone has material possessions and sees his brother in need but has no pity on him, how can the love of God be in him? Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth.'
The Catholic Archdiocese of San Francisco decided to install sprinklers timed to soak and therefore deter homeless people from sleeping in the entranceways to its Cathedral.
The Archdiocese apologised in an unsigned media release.
It explained that the sprinklers were the solution to the 'problem' of 'needles, faces and other dangerous items' that were left in the 'hidden doorways' to the Cathedral.
The idea came from the use of sprinklers in 'the Financial District' as a 'safety, security and cleanliness' measure.
The dangerous items left in the hidden doorways were a risk to 'students and elderly people' who regularly passed the locations 'on their way to school and mass every day.'
We've all attended the equivalent kind of The Meeting where it was decided to install the sprinklers. We know it goes something like this:
Chairperson: 'Let the Minutes show that the Archdiocese Interfaith Council recorded yet another successful year of helping many thousands of people through food, housing, shelter programs for people at risk including homeless mothers and families, and in countless other ways. Well done and God bless to all concerned. Now moving on to Item 19 on the Agenda: 'Dangerous Items Left in Cathedral Hidden Doorways'. We've read Bob's excellent Facilities Management Report on the problem. Bob?'
Bob: 'Thank you Archbishop. My staff spend hours each week cleaning up shi... sorry Archbishop - human excrement - needles, and refuse from the hidden doorways around the Cathedral. It's time consuming. It distracts them from tending to the gardens. There's risk a needle stick injury.'
Harry: 'We have duty of care.'
Bob: 'Yes! Duty of care.'
Frank: 'To them and the children and the elderly coming to mass.'
Joe: 'We had this problem when I was with the bank. We installed sprinklers that were on timers to spray the areas where people gathered. It worked. And quite cheap too. I know someone who did the job. I can get a quote. They're Catholic so they'll do us a good price.'
Someone needed to apply the Widget Thinking brakes.
What's our Widget, Archbishop? Eternal Life? And how do we make that again? Parable of the Good Samaritan any help? Didn't Jesus say something about if we love our neighbour we will find Eternal Life? Isn't that also the origin of our secular 'duty of care'?
The interrupter (I think they're called a Leader) needs the courage to persevere beyond the inward and outward eye-rolls around the table, and Frank's response that will begin with an irritated 'That's all very well, but...' and end with all eyes glaring at her.
It's the right versus right decisions that are the tough ones. Choosing between the well being of the homeless and the safety of children and the elderly. Choosing between People Are Our Most Important Asset and cashflow says we need to make some of them redundant. Choosing between openness and transparency (I think that used to be called 'honesty') and the risk both brings to The Brand.
St Benedict, whose writings influenced European governance, said to begin all work with a prayer. Remind ourselves of what we're here to do. What's our Widget? Thanks for that idea Joe - and while we appreciate your wisdom with our budget, a bank's Widget is different to the Church's Widget.
All organisations are guilty of what the decision makers in the Archdiocese of San Francisco did.
All organisations engage in Decision Laundering.
They exploit the distraction of a 'secondary' problem with a soft and attractive outer moral layer - the risk to children and the elderly mass goers - to harness the analytical skills of good workers away from the 'primary' hard core failure of difficult decision making - the plight of the homeless and drug addicted. The diligent workers fix the secondary 'problem' and feel good about themselves and the organisation. The knotty primary problem remains.
Another more common version of Decision Laundering is to engage workers' intellect and eagerness to problem solve for their boss - in fixing the fallout from the boss's bad primary decision. 'Hey Larry - we need your expertise to wordsmith a media release that puts this sprinkler business into context by honouring all the hard work that our volunteers do in our homeless shelters. We don't want to jeopardise the donations we need to keep them operating.'
The bad primary decision is laundered into a good one by the workers employing Good Decision Making in the secondary decision. The workers will loyally (and rightly) defend their secondary decision making and thus the organisation - allowing their bosses and their flawed primary decision to desert under the cover of the smokescreen of the secondary decision's integrity. Imagine Larry on the phone to the San Francisco Chronicle: 'We'd like to invite you to do an exclusive story to raise awareness of the plight of women in our refuge and the grave consequences for them if we don't make our fundraising target this year.' Good work, Larry. What sprinklers?
Good workers' decision making can be like the water efficiently and effectively cascading down the sides of St Mary's Cathedral like clockwork - cleansing it of the risk to health and safety - and with it, the evidence of the unfulfilled Widget - the path to Eternal Life.
The prime job of a leader is to remind the organisation to become more like the thing it says it wants to be. To say to the Archbishop - we need to put the poor ahead of mass attendance. To say to the CEO - our brand will survive our apology. To say to the boss - I disagree and here's why. Then to stick around to help deal with the aftermath of that dissent. This is very, very hard. Which is why real Leaders are rare.
It took two years after their installation and an investigative journalist's exposure for the Archdiocese to acknowledge its decision. It will be redeemed if what it learned advances the faithful towards Eternal Life. Meanwhile, the homeless people just used umbrellas and raincoats.
God must despair. His followers fouling the entrance to His Kingdom. Filthy with our hypocrisy and egos.
He may yet deploy sprinklers.
How Knot to Lead*.
333 BC: Alexander the Great slices through the Gordian knot with his sword, demonstrating how difficult problems can be solved with bold strokes.
332 BC: Decisive Leadership: How to Solve Difficult Problems Through the Application of Power released through Nile Publishing on Papyrus, Parchment, Spoken Word and Tablet.
331BC: First recorded bullying complaint.
330 BC: First evidence of complainant beheading.
329 BC: Date of first entombment of an Army of Human Resource Consultants alongside their Pharaoh.
*may contain traces of historical inaccuracies.
Lead Us to The Widget.
'It has been an over-engineered, over-proceduralised process whereby workers spend more and more time driving desks than actually visiting and seeing children.
[W]e have an over-engineered system which has created its own paradox whereby in trying to seek to be compliant with all of the instructions and requirements and procedures and policies that workers are inadvertently now spending more time engaging in that element of the work and less time in actually building a relationship, which takes time, it is a time-consuming principle of our practice, and unless we start inverting that pyramid or inverting that, then we will continue to struggle to engage our workers in the things that they intuitively know they need to do and the voices of the child in that space are loud and clear. The voices in the theory are loud and clear, but we have created an architecture which I believe prevents workers from engaging in that in a purposeful and meaningful way.'
- Tony Kemp, Deputy Secretary of Tasmania's Human Services Department
In his evidence to the Royal Commission Into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, Mr Kemp cited the 'well established theory' that staff should spend eighty percent of their time with children and twenty percent to administration. He said that this had been reversed in recent years.
Mr Kemp's Department is not unique. Australian organisations spend $250 Billion a year on compliance - evenly split between government and the private sector.
Pournelle's Iron Law of Bureaucracy states that in any bureaucratic organisation there will be two kinds of people:
- Those who are devoted to the goals of the organisation. Teachers in a school, nurses in a hospital, soldiers in an Army.
- Those who are dedicated to the organisation itself. Administrators in an education system, hospital management, generals.
The Iron Law states that in every case the second kind will gain and keep control of the organisation. It will write the rules, and control the first kind's career advancement.
The demoralising inevitability that Pournelle's Iron Law means the organisation ends up being its own Widget - its dedicated staff conquering the devoted ones - has an antidote.
The second 'dedicated' kind must make its decisions in service of the same Widget as the first 'devoted' group is making.
The second kind should start every meeting, every decision making process with a prayer:
'Lead us to the Widget, and deliver us from our egos.
Amen'.
The Controller Accepted Jurisdiction
'I....do swear that I will truly and honestly demean myself in the practice of a barrister and solicitor of the Supreme Court of Western Australia according to the best of my knowledge and ability.'
- Oath taken on admission as a legal practitioner.
The Report on Investigation into Loss of separation between Airbus A330 VH-EBO and Airbus A330 VH-EBS near Adelaide SA on 20 September 2013 referred a number of times to the air traffic controllers 'accepting jurisdiction'. For example:
'The controller accepted jurisdiction for the track of the eastbound 747 at 1204:58.'
'Accepted jurisdiction.' What a great way of saying 'The controller accepted authority to act.'
I had a boss in the corporate world who used to ask when he wanted a report on the progress of a client engagement: 'Who owns that relationship?'
Step 2 of the Five Steps to a Good Decision is to Define the Issue.
One way of the decision maker defining her issue amidst the noise of opinions and competing self-interests is to ask herself: 'Do I have the authority to make a decision that will advance my boss's Widget?'
Do I have the power? The authority? The jurisdiction? Where can I find the source of that power? In my contract of employment? A policy? What elements need to be in play to trigger my power to act? If I don't have the power - who does so I may 'offer them jurisdiction'.
Jurisdiction is a fine word for another reason.
The controller was required to make decisions. Not at their whim and discretion and subjective opinion. The origin of the word 'jurisdiction' is the Latin jur - law - dictio - saying.
To have jurisdiction - decision making power - requires the decision maker to speak the law. To give effect to a higher power. The controller's job was to serve and animate the will of a higher authority.
Or put another way, the controller's job was not to meet their needs - but the needs of their boss's Widget.
'Demean' is a word not often used, and when it is, it is in a pejorative context. It is about as unfashionable as the word 'obedience'.
Law graduates seeking admission to practice used to have to swear to demean ourselves to the Law. To humble ourselves. To put ourselves beneath. To serve.
I think this concept may be what organisations are grasping for when they speak of being 'committed to...'. They mean - demean. To make everything else secondary.
When we truly accept the jurisdiction for our Widget - to 'speak its truth';
When we undertake to demean ourselves in the building of our Widget - put our egos aside and serve it;
Then we liberate ourselves from so much of the distractions, self-interest and trivialities that sabotage good decision making.
Too much? Too heavy? Too...demeaning?
Then don't accept the job. Or quit.
Crime and Punishment.
'The sole objective of the investigation of an accident or incident shall be the prevention of accidents and incidents. It is not the purpose of this activity to apportion blame or liability.'
- Clause 3.1 to Annex 13 to the International Convention on Civil Aviation
Vengeance. Retribution. Revenge.
Deterrence. Punishment. Justice.
Blame.
We have a powerful longing for these outcomes from decisions that follow errors.
Maybe its a carryover from our childhood. Parents. School. Discipline.
If there's an error and no-one gets publicly named and shamed, it's like an enthusiastic waiter has cleared our coffee cup from our table before we've drunk the last mouthful.
Perhaps we're trained in our thinking and expectations by stories from books, movies, and the news about the adversarial winner-loser criminal justice system that relish arrest, prosecution, trial,confession, admission, guilt, judgment, verdict, conviction, sentencing, penalty.
There are no blockbuster movies where the hero rises to her feet in the middle of an Administrative Appeals Tribunal hearing and shouts 'You can't handle procedural fairness and natural justice and correct or preferable decision making in the inquisitorial process!' It's Crime and Punishment that is the classic bestselling literary novel. Not Ultra Vires and Certiorari.
Listen for assumptions about blame and punishment lurking ominously just beneath the surface of the benign, dull, haze-grey drone of our organisational language. 'Accountability' doesn't mean 'We'll celebrate and reward you and eagerly learn from you when it all goes well.' We know it really means 'Don't you screw it up - or you'll pay for it.'
Laws that were designed as shields to protect people are brandished like swords and waved menacingly towards us. Or instead of serving as cobblestones meant to pave society's streets of mutual progress, laws are seized by an aggrieved person grasping for reasons for some calamity and prised loose from their intended legal context to be used as missiles to hurl and draw blood from anyone deemed at fault.
The inquisitorial system is so alien to our thinking compared to the adversarial one, and our Whodunnit expectation so strong that it must be managed. Watch and listen to Datuk Kok Soo Chon, the Investigator in Charge of the Malaysian Airlines MH370 disappearance, solemnly repeat word for word Clause 3.1 to Annex 13 of the ICAO Convention as part of his Interim Report on the investigation as he looks down the barrel of the camera at you and me. 'You'll not find blame here,' he's saying. 'We're not going to give you a head on a platter,' he's warning us in more austere bureaucratic language. 'There's nothing more to see here except lessons for a better future.'
To paraphrase Clause 3, the sole purpose of a good decision should be to make a better decision next time.
There's also a lot of learning between 'It fell' and 'I dropped it'.
We don't become who we are on the back of the shamed and fallen.
A Good Decision Takes as Long as A Good Decision Takes.
On 20 September 2013 two Qantas Airbus aircraft with a combined passenger load of more than 600, nearly collided 12km in the air almost above Adelaide.
The Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) began an investigation that day. It said it would be finished by September 2014 - almost a year later. In November 2014 and already two months overdue, it updated the investigation status to be that the report would be made available to the public by January 2015.
On 5 March 2015, almost two and a half years after the incident, six months longer than the date it was first promised, and two months past the amended reporting date, ATSB Transport Safety Report Aviation Occurrence Investigation AO-2013-161 was published.
Meanwhile, hundreds of aircraft carrying thousands of passengers continued to fly the same routes each day in the control of the same systems and people and decision making doing the same things that failed on 20 September 2013 and nearly killed 600 people.
The more important the decision, the longer it should take.
Decision makers can be tempted to do the opposite: Important decisions must be made quickly. Urgently. Decisively. Get it done. Get it over with.
Not so for the ATSB. The risk that the undiagnosed errors in person and machine could be repeated with catastrophic results did not compel it to compromise its decision making process.
How long should a decision take? It should take as long as a good decision takes. How long do the Five Steps take?
The ATSB process was not initiated by a complainant. Decision makers resolving complaints are under pressure to decide quickly. Complaints policies impose response times. Complainants demand answers. Neither serves good decision making.
This is one of many examples where a clear Widget cuts through the complexity. Does speed, appeasing a demanding complainant, or meeting an artificial time constraint in a policy or self-imposed serve the Widget?
The ATSB had a clear Widget:
'The ATSB’s function is to improve safety and public confidence in the aviation, marine and rail modes of transport through excellence in: independent investigation of transport accidents and other safety occurrences; safety data recording, analysis and research; fostering safety awareness, knowledge and action.'
As each self-imposed deadline for the report approached, the ATSB would have asked itself: 'Will publication on the promised date serve our Widget? Which is more important: the integrity of our deadlines or of our findings and recommendations about aviation safety?' Appropriately the answer was the latter. Let's update the information on our website and continue inquiring with excellence.
Time constraints - 'Complaints will be resolved in x days' - should only be added to decision making processes if they serve the decision maker's Widget. 'Your decisions take too long' is not sufficient reason alone to impose deadlines. Better to manage expectations. Under promise and over deliver. Next time ATSB - promise us a report in two years and delight us by publishing it in one and a half.
A deadline may be appropriate to improve the turnaround time for a broken toaster under warranty. Yet it may compromise the careful analysis needed to understand the failure of a complex system.
Such as why two 240 tonne aircraft with advanced navigation aids and under air traffic control converged at a closing speed of one and half times the speed of sound 38,000 feet above the earth.
Or why that person did that thing.
Joe Defines Our Widget.
'All Australians share aspirations for economic security and an even more prosperous future — a better place for our children and the generations beyond.
But it is not enough that we share this aspiration. We need to make choices today to build a strong and resilient economy and lay the foundation for future prosperity.'
- 2015 Intergenerational Report: Australia in 2055
The Australian Government has been doing some Widget Thinking.
Yesterday its Treasurer The Honourable Joe Hockey published its five yearly Intergenerational Report which assesses 'the long-term sustainability of current Government policies and how changes to Australia’s population size and age profile may impact [sic] economic growth, workforce and public finances over the following 40 years.'
It begins by defining its Widget:
'All Australians share aspirations for economic security and an even more prosperous future — a better place for our children and the generations beyond.'
Bang.
Widget.
A big Widget.
Welcome aboard, Australian citizens. This is Joe speaking. Me and my successors will be your Captain on our journey to Economic Security and An Even More Prosperous Future. Our flight time is 40 years and the estimated arrival time is 2055. There will be some turbulence from the left wing during take off and weather at our destination in 40 years is sunny with the occasional rainbow and unicorn.
The Widget is reinforced in the Report with a solid foundation for good decision making:
'The term Australian Government is used when referring to the Government and the decisions and activities made by the Government on behalf of the [legal entity] of the Commonwealth of Australia.' (Emphasis added.)
The Government is - defined by its DECISIONS and by its ACTIONS - on behalf of the Commonwealth of Australia. If the government does not decide and act - it does not exist. Put more practically, the electors vote it out.
An organisation isn't what it says it's going to do. An organisation is defined by its workers' DECISIONS and their ACTIONS. An organisation does not exist if it does not decide and act.
Organisations are abstract constructs that come to life in the decisions made by their decision makers.
This is why decision making is the DNA of an organisation and why it needs to be good.
'The projections in this report are very unlikely to unfold over the next 40 years exactly as outlined. Things will happen that are not anticipated in the report’s assumptions, and government policy will change. The projections are not intended to be a prediction of the future as it will actually be, rather they are designed to capture some of the fundamental trends that will influence economic and budgetary outcomes should policies remain similar to current settings. They help to inform us about where there are opportunities to be seized, and where there are challenges to be overcome.'
The Report recognises that a good decision is one that advances us towards where we want to be. A decision is made from what we know now. The world's response to our making it will reveal more information that tells us new things about the world and our Widget that we will incorporate in our next decision.
The Report is the Government taking Step 5 of the Five Steps to a Good Decision.
It invites the Australian people to be heard. It is the Government saying:
'Here is the information that we have about the state of our country and which we will use to make decisions that will affect you, your children and your grandchildren. Please let us know what you think because you have the most at stake and you might teach us something that we missed and which will make us change our decisions.'
The Report says 'Here we are. Here's where we want to be. Here's how we think we'll get there.' To which Australians can in turn decide 'Yay' or 'Boo' or 'Meh' or 'Vote Labor' or 'I'm emigrating.'
Or as The Honourable Joe Hockey told Parliament when releasing the Report :
'This is the conversation that the nation wants to have and we are ready for it.'
That's a Good Question.
'The people who do ask a question have demonstrated to themselves that they have good enough judgement to be able to put something into the world that hasn't been said before. That's what makes it a good question. And that practice is something that we should learn and we should teach our kids and we should teach our colleagues how to do it.'
Good Decision Making in three words:
Be attentively curious.
Our Shelter Amidst the Chaos of Information.
'The best way to learn about normal structures and normal function I think is to study disordered functions and disordered structures. When one has spent that amount of time studying abnormalities one develops an enormously healthy respect for normal, an enormously healthy respect for how equilibrium is maintained.'
- Sherwin Nuland, Surgeon
Decision making is an act of creating certainty from chaos.
Buffeted by new information our compass spins and our map is ripped from our hands.
A good decision making process is a structure that shelters us from the push and pull of wild gusts of instinct and bias and the howling of opinions and creates a space for us to think.
We emerge with our decision beneath cloudless skies, a zephyr caressing our cheeks and clutching a new map with new terrain and a compass needle pointing steadily towards our Widget.
We step forth into the arc of a raindrop and the distant roll of thunder and our compass needle wobbles.
The Decision is Superior to the Decision Maker.
'The poem has an intelligence that the poet does not have.'
- Jane Hirshfield
A good decision is one that advances you towards where you want to be.
Good decision making is a deliberate process of inquiry that advances you towards where you want to be.
Decision making is an act of creation with its own Muse.
Decision makers who serve a process and engage with others along the way, summon forth ideas, creativity, options, perspectives, insights, wisdom and outcomes that were invisible when they were presented with the need to make a decision.
Good decision making has an intelligence that the decision maker does not have.
Often Decisions Break Things.
'Don't worry if you break it Darcey. I can put it back together because I designed this house actually.'
- Five year old Scarlett to her one year old sister Darcey.
Often decisions break things.
If our decision breaks something -
- or someone in our team's decision did
- and we or they made it using a deliberate process of inquiry -
(Instead of 'Hey! Look at me! Let me show you how high I am up HR's wire diagram!' or 'Eenie, meenie, miney, mo...' or 'I need to do something or we're all gonna DIE!')
- then we can inspect the wreckage and work out what happened.
Learning is behaviour modified by experience.
We will make a better decision next time.
We will advance closer towards where we want to be.
Everything is the Consequence of Multiple Decisions.
'I was so incredibly lucky to grow up in the context of workshops...[I acquired] a natural understanding that everything...is made, and is the consequence of multiple decisions.'
- Sir Jonathan Ive, Senior Vice-President of Design, Apple Corporation.
Jony Ive understands and makes decisions. Apple has sold one and a half billion Widgets he designed.
A hundred thousand Apple employees and millions of shareholders and retailers rely on his decision-making.
He applies Widget Thinking. Steve Jobs described him as 'the most focussed human being I've come across.'
“I’m always focussed on the actual work, and I think that’s a much more succinct way to describe what you care about than any speech I could ever make.” He understands that design is ultimately about delivering something. It's all about the Widget.
Jony Ive is on a relentless pursuit of perfection. Billions of dollars depend on it and hundreds of millions of us benefit from it in our use of Apple products. How can he accommodate mistakes?
'Everything we make I could describe as being partially wrong, because it’s not perfect...We get to do it again. That’s one of the things Steve and I used to talk about: ‘Isn’t this fantastic? Everything we aren’t happy about...we can try and fix.’ ”
Who Cares What You Think?
'His Honour made the orders in respect of which there is now an alleged contravention. [The Respondent] was quite open in saying that she did not agree with His Honour's finding on that day.'
She said "It was just what he thought".'
- Judgment of His Honour Judge Bennett, Federal Magistrates Court of Australia - Family Law, in the case of B&B
Thankfully for our justice system and the maintenance of social order, unlike Ms B the great majority of people honours the decisions of judges. We take that obedience for granted.
Today, in hundreds of Australian courts, judges will say: 'Here is what I think.'
People will go to prison, be fined, lose a licence, their source of income, their homes, their children. The effects will ripple through families, businesses and communities. All because an unelected person in a robe on a chair behind a bench on a raised platform in a beige courtroom will decide: 'Here's what I think should happen'.
Some will not agree with the judge and choose to appeal the decision. In about 95% of those cases the appellate tribunal will decide: 'We agree with what he thought.'
Why is Ms B's dismissal of the judge based on it being 'just what he thought' and her defiance of his orders the exception? It can't all be explained by the deterrence of courts' enforcement powers.
Could it be because those affected by the judge's decision see, and often even participate in, the process leading up to it and witness that the judge:
- Is dispassionate,
- Applies rules,
- Relies on evidence,
- Is unbiased, and
- Allows both parties to be heard?
Could decision makers in other fields with far less consequences earn similar respect and compliance with their decisions if, instead of making decisions based on:
- I'm smarter than you.
- I was at the meeting and you weren't.
- I know someone who told me things.
- My job title has manager/leader/chief in it.
- A university gave me a degree.
- I've been on the payroll longer.
- I can sack you.
They openly:
- Stepped Back
- Named the Issue
- Assessed the information
- Checked for Bias
- Allowed for a hearing
Could it be that the lack of engagement, hundreds of billions of dollars spent on compliance, low productivity and unhappiness in our workplaces are because so many of us who are affected by decision makers can't see or understand how those decisions are made? Are we just like Ms B? -
Meh. That's just what the boss thought.
Our Process Serves our Widget.
'That's how I make decisions. I draw how I approach a lot of issues from aviation when it comes to the management of ideas. One of my favourite sayings is that if you muck up the approach you muck up the landing.'
- The Hon. Sussan Ley, Minister for Health & Sport
‘Check wheels,’ the Air Traffic Controller would radio to the student military pilot as he commenced his approach to land.
'Wheels down,’ the student would reply by rote and habit as he continued his descent with undercarriage fully retracted and the ‘Wheels Up’ alarm in the cockpit blaring.
Process is important.
We get good at it.
We turn up to our desk.
Read and type emails.
Attend meetings.
Write reports.
Go home.
Repeat.
The routine of our working day becomes the Thing We Do. The process gradually replaces our Widget as the Thing We Make.
We attend staff meetings and professional development days and listen and nod to sincerely but falsely acknowledge we’ve heard and responded to the 'Check Wheels' and cockpit alarms as our boss and peers and consultants and guest speakers and strategic papers and Ted Talks and even our own little voice warn us that we’ve forgotten to engage our Widget.
Our knowledge worker rituals and the clatter of weasel words that herald them deafen us to the feedback on our process and progress and obscure the Widget it is meant to serve.
If you tapped the student pilot on the shoulder at 500 feet from violently colliding with the runway and asked whether he was doing his job he would say 'Of course. I'm flying. Now let me get on with it.'
Tap any office worker on their shoulder and ask what their Widget is and in my experience, few can answer or even see it as relevant. 'I'm too busy being busy.'
The curt voice of the vigilant Air Traffic Controller radioing 'Go Around!' would interrupt the student's doomed approach and save him from belly landing in a shower of sparks and grinding metal.
Like monks being called away from their manual labour seven times a day to pray, bosses must regularly call 'Check Widget' and force us back into conscious, engaged, mindful recitals of our decision making process and the Widget it's ultimately serving.
How to Succeed Every Time.
'If you do something every day, its a system. If you're waiting to achieve it someday in the future, it's a goal...Goal-oriented people exist in a state of continuous presuccess failure at best, and permanent failure at worst if things never work out. Systems people succeed every time they apply their systems, in the sense that they did what they intended to do. The goals people are fighting the feeling of discouragement at each turn. The systems people are feeling good everytime they apply their system. That's a big difference in terms of maintaining your personal energy in the right direction.'
Good Decision Making is a deliberate process of inquiry that advances you towards where you want to be.
Integrity - doing what you said you were going to do.
Leaders with integrity apply a system of decision making that advances them towards their Widget, for the world to see, emulate, and learn from.
Harry is Unhappy.
'There's a critical question that I ask myself:
What do I need to do right now tend the root of inner wisdom that makes work fruitful?'
- Parker Palmer
Dear Harry
Thank you for your letter in which you requested that I make you happy.
I have considered your application in accordance with our Happiness Policy, in particular Clause 17.2 which makes me responsible for the happiness of the employees in my line of management.
As part of my consideration of your request, I sought advice from a number of people, including our Chief Happiness Officer, our Human Resources Officer, our Finance Officer, the Chaplain, Payroll, and your line manager. I also reviewed your employment history and your current duty statement.
On 17 July I wrote to you and summarised what each of them had to say and invited you to comment on any of it.
I carefully read your 427 page all caps reply and have taken each of your submissions into account in making my decision. I also want to express my sympathies about your cat, your football team, and your ongoing acne irritation.
In accordance with Clause 19.8 of the Happiness Policy that authorises me to make decisions about employee Happiness, I have decided that we have met all of our obligations to make you happy, namely:
- Paid you each fortnight
- Performed every other term of our employment agreement with you
- Listened to you whine about your unhappiness and considered whether we were responsible for it
Unfortunately the space-time continuum and the limitations of our technology budget do not allow us to send you back in time to get more hugs and fishing trips with your Poppy.
I encourage you to take advantage of our Employee Assistance Plan to support you as you grieve about Tiddles, suggest that you consider joining the company Rounders team to engage you with a winning recreational pursuit, and I will approve personal leave for you to seek medical advice about your zits.
I happily look forward to you doing your job.
Warmly.
What I Learned From Invading Australia.
We were outgunned, outnumbered and surrounded.
We were attacking Australia.
We were winning.
'I need to lodge small groups of special forces soldiers at various points on the Australian coast,' the Kamarian Commander of 311 Raider Battalion briefed me. 'I want to hide them beneath the decks of fishing vessels that will drop them off without the vessels being intercepted by the Australians. Can I fly the Mussorian flag on them under International Law?'
'Yes Sir. It's called a 'Ruse of War. It's legitimate. Your only obligation is to lower the flag and raise our Kamarian flag if we are discovered and need to defend ourselves. Your biggest risk of interception is by fisheries inspection officers so don't display any fishing gear.' It was much more fun being legal adviser to the bad guys on military exercises.
Following the sabotage and destruction of military and civilian infrastructure across the north of Australia by unknown foreign military elements, the Australian government responded. It suspended the right of innocent passage. No vessel, including ours operating under false flags, could transit Australian terrotorial waters. The Commander asked me for my advice.
'Declare victory, Sir,' I said.
$13 Billion of trade that came through Australia's northern waters annually was halted.
Australia's response to the threat of three civilian fishing vessels and a handful of commandos had self-inflicted billions of dollars of damage to its economy. Much more than the weapons of the armed forces of the mythical tiny island state of Kamaria could ever have done.
The first job of a Leader is to Create the Space.
Boundaries should be liberating catalysts for creativity.
Be generous and discerning in the size of space you create for people - in agreements, rules, policies, practice.
Once you limit the horizon, you have to patrol it. You have to enforce it. You have to mend it. You have to justify it.
You will add to the $250 Billion Australia already spends each year on compliance.
You will constrain and restrict innovation and cause other unforeseen damage.
You can be sure that each person down the hierarchy will define the operating space even smaller for their people.
If someone exploits your generous boundaries - breaks a rule, abuses your trust - be careful not to respond by drawing the lines in tighter. You'll catch more than the stray in your net.
If they breach the boundary again - don't shoot.
Instead, invite them to leave your space and create their own.
Invite them to be a Leader.
Change Your Mind About Changing Your Mind.
'The greatest enemy of any one of our truths may be the rest of our truths.'
- William James
Either/Or.
Guilty/Not Guilty.
Trustworthy/Untrustworthy.
Hired/Fired.
With me/Against me.
On/Off.
These black/white filters of information sabotage good decision making.
They shut out new information.
Our fear is that it may compel us to do that terribly humiliating thing:
Change our minds.
Information liberates.
It allows us to exercise the true test of our freedom:
Choice.
At a cost:
Anxiety. (I might be wrong.)
Which is why we get paid.
Be the naive inquirer.
Try this:
Treat all information that you receive as new.
'How interesting! Tell me more...'
The Art of Living.
‘Our life is an open question, an incomplete project, still to be brought to fruition and realised. Each man’s fundamental question is: How will this be realised— becoming man? How does one learn the art of living? Which is the path toward happiness?’ To evangelise means: to show this path— to teach the art of living.'
A good decision is one that advances us towards where we want to be.
Good decision making is a deliberate process of inquiry - asking questions - that advances us towards where we want to be.
A leader creates a path towards where she wants to be - illuminated by her decisions - that others choose to follow.
A leader seeks to become who she is.
A leader teaches us the art of living.
Good Decision Making Lite.
Following Five Steps to a Good Decision too steppy?
Choose one then.
Step Back before making your decisions,
or
Name the Issue before making your decisions,
or
Assess the information before making your decisions,
or
Check for Bias before making your decisions,
or
Give a Hearing before making your decisions,
Apply just one.
You'll be a step closer to where you want to be.