Agree.
There's banging on the front door of your house where your children are asleep.
'The smoke billowing from your roof is soiling the clothes on my line!' a voice yells.
'Put it in writing,' you yell back. 'And send it to my landlord. She'll let the owner know.'
'No!'
'Well, contact the fire brigade!'
'No!'
You think.
'Would you agree to me passing on your complaint to the fire brigade?' you shout back.
'No. Just stop smoking out my clothes!'
'Would you be happy if I dry cleaned your clothes for you?' you yell.
A van draws up alongside while you're at the traffic lights. The passenger rolls down his window and points at the back of your car.
'Is that a formal or informal gesture about my car?' you say.
The van pulls away as the lights turn green.
'Anonymous!' you mutter under your breath, before accelerating away in a belch of oil smoke and sparks from your dragging muffler.
You catch up to the van at the next set of lights. The passenger repeats the gesture with more animation.
'Vexatious complainant!' you sneer as you raise your middle finger then the volume of the radio.
Organisations pay for opinions - usually called 'feedback' - of customers, clients, employees and random strangers about their Widget.
They hire different people to deter, defend, deflect, delegate, mediate - opinions that are called 'complaints'.
A complaint is information about your Widget from someone who cares enough about their Widget (which may be the same as yours) to give it.
It's your decision - not theirs - serving your Widget - not theirs - as to what you do about it.
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.
Important.
'It's only in our decisions that we are important.'
- Sartre
Next time you're bored in a meeting, try this.
A Decision will be made.
It can be now. In a few seconds. Later today. Tomorrow. Next year.
One absolute certainty is that a Decision will be made. (Even by default.)
You don't know what the decision will be - you know there will be one. Thus it's almost irrelevant.
Use this certainty as a reference point to work out who are the managers and who are the leaders in the meeting.
The managers will be the ones assembling their dot points for their post-mortem speeches in case the Decision goes wrong. (Most likely to be delivered in hushed tones and with eye rolls in the tea room. 'I tried to tell them that....but they...')
The leader will be holding the space. (She may not be the person at the head of the table by the way.)
She's allowing for the Five Steps - the deliberate process of inquiry - to run its course.
She knows that if she makes a decision that advances her towards where she wants to be - that she cannot make a bad decision.
Her wisdom about the answer liberates her to focus on others.
Watch the leader bravely hold the space. She listens. Asks questions. Listens. Questions. Listens. Listens.
Listens.
Watch the managers and others compete to fling the most words, statements, fears, challenges, complaints, criticisms, and egos within and against the boundaries of that safe space being held for them by the leader.
Spot the manager promoted one or more steps above his competence. You can tell him by his confident assertions. His aim is to declare his opinion rather than to allow it to be tested by the evidence. (That would be too risky.) He wants to be seen as decisive. Sure. Stable. Knowledgeable. Courageous. He does so with the luxury of knowing that he doesn't have to make the decision.
The real bravery in the room is in the leader. Risking being seen as weak. Indecisive. Uncommunicative. As she's talked over. As she holds the space. As she listens.
As she serves everyone else.
Including you. Learning from her as you watch, safe in the space she's created for you. (Guess what - she knows you're watching.)
Regardless of whether it's her decision that is made or followed, she's a leader. Because she created the space and invited you to enter and become who you are.
Allowed you to advance towards your Widget on the way to building hers.
Decisions don't make us important.
The Deciding does.
[Never spotted a leader in a meeting? Of course not. 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.
Resolved.
It's rare to hear someone reflect on a conflict in a former workplace and say:
'My life is worse because of it.'
Many people believe that the goal of conflict management is to make everybody happy.
Yet when you ask those people 'What are the chances of that happening?', they shake their heads and say 'It's almost impossible.'
We need to have some reference point as to when a conflict is resolved.
Universal happiness - complainant, respondent, boss, customer, widget - is not a realistic one.
Resolving conflict so that people can get back to the widget has benefits beyond the widget.
It lets them think 'Well, whether I like it or not, it has been resolved and I now need to make choices based upon that.'
It's rare in life to have an umpire who resolves something for us and says 'Here's what's going to happen.'
That's what a good boss does when she resolves a conflict.
We may not like it. We may not agree with it. It may not be what we wanted. Yet it provides a reference point for our decisions about our life and our happiness. We regain control in an environment where we may have felt as though we'd lost it.
What might seem like a loss in the world of my cubicle, can be a win for personal growth, creativity, and realisations about where I want to be in the world of my life.
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?
Somewhere.
"Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?"
"That depends a good deal on where you want to get to," said the Cat.
"I don’t much care where--" said Alice.
"Then it doesn’t matter which way you go," said the Cat.
"--so long as I get SOMEWHERE," Alice added as an explanation.
"Oh, you’re sure to do that," said the Cat, "if you only walk long enough."
- Lewis Carroll - 'Alice in Wonderland'
A good decision is one that advances me towards where I want to be.
Do I know where I want to be:
- In one second (while you're yelling at me)?
- In ten minutes (after you've stormed out)?
- In six hours (after I've read your complaint)?
- Next week (after my boss has read your complaint)?
- In six months (when my performance review is due)?
- In a year (when my daughter asks 'What do you do at work, Daddy?')
- In thirty years (when I'm dying)?
- In 200 years (when my great-great-great-great gand-daughter is researching the Family Tree)?
My boss can answer the first five.
(A good boss cares about six, seven and eight because she cares about one to five.)
Emotion may excuse the answers to one and eight.
Good decision making will answer the rest.
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'.
Five.
The fifth of the Five Steps to a Good Decision is to Offer a Hearing.
Step 1 is to Step Back.
Step 2 is to Name the Issue.
Step 3 is to Assess the Information.
Step 4 is to Check for Bias.
If you believe that your decision is likely to adversely affect any person, you should allow that person to be heard.
A 'hearing' is simply:
- Informing the person of the information that you have about them.
- Informing them that it may require you to make a decision that may be adverse to their interests or expectations.
- Inviting them to respond to the information and explain to you why you should not make an adverse finding.
A 'hearing' may be a simple as a short conversation, an email or letter.
If the person doesn't accept your offer, you simply make the decision based upon the information that you have.
The ‘Show Cause’ is the best example of the Hearing step in action. It says:
‘I’m thinking of doing X as a result of Y facts and Z policy. I’m inviting you to give me reasons why I should not do X by the close of business on Date. I will consider your reasons before making my decision.'
There are five benefits of the Hearing Step:
- It allows the person with the most at stake to put forward information that can ensure that you are aware of the most personally damaging outcomes of your decision, and assess them accordingly.
- It allows the person to feel involved in their own fate and that you value them enough to engage with them.
- It has echoes of the ‘listening’ in Step 1.
- It is another opportunity for you to Step Back.
- It is one of the most important elements of Natural Justice.
If the person responds, genuinely consider and reflect upon the information that they have given you.
Remain focussed on the relevance of the information to your Widget.
They may tell you about their illness, their lost cat, their 37 years of faithful service, their passion for their job...
Don’t engage with any of these topics if they have nothing to do with your Widget.
Don’t seek to rebut or refute or correct in your response. Simply say:
‘Thank you for taking the time to write those 73 pages in response to my invitation for you to give me reasons why I should not move your desk. I have given all of your submissions my consideration, and after taking them into account, together with Policy X and Report Y, I have decided to move you to the position near the window.’
And you might add: ‘I am sorry to hear about your cat and I can understand how its absence has proved stressful for you. I invite you to take advantage of our Employee Assistance Programme and will approve any reasonable leave that you may require to do so.’
The five steps allow someone to tell us their story and for us to listen.
Our brains love stories.
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.'
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.
If.
If I write a good job description for you.
If I write a good job ad for you.
If I write good questions for your job interview and write down the ones you ask back.
If I write to your last boss and ask her if you make good Widgets.
If I write a good employment contract for you.
If I write good policies for you.
If I teach you a good job induction.
If I teach you about my Widget.
If I teach you how your Widget fits into my Widget.
If I teach you with feedback and a pay cheque.
If I get out of your way.
If I Do all of this for everyone who you rely on to help you to Do your job.
If - after you Do it - I say:
Thank you.
If I keep Doing for you all I said that I would Do.
I'd have done my job.
And you'll go on Doing yours.
You don't need to be managed or led.
You just need to be left to Do.
We don't need more leaders or managers.
We need more Writers and Teachers.
We need more Doers.
Four.
The fourth of the Five Steps to a Good Decision is to Check for Bias.
A good decision is one that advances us towards where we want to be.
Bias can distract us from our Widget in two ways:
- From brains wired to drown out rational thought by screaming 'RUN!' or 'KILL IT!' in response to new information.
- From egos that put our Weekend Widget ahead of our boss's Widget.
The first Three Steps to a Good Decision often quell the screaming in its more sophisticated 21st century workplace manifestations.
The second is mostly tackled in long and overly complicated policies around 'conflicts of interest.'
The easiest way to detect whether we have this kind of bias is to ask ourselves:
‘Am I able to apply my mind to the information and assess its merits and exercise my discretion unhindered by any personal investment in its outcome?’
If you do feel personally invested, you need to tell your boss and let her decide whether you should refer the decision to someone else.
After all, she's paying you to build her Widget.
Three.
'Intelligence is the ability to recognise a better argument than your own.'
- Anonymous
The third of the Five Steps to a Good Decision is to Assess the information.
‘Investigation’ has sinister, negative overtones.
‘We’re carrying out an investigation.’
‘We’re being investigated.’
These all imply that someone has done something wrong.
Yet no decision should be made without gathering as much information as we can – ie investigating.
An investigation can be as simple as a telephone call, a conversation, reading a policy, an email asking questions, seeking expert advice – or as detailed as a royal commission.
What information do you need to decide what to do?
What information do you need to make your Widget?
What is important is the attitude that you take to the gathering of information.
Be curious.
Take the position of the ‘naïve inquirer’.
Seek the advice of experts, more experienced people, policies and procedures.
Be inquisitorial not adversarial.
Aim to learn rather than blame.
Two.
The second of the Five Steps to a Good Decision is to Name the Issue.
The commonest mistake in every decision making level of every organisation is to ignore our Widget.
(Hence the importance of Widget clarity.)
A Good Decision is one that advances us towards where we want to be - ie our Widget.
In Step 1, we purged our emotions so that we could make a decision using external information and not internal emotion.
In Step 2, we need to ask ourselves: ‘What is the Issue?’
We need to sift through all the information that we have and identify what it tells us about our Widget.
The answer is the Issue.
There are a number of tools that we can use to name the Issue:
- How does this information affect my Widget?
- What law, policy, procedure, rule, promise, value or other undertaking am I responsible for that requires me to act on this information?
- Do I have the authority to act on the information?
- What action does my Integrity (doing what I said I was going to do) demand of me in response to this information?
If there is no clear statement about whether you have the authority to make a decision, you could rely on the principle of Subsidiarity:
‘It is a fundamental principle of social philosophy, fixed and unchangeable, that one should not withdraw from individuals and commit to the community what they can accomplish by their own enterprise and/or industry.’
- Pope Pius XI
Don't be distracted or bound by what someone else tells you is the issue because they're defining it against their Widget - not yours.
A third party usually doesn’t get to decide what the Issue is. You do.
Because it’s your Widget.
You are in the job presumably because you have the experience, expertise and authority to make decisions about your Widget that serve the organisation’s Widget.
If the information does not affect your Widget, either pass it on to someone whose Widget may benefit from it, or…proceed to Step 3.
Terms.
'The beginning of wisdom is a definition of terms.'
-Socrates
The Widget is the product of your decisions.
The Weekday Widget is the product of the decisions that your boss pays you to make.
The Weekend Widget is the product of making decisions for your boss.
A Good Decision is one that advances you towards where you want to be.
[It's harder to make a good decision if you don't have a Widget.]
Good Decision Making is a deliberate process of inquiry that advances you towards where you want to be.
A Leader is someone who makes decisions that others choose to follow.
It's all about The Widget.
I might be wrong.
Check.
To check whether your boss wants Leadership or management, try any of the following and see what she does:
- Disagree with her in a meeting.
- Answer 'I don't know' when she asks what someone else is doing.
- Delay reporting to her because you were teaching someone else.
- Answer 'I don't know' to any of her questions.
- Say 'I was wrong'.
Most organisations simply don't have the metaphorical and literal structural tolerance in their people and systems to withstand the amount of turbulence that would flow from having as many Leaders as they proclaim to want or allow.
Which is why most organisations advertise and train for leadership - and recruit and promote for management.