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.’ ”
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.
Passionate Doesn't Cut It.
'Sometimes I worry that the people who are seen as the most expert...are those who care the most or worry the most.'
'Good morning and welcome aboard. I'm Kurt Ranger and I'll be your Captain today on our flight to New York. I'm passionate about flying and committed to getting you safely to your destination. I was kept awake last night with worry about all the reasons we may not make it. So sit back, relax and enjoy your flight.'
'Passionate about...'
'Committed to...'
'What keeps me awake at night is...'
(Evidence that being 'committed to' is passé and losing its punch is found in the rise of 'totally committed to...' and even 'absolutely committed to...')
Words matter.
Declarations of passion are most often made by characters in Shakespeare's plays and reality TV talent and cooking show contestants - the latter then dissolving into emphatic sobs.
'Hi. I'm Sam. And I'm passionate about food/dance/losing weight.'
Do I want my child's teacher to be passionate - or to be a good teacher?
Do I want my dentist to be passionate - or a good dentist?
Do I want my local member of parliament to be passionate - or a good legislator?
Do I want an infantry soldier to be passionate about his work of killing the enemy?
Of course it doesn't have to be either/or. My surgeon can be passionate and a good surgeon. Perhaps she is good because she is passionate enough about surgery to perservere beyond good enough.
Fiona Wood, one of the best surgeons in the world, spoke about how she learned that 'passion on its own won't cut it'. It had undermined her leadership. Each of the Five Steps to a Good Decision filters out emotions - including passion - that may distract the decision maker from her purpose. Professor Smallbone was expressing his concern about 'caring' equating to expertise in the area of child protection.
As in many things, before declaring one's passion, it's helpful to ask: 'Whose needs are being met?' 'Passion' ('to suffer') implies it's about me and how I feel. Perhaps compassion - 'suffering alongside another' (the client, the boss, the bloke in the next office) - might be worth developing?
Organisations' language of selling its Widget to consumers has leached into how we speak to each other. We market ourselves - even to ourselves.
‘Look at me! I'm passionate. about my Widget!’
Good for you. Now make the thing so your boss can make hers.
Maybe we're whistling past the workplace graveyard of disengagement. 'Hi-ho, hi-ho, it's passionately off to work we go...'.
If you're a boss exhorting your people to have passion in their work, and what you really mean is - do the work well - then just say 'I want you to do your work well.' Or perhaps even 'I'm passionate about supporting you to do your work well.' Or even 'I'm totally committed to putting money in your bank this fortnight.'
I can be passionate. Committed. Caring. Just as long as I do my job - or help others do theirs - well.
And while Hi-ho-ing with passionate gusto, remember to belt out the rest of the lyrics:
'Hi Ho Hi Ho , Its Off To Work We Go!!
We did dig dig dig dig dig dig dig
In our Mine the whole day through
To dig dig dig dig dig dig dig dig
Its what we like to do
It aint no trick
To get rich quick
If ya dig dig dig
With a shovel or a stick
In the Mines.'
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.
Joy is Peace Dancing.
'Joy is Peace dancing. Peace is Joy at rest.'
In 2012 Michelle Jenneke went to work.
Heat 2 of the 100m Hurdles for Women in the IAAF World Junior Championships.
Representing her country. Serious business. Very stressful.
'Having fun,' the commentator reports before the race.
'Constantly dancing around.'
'Happy about performing.'
'Youthful exuberance coming out.'
'Let's see if she can buckle down and put together a technically good race,' the commentator cautioned.
Ms Jenneke had a very precise Widget to make.
Sponsors to please.
Coaches to honour.
Her workplace was live on TV.
She kept dancing and smiling right up to her blocks.
Then went to work making her Widget.
'Very aggressive to that first hurdle,' the commentator said.
Focus and determination. No smile for 13.52 seconds.
Michelle Jenneke won by 0.19 of a second. (Literally less than the blink of an eye.)
No room for error. But enough to dance.
'I get this feeling when I'm going to compete and I just get really happy and really energetic.'
'When I'm out on the track I'm thinking about what I'm doing, not focussing on them.'
'It's really about whether you're happy with yourself.'
We can be joyful in our work.
We can dance and make our Widget.
We don't need our boss's permission.
Just our own.
We don't need to wait for a private moment.
The world craves our dancing.
It begins by being happy with ourselves.
Becoming who we are.
Last week, two and a half years later, Michelle Jenneke danced as usual behind her blocks because she's just really happy.
Then ran the fifth fastest womens hurdles race in Australian history.
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.
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:
Come to the Edge.
Come to the edge.
We might fall.
Come to the edge.
It's too high!
COME TO THE EDGE!
And they came
And he pushed
And they flew.
A perk of being a lawyer is that you learn a little about a lot in the course of taking instructions from clients and asking questions about their work and lives that will help tailor the legal advice.
An airman explained to me about microfails. The way I remember it, every new aircraft type is put in a test laboratory and subjected to flexing and bending and other forces that replicate the stresses it will experience in flight. The airframe's responses are electronically measured and calibrated into units called 'micro fails'. When the airframe finally breaks, the engineers and designers know how many micro fails it took to do so and therefore its tolerance to the unpredictable forces of flight.
An airframe's life is calculated as being as long as it takes to suffer a certain number of micro fails. An aircraft that does a lot of high stress manoeuvres that result in G forces on it will suffer more micro fails in a flight than if it flew straight and level. It will therefore have a shorter life.
Instruments in the aircraft detect and record each micro fail. The engineers monitor the total and when it reaches certain amounts, they will replace parts of the airframe, and 'rewind' the micro fail measurement instrument to zero.
MIcro fails are invisible. As the name suggests, they are tiny fractures of the integrity of the airframe that gradually degrade its strength until the point when one too many stressors adds the micro fail that breaks the aeroplane.
The airman who came to see me was alleging that the engineers were rewinding the micro fail measuring instruments to avoid having to ground the aircraft and put them into maintenance.
People have micro fails in response to forces around them in the workplace.
Missed promotion. Bang. A hundred micro fails.
Frustrating meeting. Shudder. Ten micro fails.
Brusque email written in haste. Ouch. Two micro fails.
A name forgotten. One micro fail. Catastrophic explosive decompression resulting in loss of a sense of proportion and humour and crash landing into stress leave.
Everyone has a unique total micro fail capacity before they break. A boss can rarely predict the stressor that will push the worker beyond their limit. It's not always the obvious less than perfect act of management. It might be an innocent misunderstanding. Crack.
Organisations wrongly assume that a new employee starts on zero (ignoring the legacy of their last job and their life in general) and assume to standardise the total micro fails for each employee by their contract, policies, pay and values.
People also wrongly assume that quitting a job and finding a new one will reset their micro fail metre to zero. There's almost always leftover fatigue that transfers to the new boss.
Organisations have various ways of doing the people maintenance that they again assume allows them to rewind the individual and collective worker micro fail meters to zero from time to time
Pay increases.
Leave.
Promotions.
Public praise.
Sometimes bosses just replace the people frames for new ones.
Worse, they introduce the equivalent of fraudulently rewinding the meter by running a professional development or team building day, introducing some new values of code of conduct, or emailing out inspiring and motivating words.
After the butchers paper has been binned, the mandatory training has been completed, the all staff email has been deleted - a boss chips a worker in front of their peers and deep inside the metal of each witness staff member, fissures grow and the individual micro fail tally resumes its countdown to breakdown.
Legions of experts, lawyers, consultants, therapists and researchers make their living both inside and external to organisations from training, advising, measuring, mentoring, coaching, facilitating, supporting, assisting, delaying, mending and covering up the human equivalent of the micro fail.
It's mainly placebos. Good and bad bosses alike are never sure what act of theirs will be the one too many.
A bad boss can routinely be bad and his workers will keep on building Widgets.
A good boss may omit one name from a speech acknowledging thirty others and the entire office is sprayed with debris and body parts from the disintegrating staff member for months afterwards.
So we keep on legislating, regulating, training, coaching and parenting in a vain attempt to smooth out the turbulence of the workplace and keep everybody happy.
It's not working. It can't. We can keep rewinding the meter or flying straight and level and avoiding tight turns and gravity, but we're deluding ourselves and each other.
As M Scott Peck wrote in the opening sentence of his book 'The Road Less Travelled':
“Life is difficult. This is a great truth, one of the greatest truths. It is a great truth because once we truly see this truth, we transcend it. Once we truly know that life is difficult-once we truly understand and accept it-then life is no longer difficult. Because once it is accepted, the fact that life is difficult no longer matters.”
The workplace is part of Life. It's difficult. The more we seek to protect people from the stressors of doing their jobs with good and bad bosses, peers, subordinates, clients, customers, machines, and gravity, the greater disservice we do to them by denying them the opportunity to confront Peck's Great Truth, learn from it, and to transcend it. All in a relatively safe environment - the workplace - compared to the unpredictability of the rest of Life where there is no boss to blame for what befalls us, and often no Widget to measure our bearings from.
I checked with my Aeronautical Engineer friend Francisco about my memory of micro fails. He'd never heard of them. He works on modern Boeing 787s.
'I think that you're referring to aircraft structures of the past that were built with a safe life,' he said. 'Newer aircraft are fail safe.'
We need to rethink our 'work frame' design and maintenance. We need to evolve from our artificial 'safe life' philosophy of minimising the consequences of engaging with the healthy human stressors that arise from doing any job that's worthwhile - ie Life. We need to stop demanding that the boss shields us from the natural turbulence and forces of doing innovative, creative, speed-of-sound work.
We need workers to become the equivalent of fail safe and bosses with the wisdom and bravery to allow it.
We need to come to the edge so that we can fly.
Joy to the World.
'But then I had an epiphany. That was the only reason I hated the job was because I was doing it the way people had always done it. Badly.'
- James Risen, Pulitzer Prize Winning Journalist
One of my early Air Force bosses called me into his office one evening after I'd stopped by to say that I was going home.
'You need to think about whether you should be working back,' he said as I stood in his doorway.
I looked at my watch. It was 6pm. No Air Force Officer in Headquarters worked back after 4.30pm. Just ask any Army officer.
'It's...6pm, Sir...' I said from confusion rather than insubordination.
'I mean working back on work that you don't enjoy...' he replied.
This was years before George Constanza said: 'When you look annoyed all the time, people think that you're busy.'
Being busy is synonymous with working hard. Working hard means that the work is important. Only important people do important work. We want to feel important. We want to feel that we're spending our lives doing something worthwhile.
Scan the faces at a meeting and expressions from a dentist's waiting room.
The more sombre the expression, the more serious the work.
Another of my Air Force bosses was asked why Legal Officers don't wear a distinguishing badge on our uniforms. 'Our hang-dog looks are the giveaway,' he said.
If we laugh or are animated, we can't be taking our job seriously.
Like too much behaviour in workplaces, stony demeanours are theatre. Performance Art. Marketing.
If a worker directing the filming of a rock concert for a DVD that's also beaming live to an audience of millions can dance and cheer and clap in his office, then I can crack a smile in mine.
If a worker who's saving burn victims' lives can show passion as she assesses one of 28 bombing survivors queuing to be treated, then I suppose I can engage with others in meetings.
But if I smile, laugh, joke - what will people think?
Hamish Hamilton doesn't care. He acknowledged his critics' opinions about his directing and went back to work at the Oscars. He loves his job. It doesn't matter what others think.
Dr Fiona Wood doesn't care. She focusses on her Widget and the 99% of good news stories in the world and concentrates on her goal of scarless healing of patients.
As the actor and comedian Paul Hogan said in an interview:
'When you go into this business you very quickly learn that there's a lot of people who like what you do and they're entertained by it. There's a lot of people, for reasons best known to themselves, really can't stand you and have got it in for you and want to see you fail. But the thing to remember is that the great, great majority in the middle...don't even think about you. They see you on stage...entertaining...and they think 'Oh, that was good'. And then get on with their own lives. There are some people in this business who obsess over the ones who...now the trend is to call them 'Haters'. Anyone who doesn't love what you do is a 'Hater'....What's that poor kid, Justin Bieber? He talks about 'The Haters'. No Justin! They're not 'Haters'. They just don't give a shit about you.'
Who is this audience for our pout, frown, sneer, or hang dog look?
Maybe the lack of joy in our work isn't the boss's fault after all. Maybe it's because we're doing our job badly?
We really should seek joy in our work.
Because where Joy, or 'gladness' intersects the world's deep need - there's our Vocation.
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.
I Brush Teeth for Me.
'I brush teeth for me. It ends up being useful for the world as well, but I don't have to analyse whether this is the right day to brush my teeth. It's just a thing that I do.'
- Merlin Mann.
The best analogy for the perfect job?
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.
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.
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.
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.