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.'
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.
Leadership Perfection.
'Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he had come from God and was going to God...began to wash the disciples’ feet...'
The most powerful entity in the Universe.
He can do anything.
Be Anything.
Yet -
He chooses to kneel and do the job of a servant.
Washing the filthy feet of a friend who will fatally betray him.
All the libraries and rhetoric on Leadership offer less than this act.
'I have set you an example that you should do as I have done for you,' he tells them - and us.
Believe him the Son of God or a man of fiction, one could aspire to model their entire leadership philosophy and behaviour on this lesson of Jesus Christ.
'One is never so big
As when one stoops down.'
- David Byrne, Never So Big
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.
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.'
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...'
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.
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.
Peace Among the Thorns.
Per Ardua Ad Astra - Through Difficulties to the Stars.
The Latin motto of the Royal Australian Air Force.
Pax Inter Spinas - Peace Among the Thorns.
The Latin motto of the Benedictine monks.
This is that motto in a logo form as it was in the mid 20th century.
See the Pax - Peace - clearly surrounded by thorns with three nails at its base.
This is that motto in a logo form in 2014.
See the thorns that once surrounded the Pax have been softened into a laurel wreath? The three nails replaced by the 'Three Mounds of Perfection'? (Faith, Hope, Love.)?
I can hear the Marketing Consultant: 'The Peace bit is awesome. People will love that. Not so much the Thorns bit though. Like...Lose the Thorns. And Love. Can you, like, add something about Love? Love's a sure winner. Yeah. Peace and Love. And you know what? Wrap them in a laurel wreath. People love laurel wreaths. Olympics and all that. Awesome!'
In 2014 we want the Peace. We won't suffer thorns to find it.
Save us from Difficulties.
Just give us the Stars.
Leave the Idiot Work to the Idiots.
'Leave the idiot work to the idiots.'
A bishop's answer when asked to define Subsidiarity - so the story goes.
The blunt interpretation is proof that even the noblest values can be demeaned and misappropriated.
Subsidiarity is the principle that says a decision should be made at the lowest appropriate level.
Subsidiarity allows each person their dignity.
It is a principle of social justice that, while used by the Roman Catholic Church, is wrongly attributed to it (and therefore possibly ignored!) It predates the Church and has universal application to good decision making. Its universality is demonstrated in the fact that it is part of the Treaty on European Union.
'Subsidiarity' stems from the Latin subsidies, which means 'help, assistance'. And here, as with all good ideas, is where it goes wrong.
The person who is interested in power, practices subsidiarity by choosing what power to delegate to those below him in the hierarchy. To him, subsidiarity is throwing crumbs from the decision making table. This apparent act of generosity and power sharing upon which most organisations operate has its sinister side. The person receiving the crumbs becomes dependent on the person throwing them.
The other version of where subsidiarity comes from is subsidiaries, which means 'of or belonging to the reserves'. In the Roman army, the reserves waited in the rear in case the front line army needed them to overcome a superior enemy. The reserve army did not initiate action, it waited to be called up. It strengthened, reinforced and perfected an act already begun.
In good decision making, subsidiarity presumes that a person should be left to make their own decisions - even 'wrong' ones - without interference from a superior authority. That 'superior' authority can be in a family, a community, an organisation, a state, or the world.
A person will concede part of their individuality as part of their membership of one of those groups. They may also concede some of their decision making authority. But only to the extent necessary to benefit the whole, from which they benefit.
If the authority that the person has conceded as part of their membership of the group is exercised 'beyond the necessary', then the group begins to destruct. The reason is that the person is unable to exercise the talents that they have brought to the group. As the group can only define itself by its works - the sum of each person's talents - then the loss of part of those talents means that the group is not able to function.
In short - subsidiarity requires that each person has as much autonomy and responsibility as possible, and as much control or intervention by a higher authority as necessary.
Individual initiative should only be limited where it is absolutely unavoidable.
The benefit of subsidiary to the higher authority is that it can focus with greater freedom and energy and effectiveness to tasks belonging to it, and to which it alone can accomplish.
Ironically, subsidiarity is one of the reasons to have a higher authority. Such authority exists to create the space to enable people to discover their potential. If the higher authority moves into that space then it contradicts its reason for being. If the boss starts interfering - for well meaning or other reasons - in the decisions and actions of the workers, the boss isn't doing his job.
The higher authority assists by removing obstacles to the person that the person can't remove themselves, or that are otherwise more effectively removed by the higher authority so that the person can focus on their core business.
A Leader practises subsidiarity when they create the space; when they define the purpose and invite the right person to stretch their potential towards it; when they equip the person with the tools that they need to leverage their talents, when they affirm without intervention, when they retreat...
Sadly, it is a perversion of subsidiarity that is most commonly practised. It is that a worker starts as an empty vessel - a human resource. The worker is loaded with information and authority and power by the boss to the extent that the boss feels necessary. The boss adds or removes that cargo as he thinks fit. The boss sets that vessel adrift, attached to a rope.
In short - the worker's power only exists in as much as it has been given to him by the boss. This is what most people mean by 'delegation'.
A healthy organisation recruits people who have existing talents that the organisation needs. It then lets them get on with the job. The boss's job is to remove the obstacles.
And stay out of the way.
Challenge Them Into the Future.
Dr Fiona Wood, AM is one of the world's leading plastic surgeons who specialises in burns patients. Earlier this year she was interviewed about what she had learned from her surgical research and practice about Good Decision Making and Leadership.
She started where all Leadership and Good Decision Making begins - the Widget - or 'purpose' as Dr Wood described it:
'I think decision making is something that you have to really take on - I was almost going to say a level of aggression - but a level of purpose might be a better term. Because you have to make a decision. There is someone in front of you that needs your help - you have to make a decision.
Dr Wood acknowledged that decision making is cumulative - that each decision informs the next:
'That decision may not be right – you have to take that. You have to understand that the decision you've made, the action you've taken, has led to then making the next decision. Sometimes it will be right, sometimes wrong. You've just got do deal with it with a level of purpose. And so you bring to the table all your experience - the knowledge that brought you to that point. And it's a question really of visualising the outcome.'
Her Widget focus is paramount in her thinking, and relies on the systems that have been developed to support it:
'I see this individual....If you meet me as a professional you're having a bad day. So they are damaged, and now I want to use everything in my power, in our systems that we work in, in our systems and the knowledge that is out there to make their path to the outcome the very best it can be.'
Even though in each operation she is focussed on the person before her on that day, she maintains her disciplined focus on a more strategic Widget. Each patient illuminates the path to her Widget, yet in such a way that nether the immediate needs of her patient, or the longer term Widget journey is compromised:
'And the outcome that I've visualised for many, many years is scarless healing. We've changed the goalpost. We've inched doggedly there...are we there all the time? Absolutely not. But we're making progress. So it's visualising that outcome and making every play such that you can move it closer to that outcome day by day. And it's learning. It's always taking the blinkers off and learning so that whatever the decisions you've made today, you make sure that you make better ones tomorrow. And that has been actually an entrenched coping strategy to make sure that you critically analyse the work of today to make sure that tomorrow is better.'
Dr Wood's focus does not mean that she is blind to other new information that can serve her Widget:
'I see people out there that do nanotechnology, or genetics or all sorts of different things - psychology, neuroscience and they've got parts of my jigsaw. I need to get parts of that jigsaw and bring it in to play here. And therefore you have to make decisions on lots of different levels. But when you pare that all away you look at the person in front of you, you've got to get the removal of the dead tissue without them bleeding out such that you can repair them the best you can with today's technology such that you set them up for the best outcome.'
Her Widget focus allows her to quickly engage a surgical team with the needs of each patient:
'I teach my guys: As you walk in you make sure you connect with everybody in the room and if there's people you've never seen before you write everything on the board that you're going to do. You should not be making the decisions while you're doing it. You should have visualised it - you go in knowing what you're going to do and knowing your escape routes. So all of that has to be in your mind. And you have to see the landscape. What is it that you've got to work with in terms of your human resources - and engage them. Make sure they understand what you're trying to do and feel the passion - feel that for that period of time the only focus is for that individual. And that's a really important part of the whole. Engaging everyone.'
Dr Wood explained how the path towards the Widget is a meandering one, and that we should not measure our progress on the result of one decision alone:
'The outcomes have got to get better every day. And it's not linear. I don't live in an environment where every day that passes your chance of survival increases. It's not linear - it's a roller coaster. The waves of infection come relentlessly over, unless we've completely sealed - the person weakens and weakens and weakens. A third of the patients who don't survive will survive somewhere around three months. And they're hard days.'
Dr Wood affirmed Step 1: Step Back as being important in good decision making:
'We have this concept that 'Oh, it's macho to keep going'. But it isn't macho to keep going if your performance falls away. And so for a long, long time I've been very aware of people around me and trying to work out who needs to be rotated out...and so it's having that awareness and as I've got older, I don't stay in and so part of it is rotating yourself out, so that it becomes acceptable....
Dr Wood's ideas on leadership are consistent with Creating the Space and Defining the Purpose and inviting people into that space and using the focus on the Purpose as vehicles to reach their potential:
'I think leadership…Vision...is really interesting. Because I believe that everybody can dream. I think leadership is giving people permission to dream. Because I think if you take the time to listen to people you'd be amazed at what they dream. And then you encompass that dream into a vision.'
Yet always the laser Widget focus:
'I saw a child in 1985 and it changed my life. I thought 'That child is so badly injured from a cup of coffee?' We've got to be able to do better. I've carried that photograph around with me for a long time.'
Dr Wood addressed the potential for conflict between Widget focus and learning where we are in relation to our Widget, and the need to get the day-to-day work done. She described the importance of being disciplined in routine and preparation in order to be creative:
'What we want to be is innovative problem solvers but we want to generate outcomes on a regular basis. In every field of endeavour that is a conflict - on the surface of it. But when you start to dig a little bit deeper… I indicated that it is not appropriate to be making decisions about where you cut when it's right there in front of you. You've made those decisions previously. You've visualised. you've gone to the table - whatever table it is - with your outcome in mind and understanding the opportunities you've got to get there. So there’s an element of planning almost on the run all the time. It's getting into the habit.'
She affirmed the idea that good decision making is being confident enough about what you know, to be attentively curious about what you don't:
'What is it that I bring to the table? What's my experience? What's my knowledge? The lawyers do it all the time with precedent, looking back at old cases. Get into the habit that it's always ticking over. Questioning the landscape. And I think underpinning that is a fundamental belief that today is not as good as it gets. Not in that you criticise today. It's not bad. It's the best it can be - today.'
Dr Wood's approach to learning is to seek out feedback. She goes beyond a healthy belief in relying on the power of complaints to provide it. In fact, why wait for a complaint to inform you, and assume that if there is none that you are doing okay? She advocates declaring your understanding of your Widget to the world and inviting it to comment:
'As you've finished, as you've closed up and you walk away, you don't strut. You actually think 'Okay - given that same situation happens tomorrow, how could I have analysed it better, and then you go through the whole exercise again…the debrief. That's not specifically surgery, It's not specifically sport. It's part of exercising your mind. And the next step is doing that in public. Because that's when it starts getting exciting because there's absolutely no doubt we're in an environment where you need multiple minds to solve problems. And so you have to have that level of inquiry and sort of ticking over and then you connect. And you start to develop a language of innovation and visualisation. So you can push forward.'
Dr Wood shared her belief in the value of 'trauma' as a stimulus to growth, extending the literal trauma to her patients' longer term recovery and resilience, to a metaphor about character:
'I can track periods of my life where I went through post traumatic growth. And it wasn't painless. The hardest thing for me post Bali was that people wanted to know my name. Yet I recognised that as part of that I became stronger. And I became able to engage in this positive energy, in this positive good news stories. And I had my blinkers taken off such that i engaged with the community in a broader sense....How we can use energy that is so profoundly negative and turn that around - I think that's fascinating. It's tiring sometimes. And it's hard. But part of that post traumatic growth is having the infrastructure around you, having the people and connectivity around you that give you the ability to lead.'
She had some powerful advice to give on how to deal with criticism and how innovation challenges conventional thought about 'the way things are done':
'There's an element of inertia in practice. Whether that be clinical practice or business practice...This level of inertia is really quite an interesting animal. Because it's useful, but it's also a hindrance. We need to have a level of capacity to maintain things moving forward at a pace that can be managed. And equally, we have to have people testing out the front. And so I have engaged with surgical inertia up front and centre and I've had to make the decision not to engage in that negative energy but to continue to be driven by the positive outcome, collect the data, present the data. And as the things roll forward, the data will speak for itself. And so that inertia starts to be overcome. And I think that the challenge when you're in a situation with that level of inertia is to understand you've got a choice. You turn around and you fight it…and it's bigger than you. Or you stay out the front and you wait for them to catch up. And they get there.'
Yet always returning to the supremacy of the Widget - and the need for a leader to be clear about defining it to the team, regardless of how clear it is to her or how passionate she is about it:
'I had a really interesting lesson in leadership inadvertently in the early 90s. 1991 I hit the ground running. I was very focussed on time to healing. Every day in a burns unit is a day too long. I aggressively engaged in a skin culture programme....the social worker at the time who was a bit older than the rest of us came and said 'Stop!' I thought 'What do you mean, Stop? ‘Sit down. I need to talk to you. I've been asked to come and speak with you. Well you're too intimidating.’ (Give me a break! )‘We understand that what you're doing has got to be right. It's got to have some real benefit. But we don't know what it is. We can feel your passion. We have no idea how we can explain it to the parents, to the patients, to their relatives, to the new nurses when they come on. We're all at sea…’
Dr Wood learned the definition that a leader is someone who makes good decisions that others choose to follow:
'Leadership 101. No team - no leader. Done. The elastic was at breaking point and almost snapping behind me. And had I not had that energy that they all got caught up in, it would have snapped well and truly. So that's the point when I said 'Right. Everybody who's at this table is here for a reason. You've got to be able to be leaders in your own right....Passion on its own doesn't cut it. The communication bit has to be strong.'
A Leader retreats:
There is absolutely no point in me being so entrenched that as I get through my final kick, everything fades away. Succession is so important. It's not because I want to be remembered. It's because the people need treating! And they need to be treated better and better and better. So for me, it's delegation. But delegation with meaning. Empowerment in a real sense. I need to let them deliver. Such that I can get out of my head, get it on paper and challenge them into the future. But in a way that is not intrusive. Not imposing my surgical inertia on them. But allowing them to grow.
Dr Wood leads a team in Good Decision Making in life and death situations. It's not just theory to her. She is still able to use the language of 'dreams', 'visualisation', 'mistakes', 'passion', 'innovation' and 'personal growth' while literally operating at the leading edge of science.
If Dr Wood can save lives while still creating the space for these ideals that allow others to become who they are, then most workplaces have no excuse.
I Am Involved in Mankind.
'No man is an island entire of itself; every man
is a piece of the continent, a part of the main;
if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe
is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as
well as any manner of thy friends or of thine
own were; any man's death diminishes me,
because I am involved in mankind.
And therefore never send to know for whom
the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.'
- John Donne
What information moves us?
One Australian cricketer is killed by a ball bowled during a game of cricket.
28 people are killed by missiles fired from drones for each terrorist suspect killed.
Step 4 of the Five Steps to a Good Decision: Check for Bias.
Information refracts and bends through our biases.
Recognise this and pay attention to it.
We're human.
Spiritual Coffee Pods.
'We're expecting the next generation of domestic espresso coffee machines to include a coffee pod option,' the manager of the coffee machine retailer told me.
'It's inevitable that coffee pods will take over the market and we'll see fewer traditional barista style machines.'
'Manufacturers are mixing in powdered milk and chocolate and other flavourings and additives to the coffee pods. We're making our own blend. We're trying to fit more than the standard 7g of coffee into each pod to increase the strength and flavour.'
The satisfaction of a cup of coffee without the grinding and tamping and mess.
Instant and convenient satisfaction.
In 1950 95% of Australians believed in some form of higher power.
A 2006 world survey found that youth from Australia and the United Kingdom were the least likely to observe religious practice or see any 'spiritual dimension' to life.
Meanwhile:
Opinion is Currency.
'We live in an era where opinion is currency.'
- Andy Miller
So many meetings are just people taking turns to kick their opinions furtherest around a cul-de-sac.
In my opinion.
One Leader is One Too Many.
'It is easy to derail an expert and ruin their performance. All that you have to do is force them to follow the rules.'
- Andy Hunt, Pragmatic Thinking and Learning
We write the job advertisement.
An invitation.
Sparkling with carefully crafted words of seduction.
'Come! Work with us!'
'We want you to bring your best self and help us to be better!'
You accept the invitation.
'I offer my Best Self to you.'
We choose you. That Best Self.
Seduction becomes Induction.
Rules, policies, values, visions, missions, hierarchies, teams, codes, reviews.
We overwhelm You and turn You into Us. Into a Team Player.
Left!...Left!..Left, Right, Left!
Another job advertisement.
'We need Innovators!'
'We need Leaders!'
Do Your Job.
A minute into addressing the media on the death of his team mate Phillip Hughes, the Captain of the Australian Cricket Team Michael Clarke falters under the weight of his emotions.
He pauses.
He whispers to himself:
'Do your job.'
Then delivers his statement.
Widget Focus.