Scared.
'Make the time to be scared of more interesting things.'
- Merlin Mann
Watching TV at 8.37pm on a Wednesday when my phone announced an email and I nearly vomited.
At my desk at 2.50pm when I'm summonsed by the boss and I pocket my shaking hands.
Exiting the ceiling loft at 11.15 on a Saturday morning watching work scenes in my head instead of the ladder and stepping into space and falling five metres onto a plastic bin and then concrete.
I lay on my side for ten minutes wiggling my toes and visualising my spine and ribs and pulling plastic shards from my clothes and feeling reincarnated.
Work had nearly killed me.
I thought of the Merlin Mann quote.
The earth had slammed me into its bosom demanding I make time to think about my fear dividend.
Slumped in a car outside a chemist with a searing headache after a second day of prosecuting two military pilots. Stressed. Out of my depth. Thriving.
Sitting at a boardroom table next to the Chief Operating Officer facing off ten government and commercial lawyers opposite and the contract that would make or break our start-up company in stalemate. Stomach churning. Overwhelmed. Thrilling.
Emails about inaccurate staff leave accounting making me nauseous? Ridiculous.
Calls about not filling out an HR form correctly constricting my breathing? Embarrassing.
Peter Block says 'The price of freedom is anxiety.' Any decision worthwhile will make us scared. The key is to Step Back and confirm that our Widget is worth it.
I.
'There is a lot of learning between 'It fell' and 'I dropped it'.
- Anonymous
'You got a sec?,' the strike pilot asked me. His cheeks still had the outline of his oxygen mask.
I followed him to another room and he pushed a video casette into the VCR.
'This is vision from the package that I just led.'
The black and white infra red images filmed from an F111C aircraft earlier that night three nautical miles away at 600 knots began playing. He was about to narrate when he paused, smiled, leaned back in his chair and gently closed the door from where three pilots from one of our allies were looking in.
'See the cross-hairs?' he resumed. 'You'll see me move them over the corner of this intersection.' He jabbed at the screen where the white cross was settling on the outline of the top of a building. 'This was our target. The telephone exchange in the centre of the city. Top left hand corner. Remember it?'
I nodded. I had reviewed and approved all the strike package targets for the Commander earlier in the day.
'See those numbers here?' He pointed at one of several sets of readouts along the edge of the image. 'They are simulating my laser guided bomb coming in. Three, two, one. Perfect. Bang on. Target destroyed. Well, simulated. Now watch.'
The cross hairs remained in place for a few seconds. Then glided to the ghostly outline of the building on the bottom right of the intersection. Then back up. Pause. Then diagonally down. The image flickered to black.
'Wrong building,' he said, punching the tape out of the recorder. 'I bombed the wrong corner of the intersection. I need you to tell me the consequences. I need you to brief me and the rest of the Squadron on the legal implications of my error. Can you do that?'
'Yes, Sir.'
'Good,' he said. 'Thank you.'
There was a knock at the door then it opened to five bearded, filthy and grinning Special Forces soldiers.
'Come in fellas,' the Air Commodore said, then to me 'Sorry - these blokes just want to see the video of us tracking them along a creek bed last night from five miles away. They're curious. Didn't hear a thing. Want to sit in?'
Bad.
Watch a bad boss until you see what he does well. There's a lot to be learned.
Every bad boss has a skill that explains their rise to bossdom.
One bad boss was superb at being able to concisely and accurately summarise a situation. He could sit silent for an hour or more at important meetings. Nodding and uh-huhing enough to appear engaged. At the end he would clear his throat, lean forward and list each discussion point, individual arguments for and against, action items, and those responsible for carrying them out. He was never on the list.
I would watch him at these meetings and think 'He sounds so intelligent. Maybe I've misjudged him. He's a good listener and has an impeccable memory. All the other executives seem to accept his authority, including the CEO.'
He reported what was, affirming by his simple narration the gravitas of each participant who had been absorbed in analysing the information. They assumed that because he was at the same meeting as them and they heard their words from his mouth minus the faltering cadence of raw thoughts forming sentences, that he was as smart as them.
He was essentially a tape recorder.
Or the voice in a lift that reports before you exit: 'Level 7. Have a nice day,' as if it lifted you there on its shoulders.
The rest of the time he was bad.
He was very senior in the organisation and was boss of dozens of people. I never knew him to make a decision.
I once felt sorry for him. Being a boss is hard work. A different kind of effort is required to be a bad boss. The performance anxiety. The fatigue. The fear of being found out. Any sympathy vanished when I heard how much he was paid. Four times more than the nurse who cared for my sick child. Obscene.
We've all known bosses like that because organisations are suckers for thinking that being good at one thing means being good at lots of other things.
It's like making the star juggler the manager of the circus.
A bad boss is like a bad driver. They drive on - serenely indifferent to the other drivers breaking and veering and swerving and colliding in their aftermath. Their damage cascades down the organisation.
Bad bosses often teach us more than good ones, and definitely more than mediocre ones. I know because I've learned so much from bad bosses.
Including that I've been a bad boss.
Rejection.
We want to belong.
Yet each time we make a decision we risk rejection.
Creativity - by definition - demands decisions that extend us beyond what is, towards what may be.
(Mind the gap.)
Creative people - by definition - make decisions that expose themselves up there for us to see. And reject.
Dancers, singers, musicians, conductors, poets, painters.
Leaders.
A recent study concluded that 'bolstering independence of self-concept' (ie self-confidence) can develop resilience and potentially enhance creativity. Good news.
It suggests that our decisions lead to creativity, that leads to resilience, that leads towards becoming who we are, that leads to decisions that lead to creativity that leads to reslience, that leads us towards becoming who we are...
Leading.
Artists are brave.
Fail.
'No plan survives first contact with the enemy.'
- Helmuth von Moltke the Elder
'Everyone has a plan 'til they get punched in the mouth.'
-Mike Tyson
Each decision is a plan.
The plan will fail.
Someone won't like the way the decision affects them. Everyone will think that they could have done better. The result won't pay the dividends that were expected. Execution will take longer. Cost more.
This is why many (most) organisations lack decision makers - let alone Good Decision Making - because the great majority of decisions don't give the result we intended. We declare ourselves each time we make a decision. We expose our egos to the judgement of others when we inevitably fail.
There are at least six ways that most of us avoid failing:
We avoid making decisions
We make decisions but don't act on them
We 'do' things that aren't decisions but look like it to anyone who matters. Busy-work is an example.
We hold a position of power that masks our inaction behind its routines, rituals, mantras and the issuing of orders.
We blame someone else for the decision.
We declare every decision a success, despite the evidence.
Good decision making is a process that expects failure, prepares for it, and allows us to learn from it. The Five Steps to a good decision is a process that we can retrace and review and identify which element led to the failure.
It's the decision-maker's equivalent of the black box flight data recorder.
The reality is that life is messy and complicated and imperfect and more things go wrong than right and many of the right results are the product of happy coincidence than good planning.
The enemy that waits to ambush our plans isn't out there. It's hiding in plain sight.
In our ego.
Journey.
'Some journeys are direct, and some are circuitous; some are heroic, and some are fearful and muddled. But every journey, honestly undertaken, stands a chance of taking us toward the place where our deep gladness meets the world's deep need.'
- Parker Palmer
Translated into Widget Thinking:
Do what makes me glad - Weekend Widget.
Find someone who needs my Weekend Widget enough to pay for it.
Mind the gap. Jump.
Weekend Widget becomes Weekday Widget.
Bliss.
Most of us go about it the other way around.
We want independence, food, shelter, status. We find a boss who pays us - it doesn't really matter what to do and enjoying it is a bonus after all it is called 'work' - to fund these needs. Which leads us to dependence.
We pine for our Weekend Widget - our deep gladness. While the world is denied the benefit of our honestly undertaken journey.
Stop blaming the boss.
Stop blaming the bank.
Begin the journey.
The world needs you.
Alibis.
'Explaining your situation is not going to be nearly as useful as trying to change it through action.'
- Merlin Mann
'I have nothing to say to you,' he said over the telephone.
He was a policeman so he knew his rights.
I had powers of investigation, but not over him.
I was on a deadline and he was a critical witness.
I thought about driving the three hours to try to speak with him in person only so I could say to my boss: 'I even drove for three hours to try to speak with him in person.' I would hang my head and he would put a reassuring hand on my shoulder.
The witness's refusal left me with so many questions and I was running out of time. No less than the Chief of Air Force was waiting on my report. I had so much work to do. I had to write so many more words to hide the fact from the Air Vice Marshal that I had nothing to say. 'What a long report,' he would say. 'You obviously worked so hard.' I needed to do some hard work.
So I went out and bought a newspaper and a coffee and a croissant and did the crossword at a café overlooking the Yarra River. I finished the crossword and sat and watched people for about an hour. Okay it was two.
I was following a rowing crew stroke its way past when it came to me.
I returned to my desk and rang him back.
'I just wanted to let you know that all the other people I've spoken with have laid the blame with you. The evidence as it stands will lead me to make an adverse finding about you so I wanted to give you the opportunity to put your side of the story.'
He spoke for the next two hours.
Step 1: Step Back.
Step 5: Hearing.
Distractions.
Good decision making in three words:
Be attentively curious.
Curiosity is about asking questions.
Attention - according to neuroscientists - is about suppressing distractions rather than enhancing what you're paying attention to.
It's all about the Widget.
Remember the Five Steps.
Step 1: Step Back. Indulge in the distractions. Don't suppress them. Romp in all the feelings and irrational thoughts that won't get the Widget built but that are distracting you from doing so. Be selfish. Purge. Be human. Be yourself.
Step 2: Identify the Issue. Return to the Widget. Start earning your pay. Start asking questions.
Step 3: Assess the Information. Data. Policies. Logic. Cool. Questions.
Step 4: Identify Bias. Am I being distracted by something irrelevant to the Widget? Questions.
Step 5: Give a Hearing. Hey! Affected person! Proof read this! Have I missed anything? Questions.
Questions suppress distractions by forcing us to listen to answers - and by zooming in on the parts of the answers that are Widget relevant.
Make the Decision. Become who you are.
Remove the distractions from everyone who's relying on the decision so that they can do their jobs.
It's called Leadership.
Polite.
'If one of us doesn't say something now we might lose ten years being polite about it.'
- Renée Zellweger - Jerry Maguire
There are many euphemisms for terminating someone's employment.
'Making you available to the labour force' is one.
'Allowing you to find your happiness elsewhere' is my favourite.
There is a school of thought that says a boss's decision to terminate someone's employment should be hers alone. Right, wrong, fair, unfair, stupid, wise. Irrelevant. The boss wants the ditch dug. If she doesn't want to pay me to do it any more because I'm wearing a blue tee shirt - then fine. It's her ditch and her cash.
If I'm as good a ditch digger as I think that I am, why protest? Best I shoulder-arms my shovel and someone will have offered me a job even before it's come to rest on my shrugging shoulder.
If I'm not a good ditch digger, best to find out now because I've got a mortgage. And a life of marrow-sucking days ahead.
Either way - good ditch-digger or woeful - my decisions in response to those made by others are probably teaching each of us both more than if we'd been polite. The boss gets better ditches or regrets being blue-ist. I get a better boss or my bobcat ticket.
The reality is that the industrial laws don't make sacking someone that easy. The legislators and the judges have designed a series of forcing functions into the employment decision-making processes. They compel bosses to follow steps that deter blue tee shirt discriminators making rash sacking decisions that may be damaging to their business and the worker's well-being. Wait. Step Back.
The result is that it's easy to hire and hard to fire.
Perhaps it should be the other way around.
Recruit hard. Mange easy.
Process.
The Indonesian Foreign Minister Marty Natalegawa emerged from hearings by a parliamentary commission into allegations of spying by Australia against his country.
The 'scrambling mass of journalists' surged towards him, wanting answers.
'It's a process and not an event,' he told them, ending their lust for 'decisive' action that would sell newspapers.
Another rich lesson in Good Decision Making.
'The First step,' he said, was 'communication' between the two governments.
In other words: 'Before we decide what to do, let's make sure that both governments' decison-makers have got accurate, first hand information.'
Mr Natalegawa made it clear that, notwithstanding what outcome the Australian Prime Minister wants, the Indonesian president still 'reserves the right to decide if he's happy'.
In other words: 'Indonesia will resolve this matter to its satisfaction.'
He's managing expectations about how long it will take.
The Deputy Chairman of the Commission Mr Tubagus Hasannudin said: 'For Indonesians, an apology is a matter of principle. Even when we are about to go past someone, we would apologise to them and say 'Excuse me'.
This is the Indonesian Government's Widget.
In summary, Indonesia is saying:
We received information that our sovereignty may have been threatened.
This is a serious issue. So let's take our time to make sure that we get it right.
(Don't expect a decision for perhaps years. Under promise - over deliver.)
We will collect the best information.
Our legal representative of the people - the Parliament - will assess the information.
We will resolve it to Indonesia's satisfaction. 'Indonesia' is the President.
Good decision making is a process and not an event.
Swift.
'If you don't deliberate (at least for a little bit), it's not a decision, it's a reflex.'
- BJ Fogg
According to research by global management consultancy Hay Group (brought to my attention by Jonathon), 94 per cent of Human Resource Directors believe that empowering line managers to make people decisions is a top priority.
In a blog post by a Hay consultant commenting on the report, he argued that HR needs to be an 'enabler of business performance and swift, efficient decision-making'.
Agreed. Sort of.
It's easy to assume that 'swift and efficient' equals 'good'.
It's easy to mistake the cries of 'I wish someone around here would just make a decision!' as a call for speed and economy. Swift and efficient.
Decisive decision makers are rarely good decision makers.
They look good because they're swift and efficient.
They make decisions alright. Bang, bang, bang. Faster than their harried assistants can drag a pen or finger to cross off each item in a real or virtual To Do list.
'Is that it?' they say at the end, rising from their chair, casting their eyes around the room, before blowing away the wisp of smoke curling from their gun barrel and re-holstering it. 'Good. Meeting adjourned.'
'He's so decisive!' they whisper to each other as they file out of the room.
Few of them see what happens next. The aftermath of decisions made without reflection, delegation, assessment or fairness. The consequences rear-ending each other and bursting into flames in open plan offices all around the organisation. Good people trying to support and execute on swift and efficient decisions that lack logic or evidence or authority or justice.
HR departments should get in line behind the accountants, lawyers and other advisers and wait their turn to empower line managers' good decision making. In Step 2, and perhaps an encore in Step 3 of the Five Steps to a Good Decision.
If the line manager is a good one, they may have to wait. She will be busy stepping back.
Lines.
On 23 November China declared an Air Defence Identification Zone (ADIZ) over the South China Sea and warned of military action if any aircraft entered it without permission.
A pair of United States Air Force B52 aircraft flew through the ADIZ today and nothing happened.
In 1973 Libya declared the Gulf of Sidra as closed to ships and aircraft from other nations. The US regularly sent ships and aircraft through the Gulf and in 1981 shot down two Libyan fighters that fired at its carrier based fighters.
Under International Law, if nations accept by their actions unilateral declarations by one nation about the extent of its sovereignty for long enough, then the re-defined boundaries become part of the law. Powerful countries like the United States make a point of exercising their freedom of navigation to show that they have not accepted them.
If military aircraft aren't traversing through other countries' ADIZ then they're 'tickling' them. 'Tickling the ADIZ' is flying close to a declared ADIZ boundary and occasionally ducking over it and back out. It is designed to trigger a response from the other country so that the 'tickling' military can gather information about the other's military capabilities.
Aircraft ducks in - ADIZ country activates radar, sends orders and other command and control communications that can be intercepted and analysed, aircraft might be scrambled to intercept, giving an insight into reaction times - aircraft ducks back out, laden with information collected about the other country's defences.
Despite their military utility, ADIZ are a creature of civilian aviation and military aircraft are exempt. They are intended to give air traffic control greater power over civilian aircraft that are in international airspace, but intend to enter sovereign airspace. But if there are eight radar contacts seeking permission to enter an ADIZ and seven declare themselves then it's a good guess what the eighth one is.
Laws, policies, procedures, contracts, agreements, mission statements, values statements, duty statements, codes of conduct, working hours, meeting schedules, delegation registers, deadlines. These are the ADIZ of an organisation. They declare: 'If you do this, you can expect us to do that. If you cross this line, we will respond in this way.'
The lines that we draw and our responses to them literally define us. We are revealed, tested and shaped by the decisions that we make relative to the boundaries in organisations and in our lives, and in the way that we respond to our own and and others' transgressions of them.
In a healthy organisation, boundaries are a shorthand way of an organisation saying:
'We know by our expertise and experience that our Widget is best made if you stay this side of the line. We don't want every person to have to measure out the line themselves or to re-learn what our lawyers, accountants, marketers, HR department, investors and customers have already told us about where the line should be. You've got better things to do - like making the Widget. We've got better things to do than explaining all our thinking behind these boundaries. So you just need to know - here's the line. Don't cross it.
'We also know that many of you will want to test the line or duck over it to see what happens out of your inherent curiosity, mischief, ignorance, laziness, or mistake. Please pay attention to the lines and don't cross them for any reason. Because your innocent action looks exactly the same as that of someone who has more sinister intentions. We don't want to have to inquire into each person's motives. Plus, we want people with good judgement who pay attention and respect our lines. So just stay this side of the line please. Thank you.'
In a healthy organisation, lines are drawn sparingly and only when the law or the Widget demand them, and not as mere power statements. If they are drawn when only absolutely essential, transgressions or 'tickling' of the lines must have clear and unequivocal consequences because by definition they threaten the existence of the organisation's Widget.
As even the Director of Values said in one organisation: 'Do whatever you want within the boundaries, but cross them and you'll get shot.'
Breaches of boundaries can reveal more about a person than that they merely crossed a line.
An organisation's response to a breach can reveal a great deal about the organisation.
Boundaries are the foundation of Good Decision Making. It's Step 2.
Good decision making is an essential part of an organisation's Integrity.
Integrity is doing what you said that you were going to do.
Transition.
‘How did it go?'
Her face was flushed and sweaty after her first day of leading tour groups around New Norcia.
‘Good. No - Excellent. Well, nervous at first. And I nearly lost it at one stage.
'I was walking along with fifteen people behind me and I turned to ask Belinda something. And then I realised that Belinda wasn’t there anymore. It was just me.
'I looked back and saw all those people following me. Me! I started to freak. It hit me that I was It. I’d never thought about what it would be like until then. My stomach started churning and I just wanted to run. I suddenly felt all this responsibility. It happened in a rush.’
‘You obviously didn’t run.’
‘No. I looked over my shoulder and saw that they were all still following behind me. So I just kept walking. Kept leading them to the next stop on the tour. And then the next one after that.
About halfway through I began to relax. I realised that I just had to keep walking and that they would follow me. I know the town history and they wanted to hear about it. I almost started laughing at one point because I knew that I could go anywhere and say anything and that they would follow and listen and nod. Scary to think what I could have done without them knowing any different and anyone to tell them otherwise.
'By the end, I was enjoying it.'
True Leaders - not PowerPoint ones - you remember the feeling of transition.
The churning stomach. The weight of other people's decision making loading upon your shoulders like discarded rifles surrendered by a defeated army.
The sound of a serious stranger's voice coming from your mouth with your Father's words, or a teacher's, or a book, or a movie - from somewhere but not from your heart.
That first decision that you made to lead those people somewhere that you eventually learned - or are still learning - is leading you back to yourself.
Leaders are brave.
Disengaged.
The Gallup organisation recently released a report that 87% of workers in the world are either not engaged or actively disengaged from their work.
In Australia, the percentage of engaged workers is a little higher at 24%. Yippee.
Only 19% of Australian bosses are engaged in their jobs. An interesting form of leadership - 'Follow me and be disengaged!'
(If you're someone's boss reading this and you're thinking 'Meh...', then it's likely you're one of the 81%.)
Gallup estimates that disengaged workers cost Australia $54.8 Billion a year. That's almost double the Education budget.
Think about that.
It's breathtakingly remarkable.
Each day in Australia, three out of four people:
Sit in traffic.
Pull their chairs up to their keyboards.
Occupy that space.
Briefly vacate it to sing 'Happy Birthday Miriam' alongside mostly other disengaged workers in the staff room and despite a 75% chance that Miriam didn't care.
Perhaps have a meeting with three out of four other disengaged workers to report to a boss who's probably not interested.
Sit in traffic.
Grow older.
Repeat. 251 times a year. For half a century.
What to do?
Engagement begins with the act of decision making.
When we make good decisions, we declare who and where we are.
We nail our colours to the mast.
We reveal ourselves.
We connect with other workers, our boss, customers, critics, with the organisation and its Widget.
We invite, demand, call on them to do the same.
Bosses - give your workers Widget clarity, authentic support, trust and affirmation and delegate decisions to the lowest appropriate level. Teach them about how to make a good decision and model it yourself.
Back them even when there's a mistake. Back them in front of your boss. Back them when someone complains.
Most of all, back yourself to have the courage and leadership to trust your workers.
This act of bravery alone will scare you into engagement with them.
Workers - make good decisions. Don't wait for permission - just make them methodically and learn from it. Your fear will surely engage you with your boss in what happens next.
We must stand up on our desks and shout 'O Captain, My Captain!'
Customised.
Happiness is a customised Widget .
Each one is hand made.
Bespoke.
Many people set off for work each day to make the Happiness Widget.
For themselves. Or their boss. Or their boss's boss. Or their spouse. Or their parents.
Making the Happiness Widget tailored for another is difficult.
Making the Happiness Widget fitted for two is almost impossible.
It's why work is so hard for some.
No boss says: 'Here's your desk. Pay day is every second Thursday. Make me happy.'
No worker says: 'Thanks boss. Make me happy. Make my Mother happy.'
Yet many of us measure the success of our labour by how it makes someone else feel.
(I tried once and failed.)
Or expect their boss to make their happiness.
Of course if happiness is the express Widget - then that's clear. Challenging, but clear.
If we choose to make Happiness our Widget then that's up to us.
Just don't expect the boss to reciprocate.
The Full Court of the Federal Court of Australia recently agreed:
'[The provision of job satisfaction, a sense of identity, self-worth, emotional well-being and dignity] may indeed be amongst the consequences of having a good job in a company run by good management, something to which every employee would aspire. However, emotions such as senses of identity, self-worth and dignity are felt in the breast of the employee, are highly subjective and would, necessarily, be felt to differing extents by different employees within the same working environment. I do not believe that the common law has come close to making the employer responsible for emotions of this kind, or to giving legal consequences to the fact that they are not generated in a particular situation.'
Grief.
A very intelligent and competent friend of a friend was caught up in a workplace dispute recently.
He described how he felt:
'wounded',
'the kind of workplace I cannot tolerate',
'heartbroken',
'grief',
'lost my joy and cannot seem to get it back'.
While intelligent and worldly, this was his first experience of workplace conflict.
He had assumed that if he did his job well and with all his heart, that he would be protected and supported by the organisation.
He was wrong.
He's now questioning everything.
Not just work.
Everything.
Different.
The Leader creates Space.
A manager patrols it.
The Leader defines Purpose.
A manager measures it.
The Leader Equips.
A manager maintains.
The Leader Affirms.
A manager reviews.
The Leader Retreats.
A manager remains behind.