Promise.

'We've just listened to you explain how you went about doing what you did,' the Plaintiff's barrister asks the Respondent Promise Maker in cross-examination.

In courts and tribunals today, the same exchange will occur in some form.

'Yes,' the Promiser answers.

'Can I ask you to look at this document?'

'Yes.'

'Do you recognise it?'

'Yes. It's the Contract of Employment/Agreement/Thing I Promised To Do.'

'I'll take you through your Promise and make you say out loud the things you Promised to do'

'I'll then take you through the laws that you also Promised to follow by virtue of being a citizen' 

'I'll call five witnesses to produce forty two documents that will prove what you actually did.

'I'll then summarise in excruciating detail the gap between your Promise and what you did.'

Sit in the public gallery or read any transcript or reasons for judgment online, and this is the story arc that will almost always unfold. A journey from Expectation to Reality.

In the year that I asked more than 500 new employees at each induction session how many had read their employment agreement - the Promises made between them and their employer - only one said that they had. Among those new staff would have been new managers.

When organisational conflict arises we call HR to show them the pieces of Promises we've laid out and they show us the picture on the lid as we nod and smile and tell ourselves they match.

Good decision making is honouring our Promises.

Doubt.

'Perplext in faith, but pure in deeds,
         At last he beat his music out.
         There lives more faith in honest doubt,
Believe me, than in half the creeds.'

- Alfred, Lord Tennyson

'One of the reasons that a person is interested in what other people have to say is they know they don't know. Doubt is the place in me for you to affect me.'

- John Patrick Shanley

A Leader holds certainty with doubt.

A Leader is someone whom others choose to follow. People won't easily abandon their driftwood and tread water over to your raft if you're bailing water.

Doubt is never on the PowerPoint list of The 10 Qualities of a Leader.

Yet Leadership is inherently a transitional state between certainties. Leaders are on a journey from here towards their belief in Something Better Over Somewhere. Otherwise it's Management. (There's nothing wrong with that.)

People who complain about their Leaders almost always don't need Leadership. They need a Manager. Or a parent.

Almost by definition, if someone has certainty about where they're going and how they're going to get there, they are not a Leader. They're an airline pilot or a train driver. (There's nothing wrong with them either.)

Each of us hears the call towards Something Better Over Somewhere. Many of us respond, only to fall back as the tether between our ego and the opinions of the world tightens.

She breaks free and suffers the whiplash of our jealous displeasure.

She lays down a pathway of good decision making to a familiar beat of self-doubt that calls:

'Come! I am just like you.'

Vows.

Monks managed and educated most of Western Europe for a few hundred years. They understand Recruit Hard, Manage Easy.

The novice monk presents himself for his final interview. 

Here's the gist of what follows.

'Pay attention,' the Abbot says to the other monks and people gathered to witness and support the novice. 'Remember: Life is short. You're a long time dead. So let's not waste time.'

'Is there anyone here who wants to be a monk?' the Abbot asks.  

'I do,' says the novice monk.

One of the monks who he'll have to live, work and pray with speaks.

'He's been with us on probation,' is the gist of what he says publicly to the Abbot. 'And now, on behalf of all of us, we think he's ready to become a permanent member of our team.'  

'What do you want from being a monk?' the Abbot asks the novice.  

'To serve by my actions.'  

'Hear, hear,' is the essence of what the other monks say.  

The Abbot continues.  'Are you sure that this is what you want to do?' 

'I am.'  

'Do you promise to commit yourself fully to this vocation?'  

'I promise.'  

'Do you promise to follow our rules because you know that they will allow you to reach your potential?'

'I promise.' 

'Do you promise to put the needs of the team ahead of your own?' 

'I promise'

'Are you resolved to strive constantly for self-improvement for the benefit of others and something bigger than yourself by zealously following the rules?'   

'I am.' 

'Are you resolved to serve others?' 

'I am.' 

'We believe that you speak with integrity,' the Abbot says. 'And we trust you.'  

'Hear, hear,' the monks and those in the church say.

The novice monk walks up and stands before the Abbot. He bows his head.  He slowly and purposefuly reads out loud the conditions of his contract.

He has written them all out by hand.  

The monks walk up to the altar and stand around him in a large circle. He places his contract on the altar and signs it.

He then holds it up to show the Abbot. He walks around the circle of his brethren stopping in front of each one and holding his signed contract up to show them.

The novice monk holds it up to show all the people in the church.

He stands before the altar and sings the Suscipe with arms extended.

 Suscipe me Domine, secundum eloquium tuum et vivam: et non confundas me ab exsectatione mea.

Here I am. Now don't let me down.

He sings it three times.

The monks sing it three times.

He's now a fully professed member of the monastery team.

Clear expectations. Clear mutual promises. Clear boundaries. Publicly declared. Repeated. Celebrated.

Smiling.

Hamish Hamilton's good decision-making and Widget Thinking have led him to be chosen to camera direct U2, the Oscars, the London Olympics ceremonies and earned him a British Academy of Film and Television Arts Award.

He was once asked how he dealt with the stress of multi camera directing.

'My talent is definitely remaining calm. Remaining polite. And in extremely stressful situations, making other people smile. Motivating people on a human level. And just providing a safe environment in which they can excel. 

'I can take on a lot of the crap and a lot of the stress and if I can take it and I'm holding it in within myself, it's not permeating out into them. Sometimes that's not possible. But I do try and keep it jolly.

'Because actually you know what?

People make better decisions when they're smiling.'

Joy.

It's half time during the NBA Playoffs. 10 million people are watching you at your desk making your Widget.

Hamish Hamilton is a Director whose work directing a U2 concert in Boston in 2001 was played live around the world during the 17 minute NBA half time. He was filmed at work and these images were included in the U2 Elevation DVD.

It doesn't take an expert to recognise that we are watching a pristine practical example of how good decision making, technical excellence, widget thinking, teamwork, structure and artistry come together to create excellence.

Listen to Hamish spontaneously and sincerely praise others' work as they do it. (He doesn't wait for the annual performance review to give them feedback.) Listen to him urge the team on with raw passion. (He doesn't need to act serious, aloof and boss-like when he's really feeling like shouting 'C'mon!') Watch him sway, gesture, dance and even sing in sync with the band, losing his body in his work while his brain stays focussed on the complex director's steering wheel. (He doesn't have to wait for the staff social event and a few drinks to be himself.) Listen to him drop expletives of delight at his team's work. (He's built enough trust with his co-workers not to need to worry about a bullying or harassment complaint.) Listen to him shout 'This is what we're good at!' because he knows the real meaning of team. (He doesn't have to take them on an artificial off-site, outsourced team building day.) Hear him say 'Thank you'. (He's not so self-absorbed in his creativity to not be aware that there are people at the end of his barked directions.) Watch how he harnesses the chaos while his Assistant Director Hayley literally calls a cadence beat of structure amidst the noise, lights and confusion. Watch his sheer joy as he executes responsibility for co-ordinating dozens of people and millions of dollars worth of equipment to produce a widget that will be expected to make tens of millions in sales.

Here is proof that we can make our serious widget and dance.

Hamish is a worker who loves his job and is exceptionally good at it. He has directed an Academy Awards ceremony among other high profile events including the London Olympic ceremonies.

Yet the most powerful evidence that he is truly in the élite is among the 42 comments below the Youtube video of his work. Amidst the expressions of appreciation and praise for his direction is the inevitable criticism posted in 2012 for the world to read:

'Sorry to say this, but Hamish Hamilton was the WORST ACADEMY AWARDS DIRECTOR EVER after last year!!! The execution was such a mess, especially with "And the winner is..." replacing "And the Oscar goes to", and although I taped it I won't even bother dubbing it to DVD. I guess Louis J. Horvitz and Glenn Weiss were too busy, which is why they tapped Hamish instead. Thankfully, Don Mischer will be directing and co-producing this year's Oscarcast.'

This is the comment that Hamish Hamilton posted in response:

'Glad you liked it johnnyafairbank ! Don is indeed directing and co-producing the show this year. He will do an amazing job - he is a fantastic director, a gentleman and crucially will also be a co-producer. It may be worth noting that the show was nominated for more Emmys than any Oscars ceremony ever so some people did like it. Enjoy this years show's - your obviously glad its not me ! I can send you a DVD of last years if you wish. Respect Hamish'

The level of self-confidence that produces this measured, dignified response - written with subtle humour yet without a hint of malice or attempt at public retaliation or humiliation of his critic - can only come from someone who knows in their soul that their work is very very good.

If Hamish Hamilton hasn't found who he is - then he's very close to it.

Hamish was not misplaced in believing in 2012 that his decision-making speaks for itself. A few weeks ago it was announced that he will direct the 2014 Oscars broadcast.

Kanye.

Musician Kanye West explained how Good Decision Making and Widget Thinking help him to become who he is.

His life and creative process and therefore his mistakes are before the world. They are the product of Good Decision Making and therefore teach others so he can never be wrong:

'I'm opening up my notebook and I'm saying everything in there out loud. A lot of people are very sacred with their ideas, and there is something to protecting yourself in that way, but there's also something to idea sharing, or being the person who makes the mistake in public so people can study that.'

Kanye also understands that it's all about the Widget. And it's never about the Widget:

'It's more about the art of conversation, the companionship, the friendships, and the quality of life that you get out of working—it's about the creative process even more than the final product. I think there's something kind of depressing about a product being final, because the only time a product is really final is when you're in a casket.

My mission is about what I want to create.' 

Answers.

'You only have the answers for things that don't matter.'
- Peter Block

You don't say 'I don't know' too often and keep your job.

We're paid to Know.

People rely on us to Know.

There is little patience even for I'm Not Sure.

Which means our Widget doesn't matter.

Could this be why only 13% of the world's workers are engaged in their work?

Or why only 7.5% of workers consider themselves productive?

I'm not sure.

Structures.

The job of a manager is to balance enforcing structure while allowing creativity through good decision making.

In a recent interview with Lord David Owen, the former British Foreign Secretary who helped bring peace to Bosnia in the 1990s, this tension can be seen at the level of sovereign states.

He was asked how he began negotiating an end to the fighting between the Serbs and the Muslims:

'All this time, you're trying to form structures which can give people a measure of security and, to some extent, decentralised power. And then on top of it, you're trying to construct an overarching organisation for the whole country.'

Lord Owen was talking about the situation as he found it in 1992. The war ended in December 1995.

Simple. Create some governance in your nation or workplace that makes people feel safe. Delegate decision-making power downwards. People will respond by laying down their AK47s, dropping their bullying complaints, and living and working together in productive harmony. A triumph of diplomacy, reason, and our better angels. Sack the lawyers and spend the savings on vision statement coffee mugs, running fun team building days and bean bags in the common rooms.

Then the interviewer asked:

'Do you accept, ultimately, that in the case of Bosnia, what ended the war was the use of military force from outside?'

Boo! Hiss! Of course not! Structures! Power-sharing! Human reason! Self-organising system!

Yet Lord Owen, career politician, diplomat, negotiator, peacemaker said:

'Oh, absolutely. I argued for force. I wanted to enforce the Vance-Owen Peace Plan, as it was called in May 1993. And had we done so, we'd have brought the war to an end two years earlier...'

Sometimes you have to drop bombs. As the Director of Values said in one organisation: 'People should be given the freedom to perform their duties defined by clear boundaries. If they cross them they should be shot.'

Most organisations have the structures of an old Hollywood movie set. They are the out-of-focus backdrop to the main action. Come up against them and they'll randomly either fall away or crush you.

All workplace conflict would be quickly resolved if the consequences were clear, timely and as promised on the label. It's best for all in the long term.

It's called Integrity - doing what you say you're going to do.

Artist.

'Art is something that happens, a process, not a quality, and all sorts of things can make it happen. Suppose you describe the job ‘artist’ as ‘a person who creates situations in which you can have art experiences.''

Brian Eno

Good decisions are the vehicles of experiences.

Leaders are good decision makers who engage in a process that creates situations that allow others to have those experiences.

Leaders are artists.

Cranky.

This is how Linda -  an educator - explained the painting:

'I don't know exactly what direct experience Scarlett has had with "the cranky man," but she certainly knows the truth of him. She explained to me that he figure in her drawing was "a cranky man"  so I had to ask her why he was cranky. The truth according the Scarlett came down to this:

'He is a cranky man because he doesn't like his house. It's not got any bathroom, kitchen bedroom or anything to eat.'(Enough to make anyone cranky, but the real truth followed)  'He doesn't know what he wants because he is a cranky person and he's always a cranky person who says he doesn't know!'

I felt in the moment that she was sharing this meaning with me that I was being given a great insight into what makes someone cranky, not knowing what you want and the consequences of that...

Widget Thinking. From the mouth of a three-nearly-four year old.

Switch.

‘When did the flame ignite for you?’ the interviewer asked champion runner Robert de Castella. ‘Most people think that the idea of running for 42 kilometres without stopping over and over again is self-mutilation or insanity. When does it become something you think you want to do for a career?

‘I know exactly when it was and Pat [coach Pat Clohesy was there. I’d been a really good junior until the age of 17 or 18 and set national records and things. Then I went to Europe where I had a bit of a period where I went backwards and it was partly because I was training hard with the older guys and probably socialising a fair bit. But I still managed to get selected into an Australian team to compete in the World Cross Country and went to Limerick and Pat [Clohessy - his coach] was the manager of that team.

‘In the World Championships I had one of the worst runs that I’d ever had. I finished 62nd or something. It was a shocker. And the next week we had another race in Italy – a race called the Cinque Mulini – the Five Mills. I had an awesome race. I just came into the last few hundred metres with a couple of the heroes that I’d looked up to, shoulder to shoulder. They kicked away but I was up there racing them and it was something that I never thought I would.

‘That night after we had dinner we were walking back to the hotel and everyone else had walked off and Pat and I were at the back and I said to Pat ‘After this run today, I ran so badly last week and I’ve run so well this week, maybe I can really be a good runner. Maybe if I dedicate myself.’

‘Pat stopped and looked at me and he said ‘I’ve been waiting two years for you to say that.’

'That was a switch for me and my whole approach to training and my commitment changed from being a runner to being an athlete and I was serious.’

In December 1988 while eating lunch on a park bench in Supreme Court Gardens, Shaun and I discovered Objectives.

We realised that the content of what was taught to students should be determined by what they needed to do at the end of the training. The trainer needed to be able to justify how everything that was taught in the classroom helped to achieve the objective. The objectives needed to be written in terms of what the student needed to be able to do – not what the teacher did.

As we walked back to our respective offices in the city, we felt a new command over our role as instructors and clarity about how we could apply our craft.

Years later Shaun told me that Benjamin Bloom had discovered Objectives in 1956.

When we make a decision we switch from runner to athlete.

From consumer to creator.

From child to adult.

From another to ourselves.

When we create the space for another to decide, we switch from parent to leader.

From master to servant.

From fear to love.

Make.

“Try to make things that can become better in other people’s minds than they were in yours.”

Brian Eno

Good decision-making is an act of creation.

Good decisions are gifts we make.  

Our piece clicks into the Puzzle.

Each decision draws someone forward with their piece and so on.

Until we have the complete picture.

Our piece indistinguishable.

Good decision making is an act of service.

Perhaps - an act of love.

Appearances.

He ended his written complaint with 'Thank you for appearing to care'.

Brilliant.

He knew the difference between our Weekday and Weekend Widgets.

Arrows.

'You could always tell the scout on a wagon train because he was the one with all the arrows in him. Any time that you try to go to new ground. Any time that you try to go to territory that you've not been in before, you're going to have resistance.

But there's a whole line of people behind you that are kind of hoping that you make it. There are people who are waiting to get permission to think that way. To get permission to love that way.'

- Dr Joel Hunter

Love.

'We've come to love you,' the nurse said after introducing herself and another nurse.

It was the strangest and most beautiful thing to say to me as I lay in my hospital bed a day before elective surgery. Spoken in the same tone as 'If there's anything that you need, please just press the call buzzer.' Not in a sentimental voice nor a perfunctory one nor in a rote meeting of a mission statement. She meant it.

They left and I looked out of the window and felt held in an overwhelming peace.

Imagine going to work and loving.

Ridiculous. Work is work. There are Widgets to be made. Budgets to be met. Profits to be achieved. Love is a powerful, erratic, distracting, whimsical emotion that is reserved for intimate relationships built up over time through trust and commitment and has no place in a professional workplace.

We leave love at home along with the novel by our bed, the guitar and sheet music in the spare room, the cookbooks in the kitchen, the half written MBA assignment.

We spend about a third of our lives at work - not seeking, offering nor expecting love.

Is it possible we are not engaged with our work because we've partitioned it off from love?

Is the exclusion of love in labour - whether experienced as workers, bosses or customers of someone else's work - a contributor to almost half of all Australians experiencing mental illness at some time in our life?

If a military commander believes that love is a prerequisite for Leadership then shouldn't  our boss feel the same way?

Is love of every person and thing a science that can be learned and applied as in the short story A Tree, a Rock, a Cloud?

Do we choose to work to escape the demands, obligations and struggles of loving?

If we are to become who we are - can we do so without loving and being loved at work?

'The old man still held the collar of the boy's jacket; he was trembling and his face was earnest and bright and wild. "For six years now I have gone around by myself and built up my science. And now I am a master. Son. I can love anything. No longer do I have to think about it even. I see a street full of people and a beautiful light comes in me. I watch a bird in the sky. Or I meet a traveler on the road. Everything, Son. And anybody. All stranger and all loved! Do you realize what a science like mine can mean?"'

- 'A Tree, A Rock, A Cloud', Carson McCullers

Grace.

I had decided before the phone landed back on its cradle.

I was annoyed. Angry. Frustrated. Indignant. Irritated. Offended.

I was right and they were wrong. It was irrefutable. I was their boss. I was going to do my job and boss them.

I rose from my chair to walk the seven minutes down to where they were waiting. I was going to put things right. Out the door. Beneath trees splintering 5.30pm sunlight. Through the aromas of earth, heat and bush. Propelled by my duty I tracked towards my wayward charges.

That person did not meet them. Someone else did. 

They had held onto their anger and emptied it over me. Mine had peeled off in transit. They spat their argument. Mine straggled behind me kicking gum nuts. They had been rehearsing their demands. I had been seven minutes free in the late afternoon.

We all discovered a better position for the coffee machine.

They were still wrong and I remained right. Just as the gum nuts had obediently arced away into the softness of leaf debris in response to my boot. So what?

Their rebellion had gifted me seven minutes glimpsing wisdom and Grace.

The Abbot used to say that there aren't as many Holy people as there once were. I think that he was talking about Leaders.

Leaders are much, much rarer than the many to whom we award that title. Very few people have all the qualities of a leader because they are counter-intuitive. Study Leadership and the conclusion is that Leadership is impossible. May as well be a boss instead.

The answer?

Grace.

The aspiring Leader attends to the list of qualities and inevitably edges her brain towards the abyss of contradictions and vulnerabilities - until she closes her eyes and leaps into her fears then feels the soft tug of the silken parachute of Grace filling with air above her and lowering her gently back down to earth.

Never to be the same.

Seeing.

'You must love those you lead before you can be an effective leader, You can certainly command without that sense of commitment, but you cannot lead without it. And without leadership, command is a hollow experience, a vacuum often filled with mistrust and arrogance.'

General Eric Shinseki - Ex-US Army Chief of Staff

The Air Commodore saw the Flight Lieutenant waiting at the Orderly Room counter.

'How are you finding the job so far, Bernard?' He remembered my name. He was the Air Officer Commanding Training Command with hundreds on his immediate staff and thousands more at the units under his Command scattered around Australia and overseas. He remembered me after being introduced a month earlier when I began my first real Air Force posting.

'Busy?' he asked. I gave the only answer that I could to my boss's, boss's boss. 'Well, you need to find a couple of days to spare,' he said. 'How would you like to come with me on a Staff Visit to RAAF Base Wagga?'

The next day I accompanied the Air Commodore and his senior staff to all his meetings with the various commanding officers of units at RAAF Wagga. 'I think it's important that all junior officers get to see what we do first hand,' he told me in his car on the way there. 'You need to get out of Headquarters as much as you can to see what our people do.'

I watched how a One Star commander listened, spoke, deliberated, questioned, joked, sat, responded, decided, commanded. No other boss ever gave me an opportunity like that, let alone a boss's, boss's boss. The second most senior commander in the Air Force.

No other boss saw me.

On the drive back to Melbourne he asked me 'What did you think?'

A good boss sees.

She sees you and stops to help you [to become who you are].

She sees because she is looking.

She is looking because she is confident that she doesn't know and that you may.

She hands you her map and says 'Take us there'.

Error.

But what if I'm wrong?

'Anything worth doing is worth failing at'.
- Fr Greg Boyle

‘Experts step outside their comfort zone and study themselves failing.’
- Josh Foer

‘An expert is a man who has made all the mistakes which can be made in a very narrow field. We learn how to get it right by getting it wrong again and again.
- Niels Bohr

‘The only mistake is when I'm not able to perceive what it is that someone else did.’
Stephan Harris Jazz Musician

‘What amazes me is that people rarely see today's problems as new challenges born out of yesterday's perfect solutions.’
- Anon

‘The freedom to fail is more important than freedom to succeed. A big creative adventure vs. a small, safe future.’
- Anon

‘Any given decision you make you’ll wind up with a 30 to 40 percent chance that it isn’t going to work. You have to own that and feel comfortable with the way you made the decision. You can’t be paralyzed by the fact that it might not work out.’
- President Obama

'It is only at the moment of humans' realistic admission to selves of having made a mistake that they are the closest to that mysterious integrity governing the universe.'

- R. Buckminster Fuller

Don't.

Decision triggers stress.

Stress triggers decision.

Before making a decision - don't.

Step 1: Step Back.

Gutsy.

Simplicity.

'Everything in war is simple, but the simplest thing is difficult.'

- Carl von Clausewitz

The more business education about decision making, the worse the decisions.

The more complex the decision-making environment, the more need for simplicity of decision making process and tools.

These were the conclusions from a PhD thesis.

The participants in the experiments who were given a simple objective - make a profit - made the best decisions. Those who made the worst decisions were the ones who were distracted by information about their competition and the need to maintain market share.

The participants who were given simple tools to work through their decisions had the flexibility to adapt to dynamic circumstances.

Widget Thinking and the Five Steps provide both the simplicity and the 'sense making' that serve good decision making.

Good decision makers check their progress against their Widget as their True North.

In 1983 John Bertrand and the crew of Australia II were down 1-3 in the seven race Americas Cup final. This was his response at a press conference:

'Basically, nothing has changed. After Sunday afternoon, we had to win three boat races. Today we still have to win three boat races.'

He held his nerve and Australia won the next three races and the Cup.

Leaders don't measure their progress by where they are with respect to anyone else. They make good decisions and the rest takes care of itself.