Knowing.

Peggy: Did you park your white horse outside? Spare me the suspense and tell me what your Save the Day Plan is. 

Don: I don't have anything yet. The idea I had wasn't great. 

Peggy: It wasn't great. It was terrible. Now I want to hear the real one. Or are you just going to pull it out during the presentation?

Don: This idea is good. I think we can get the client to buy it.

Peggy: No you don't. Or you wouldn't have questioned it. 

Don: I'm going to do whatever you say. 

Peggy: So you're going to pitch the hell out of my shitty idea and I'm going to fail?

Don: Peggy, I'm here to help you do whatever you want to do. 

Peggy: Well how am I supposed to know?

Don: That's a tough one. 

Peggy: You love this. 

Don: Not really. I want you to feel good about what you're doing but you'll never know. That's just the job. 

Peggy: What's the job?

Don: Living in the "Not knowing". 

Peggy: You know I wouldn't have argued if it was me. I would have just given you a hundred ideas and never questioned why. You really want to help me? Show me how you think. Do it out loud. 

Don: You can't tell people what they want. It has to be what you want. 

Peggy: Well I want to go to the movies. 

Don: Whenever I'm really unsure of an idea, first I abuse the people whose help I need. And then I take a nap. 

Peggy: Done. 

Don: Then I start at the beginning again. And see if I end up in the same place. 

- Mad Men - Series 7 'The Strategy'.

Subversion.

'A leader engages in this task of constructive subversion. What they subvert is unthinking custom and practice. A leader will not accept that things are merely done because everybody does it, because that's just the way that we do things around here.

But they're not seeking to impose some kind of idiosyncratic view of their own on the organisation. They're not trying to bring it down. It's constructive because the job of leadership is to help the organisation become more like the thing it says it wants to be.

But to do this requires extraordinary moral courage. It's really, really hard.

Can you imagine what your colleagues are going to do? Some might say it's fantastic. A lot are going to say 'Sorry, just get out of the way and let us get on with it. We know what we're doing.'  And there will be your peer group who will be pretty annoyed with some of you who do it because if you start doing it then they might have to start doing it and that's going to be a burden.

Resource constrained. Time constrained. 'We're just trying to cope and you want us to do this as well?'

And there will be superiors who will get pretty annoyed from time to time that you have asked the difficult question that if had just been left unasked it would have made life more bearable.  

Yet that is not leadership.

If you're going to lead. If you volunteer for the task. This is the sort of thing in which you're going to have to engage.'  

- Dr Simon Longstaff, Director of the St James Ethics Centre

Judgement

The New York Times published an interview with Ron Kaplan, the CEO of Trex, a manufacturer of outdoor decks on 'Making Judgements Instead of Decisions'.

It's an opinion on the difference between decision making and judgement. 

'To this day, I find I’m most effective as a leader by facilitating other people talking.'

'When people speak, you measure the variance between what they tell you is going to happen and what actually happens. The smaller the variance, the greater the credibility.'

'Decision-making usually is the dissection of facts to come to a conclusion. Coming to a judgment really has to do with the issues of luck, character and probability.'

Tolerance.

'What we don't realise is how much of our feelings, our actions, our beliefs are coming from our unconscious mind and I think that when we raise our consciousness about our unconscious, you're knowing yourself better. And to know yourself better I think is a good thing. You understand how you're going to react and you understand why you did things and you just have more understanding for yourself. So it not only helps you make better decisions economically, but it helps you make better decisions spiritually because you have in a way more tolerance for yourself as well as more understanding.'

- Leonard Mlodinow, Physicist.

Good decision making is a deliberate process of inquiry that advances us towards where we want to be.

I pay attention to my thinking.

I see the world as it is and not as I presumed it to be.

I learn about you.

I learn about me.

Five.

The fifth of the Five Steps to a Good Decision is to Offer a Hearing.

Step 1 is to Step Back.

Step 2 is to Name the Issue.

Step 3 is to Assess the Information.

Step 4 is to Check for Bias.

If you believe that your decision is likely to adversely affect any person, you should allow that person to be heard.

A 'hearing' is simply:

• Informing the person of the information that you have about them.
• Informing them that it may require you to make a decision that may be adverse to their interests or expectations.
• Inviting them to respond to the information and explain to you why you should not make an adverse finding.

A 'hearing' may be a simple as a short conversation, an email or letter.

If the person doesn't accept your offer, you simply make the decision based upon the information that you have.

The ‘Show Cause’ is the best example of the Hearing step in action.  It says:

‘I’m thinking of doing X as a result of Y facts and Z policy.  I’m inviting you to give me reasons why I should not do X by the close of business on Date.  I will consider your reasons before making my decision.'

There are five benefits of the Hearing Step:

• It allows the person with the most at stake to put forward information that can ensure that you are aware of the most personally damaging outcomes of your decision, and assess them accordingly.
• It allows the person to feel involved in their own fate and that you value them enough to engage with them.
• It has echoes of the ‘listening’ in Step 1.
• It is another opportunity for you to Step Back.
• It is one of the most important elements of Natural Justice.

If the person responds, genuinely consider and reflect upon the information that they have given you.

Remain focussed on the relevance of the information to your Widget. 

They may tell you about their illness, their lost cat, their 37 years of faithful service, their passion for their job...

Don’t engage with any of these topics if they have nothing to do with your Widget.

Don’t seek to rebut or refute or correct in your response.  Simply say:

‘Thank you for taking the time to write those 73 pages in response to my invitation for you to give me reasons why I should not move your desk. I have given all of your submissions my consideration, and after taking them into account, together with Policy X and Report Y, I have decided to move you to the position near the window.’  

And you might add: ‘I am sorry to hear about your cat and I can understand how its absence has proved stressful for you.  I invite you to take advantage of our Employee Assistance Programme and will approve any reasonable leave that you may require to do so.’

The five steps allow someone to tell us their story and for us to listen.  

Our brains love stories.

Mess.

'[The BBC gave us] total freedom. They gave us the freedom to mess up which is the best freedom you can have.

For our first series we made our own mistakes. We made lots of mistakes and we realised the control you had to have to get better - the things we needed to change and appreciate...and we were allowed a second series.'

- Jennifer Saunders

A good boss anchors the straining tension of paying her workers to build and break and build her Widget.

It takes intelligence, confidence, wisdom, patience, resilience, judgement, and humility to be that kind of boss.

Good bosses are rare.

Workers who are grown up enough to choose the anxiety that comes with the freedom of making their own mistakes - and to change and get better - and thus be worthy of such bosses - are also rare.

Most settle into the comfort and security of the tepid disgruntlement of being told what to do in return for the salary that funds their refuge in their Weekend Widget.

The emphasis on leadership and management in workplaces reinforces a message that Someone Else is responsible.

Someone Else is controlling us and therefore our mistakes.

The They will tell us when and how to get better.

The They will Manage and even Drive Change.

We are free to choose the boss that we deserve.

If.

If I write a good job description for you.

If I write a good job ad for you.

If I write good questions for your job interview and write down the ones you ask back.

If I write to your last boss and ask her if you make good Widgets.

If I write a good employment contract for you.

If I write good policies for you.

If I teach you a good job induction.

If I teach you about my Widget.

If I teach you how your Widget fits into my Widget.

If I teach you with feedback and a pay cheque.

If I get out of your way.

If I Do all of this for everyone who you rely on to help you to Do your job.

If - after you Do it - I say:

Thank you.

If I keep Doing for you all I said that I would Do.

I'd have done my job.

And you'll go on Doing yours.

You don't need to be managed or led.

You just need to be left to Do.
 

We don't need more leaders or managers.

We need more Writers and Teachers.

We need more Doers.

Need.

We don't need more leaders.

(Too many people leading and an organisation will break.)

One Leader is enough.

We don't need more managers.

(People don't like being managed.)

We need people who follow a deliberate process of inquiry that advances them towards where the Leader wants them to be.

We need Good Decision Makers.

Four.

The fourth of the Five Steps to a Good Decision is to Check for Bias.

A good decision is one that advances us towards where we want to be.

Bias can distract us from our Widget in two ways:

• From brains wired to drown out rational thought by screaming 'RUN!' or 'KILL IT!' in response to new information.
• From egos that put our Weekend Widget ahead of our boss's Widget.

The first Three Steps to a Good Decision often quell the screaming in its more sophisticated 21st century workplace manifestations.

The second is mostly tackled in long and overly complicated policies around 'conflicts of interest.'

The easiest way to detect whether we have this kind of bias is to ask ourselves:

‘Am I able to apply my mind to the information and assess its merits and exercise my discretion unhindered by any personal investment in its outcome?’

If you do feel personally invested, you need to tell your boss and let her decide whether you should refer the decision to someone else.

After all, she's paying you to build her Widget.

Value.

[Inspired by Hugh McCleod's 'Value Curve'.]

Three.

'Intelligence is the ability to recognise a better argument than your own.'

- Anonymous

The third of the Five Steps to a Good Decision is to Assess the information.

‘Investigation’ has sinister, negative overtones.  

‘We’re carrying out an investigation.’

‘We’re being investigated.’  

These all imply that someone has done something wrong.

Yet no decision should be made without gathering as much information as we can – ie investigating.

An investigation can be as simple as a telephone call, a conversation, reading a policy, an email asking questions, seeking expert advice – or as detailed as a royal commission.

What information do you need to decide what to do?

What information do you need to make your Widget?

What is important is the attitude that you take to the gathering of information.

Be curious.

Take the position of the ‘naïve inquirer’.

Seek the advice of experts, more experienced people, policies and procedures.

Be inquisitorial not adversarial.

Aim to learn rather than blame.

Two.

The second of the Five Steps to a Good Decision is to Name the Issue.

The commonest mistake in every decision making level of every organisation is to ignore our Widget.

(Hence the importance of Widget clarity.)

A Good Decision is one that advances us towards where we want to be - ie our Widget.

In Step 1, we purged our emotions so that we could make a decision using external information and not internal emotion.

In Step 2, we need to ask ourselves: ‘What is the Issue?’

We need to sift through all the information that we have and identify what it tells us about our Widget.

The answer is the Issue.

There are a number of tools that we can use to name the Issue:

• How does this information affect my Widget?
• What law, policy, procedure, rule, promise, value or other undertaking am I responsible for that requires me to act on this information?
• Do I have the authority to act on the information?
• What action does my Integrity (doing what I said I was going to do) demand of me in response to this information?

If there is no clear statement about whether you have the authority to make a decision, you could rely on the principle of Subsidiarity:

‘It is a fundamental principle of social philosophy, fixed and unchangeable, that one should not withdraw from individuals and commit to the community what they can accomplish by their own enterprise and/or industry.’

- Pope Pius XI

Don't be distracted or bound by what someone else tells you is the issue because they're defining it against their Widget - not yours.

A third party usually doesn’t get to decide what the Issue is.  You do.  

Because it’s your Widget.

You are in the job presumably because you have the experience, expertise and authority to make decisions about your Widget that serve the organisation’s Widget.

If the information does not affect your Widget, either pass it on to someone whose Widget may benefit from it, or…proceed to Step 3.

One.

'Creativity is caring enough to keep thinking about something until you find the simplest way to do it.' 

-    Tim Cook

The first of the Five Steps to a Good Decision is to Step Back.

The information hits our desk.

Surprise, anger, annoyance, frustration, disbelief, hurt, delight, indignation, suspicion, confusion, amusement, alarm, despair.

We are human.  We have emotions fed by thousands of years of evolution.

Stop. Breathe.

The first step to a good decision is to not make one.

Be selfish for as long as it takes to be able to focus on serving your Boss - or someone else.

Allow yourself the time to be honest and submit to your weaknesses.

Surrender your story of Busy Manager, Heroic Leader, Decisive Boss, Overworked Supervisor, Indispensable Assistant. Martyr.

Lean back in your chair and wallow in how unfair life is.  

Ring, email or text a colleague or friend with a whinge.  

Go home and vent to your spouse or tropical fish.  

Recline with a glass of wine or seven.  

Go for a run.

Browse Seek.com.  

Do whatever it takes to admit and indulge your authentic selfish feelings.  

Allow the chemicals to recede and perspective to emerge.

We die to that person who wanted to run or fight.

We step back into ourselves so that we can become who we are.

We return to the Decision and our Widget and the person who our boss is paying us to be.

If we don’t retreat into ourselves to be ourselves, then we risk tangling our ego with our decision.

We risk a conflict between who we are, and who our boss wants us to be.

By surrendering to our selfishness – if for only a few minutes – we are better equipped to be selfless.

There are studies that show that we cannot focus on the other if we're pre-occupied with ourselves.

Some remarkable, unforeseen, positive, creative things can happen in that space that cannot happen in the largely rational, logical process that follows.

Allowing this space isn’t easy amidst the largely self-imposed pressure to be ‘decisive’.  

Like any skill, doing nothing takes practice.

But doesn’t creating space and taking time over a decision risk appearing not to care? Appear not to be taking the decision seriously, especially by others who are relying on it?

By slowing down and giving the decision time and attention you're investing more in it and are more likely to care more about it.

If you care about something you're more likely to do a better job.

The more important a decision, the longer it should take.

Don't reply to the email. Don't pick up the phone. Don't summon the staff member. Don't interrupt. Don't pretend to be someone you're not.

Because then you're only adding another person to the fight.

Step 1 - Step Back.

Breathe.

Between.

Somewhere in between -

My wisdom and my words.

My intention and my execution.

My design and my delivery.

My theory and my practice.

My code and my conduct.

My prayer and my neighbour.

My promise and my delivery -

My Widget can break

It's bad if I don't notice.

Worse if no-one else does.

Delivery.

'When I was an undergraduate I was given this advice and it has helped me in my writing, so I will pass it on to you. When you have almost finished your paper and think you have a final draft. Find a quite place way from others that read it out loud.'

- An academic.

Your Widget may break during delivery.

Jobs.

Yearning.

The job of the organisational leader [manager] is to harness [manage] the restless energy of our messy yearning to become who we are and direct it towards hammering out the organisation's Widget.

We may hammer ourselves into who we are.

Or into a mortgage.

Terms.

'The beginning of wisdom is a definition of terms.'

-Socrates

The Widget is the product of your decisions.

The Weekday Widget is the product of the decisions that your boss pays you to make.

The Weekend Widget is the product of making decisions for your boss.

A Good Decision is one that advances you towards where you want to be.

[It's harder to make a good decision if you don't have a Widget.]

Good Decision Making is a deliberate process of inquiry that advances you towards where you want to be.

A Leader is someone who makes decisions that others choose to follow.

It's all about The Widget.

[It's not about The Widget.]

I might be wrong.

Check.

To check whether your boss wants Leadership or management, try any of the following and see what she does:

• Disagree with her in a meeting.
• Answer 'I don't know' when she asks what someone else is doing.
• Delay reporting to her because you were teaching someone else.
• Answer 'I don't know' to any of her questions.
• Say 'I was wrong'.

Most organisations simply don't have the metaphorical and literal structural tolerance in their people and systems to withstand the amount of turbulence that would flow from having as many Leaders as they proclaim to want or allow.

Which is why most organisations advertise and train for leadership - and recruit and promote for management.

Rare.

Being a Leader is hard.

That's why it's rare to find her.

Organisations call 'Leaders' people who:

• Made a Widget well enough to supervise other people to make (often different) Widgets
• Did something in another organisation that their boss wants them to repeat for them
• Get invited to meetings with limited chairs to learn to advocate their boss's opinion 
• Umpire Widget conflicts (rarely) and interpersonal conflicts (mostly)
• Make their Widget better than anyone else in the organisation
• Control others so that the boss doesn't have to

Boss's call them 'leaders' to acknowledge what they want them to do is hard - yet not Leadership hard.

It's a rare boss who will pay you to make decisions that contradict her.

It's a rare boss who will trust you to trust others to change direction from the one she chose.

Rare good bosses means rarer Leaders.