Circular Error Probable.
The Circular Error Probable (CEP) is the radius of a circle within which half the bombs dropped by an aircraft are expected to fall.
In World War II the CEP for 'dumb' iron bombs was measured in miles - hence 1,000 bombers area bombing cities to hit a single factory.
The CEP of today's 'smart' laser guided weapons is three metres.
The CEP increases by 200% if the aircraft comes under fire.
Evasive survival manoeuvres reduce target accuracy.
It's more likely to miss.
Nice analogy when you're taking aim at your Widget.
Or sniping at someone aiming for theirs.
Secured by the Secret Service.
On 19 September Omar Gonzales jumped the fence of the home of the President of the United States armed with a knife.
He sprinted across the White House lawn towards the front door.
The plainclothes surveillance team whose job it is to detect fence jumpers and protect the most powerful man in the world didn't stop him.
The Secret Service officer in the North Lawn guardhouse did not stop him.
The attack dog did not stop him.
The Secret Service guard at the front door did not stop him.
The SWAT team at the front door did not stop him.
The alarm box designed to alert the building to an intruder had been muted.
The intruder was finally tackled inside the East Room.
Seven successive failures in decision making.
16 breaches of White House security in the last five years. Six this year. 'Hundreds' have approached the perimeter and made verbal threats.
The fear of being wrong is understandably a major influence on our decision making.
As someone wrote - we tend to compare our bloopers with everyone else's highlight reel.
Yet if the United States Secret Service - with a budget of $1.8 billion and the job of protecting the most powerful man in the world - can fail in each of seven layers of defence - we can feel a little better about getting it wrong.
Successfully Failing Your Way.
'If you're going to fail - fail my way.'
- Ron Barassi, six time AFL Premiership player, four time Premiership coach.
A good decision is one that advances you towards where you want to be.
At home - choose where you want to be and how you get there and by when.
At work - your boss pays you to advance her towards where she wants to be.
Where she wants to be.
It's her Widget she's paying you to make.
Her Widget.
You don't get to tell her what her Widget is. That's her boss's job.
You don't get to tell her she's making her Widget wrongly. Again - her boss.
Your boss is paying you money to do whatever she has employed you to do to contribute towards making her Widget to her boss's satisfaction.
You're paid to tell her anything about your widget that is relevant to her Widget.
Once you've done that and you're sure she's understood you - then shut up.
That's why the boss is always right. Always.
Yours is probably one of many widgets that the boss is coordinating to make her Widget. She needs you to make it to her specs so that the other widgets will fit.
She's entitled to ignore your opinion on your widget because it's ultimately her Widget.
Your boss can lead you to failure if she wishes.
It's her Widget.
Let her fail her way.
A Good Decision is the Least Harmful if Wrong.
A heuristic shouldn't be the "least wrong" among all possible rules; it should be the least harmful if wrong.
- Nassim N. Taleb.
The Five Steps to a Good Decision won't give the right answer.
They will lead to a good decision.
The least harmful if wrong.
Step 1 (Step Back): Cares for the Decision Maker.
Step 2 (Name the Issue): Cares for Resources.
Step 3 (Assess the Information): Cares for the Truth.
Step 4 (Check for Bias): Cares for the Widget.
Step 5 (Give a Hearing): Cares for Others.
The YouTube Test.
Ray Rice is a professional American football running back who is regarded as one of the best ever players for the Baltimore Ravens.
In February 2014 he assaulted his fiancée. The particulars of the assault were on the public record following his arrest.
In July 2014 the NFL suspended Rice for two games for violating its personal conduct policy by assaulting his fiancée.
In August 2014 the NFL Commissioner said that he 'didn't get it right' when giving Rice a two game suspension. He announced that in future such behaviour would attract a higher punishment. A six game suspension.
In September 2014 a video was posted online showing Rice punching his fiancée to unconsciousness.
The Ravens subsequently announced that his contract with its team had been terminated. The NFL said that he had been suspended indefinitely.
The NFL and the Ravens got new information and changed their minds. That's okay.
The new information?
Instead of the world reading that Ray Rice punched his fiancée in the face the NFL and Ravens knew that the world can see Ray Rice punch his fiancée in the face.
Let's test our declarations of commitment to transparency, integrity, values, accountability etc.
Next time you're considering - in Step 3 of the Five Steps to a Good Decision - a response to information that's in an email, phone call, letter or meeting - Imagine:
- Converting the information into a story and then a screenplay.
- Filming the screenplay.
- Posting the film to YouTube.
It's not your decision making process that the world will watch (boring) - it's the information that you're assessing. It's watching Ray Rice punch his fiancée instead of reading about it.
Wondering whether or how to discipline a staff member? Upload to your imagination. Post. Tweet. Watch.
The YouTube test isn't designed to encourage literal transparency or openness.
It's a forcing function that jolts us out of our deep grooves of unthinking responses to information so that we might see and respond to it in a different way.
Stick.
Dan: 'As somebody who feels like a person who knows so little and my knowledge is so incomplete. And yet know I'm supposed to be imparting knowledge to our kids and I kind of almost tried to give up on that and I try to just focus on good decision making.
'It's one thing if you tell your kid: 'Well just do it like this'. And it's another to just walk them through it. You know that if you walk them through it the right way that they'll learn about the thought process. Because I think that thought processes are teachable. Or learnable. Good, logical thinking is a learnable thing. It's one thing if your kid says 'Well how do I do this?' Or 'Why is it like this?' And you just tell them. As opposed to kind of leading them down the path to figuring out the answer on their own. That seems to stick a little bit better.'
Merlin: 'I find it so hard not to intervene. She's doing something - like she's learning to jump rope right now. And it's all I can do not to seize the thing out of her hand and go 'Look! Stand on it with your two feet like this, pull it up to here and if it reaches your waist that's the right length!' 'Cos she's got about half the length that she needs to do it. She keeps jammin' it into her ankle and it drives me crazy to watch. It's all I can do not to intervene. But you know - that's part of the process.'
Substitute 'employee' for 'kid'.
Flawless.
'All the business of war, and indeed all the business of life, is to endeavor to find out what you don't know by what you do; that's what I called 'guessing what was at the other side of the hill.''
- The Duke of Wellington
'It was a flawless operation. It was just that the hostages weren't there.'
- Chuck Hagel, US Secretary of Defence.
A good decision is one that advances you towards where you want to be.
It takes discipline and courage to seek to execute a flawless operation instead of succumbing to the seduction of decisiveness.
That's why Leaders are brave.
Sure - you might solve a problem with instinct, intervention, positional power or luck.
Meanwhile, someone is planning their operation based upon the predictability of your decisions.
About where the hostages will be.
Guns.
'...be prepared to punish immediately and mercilessly.'
- Reinhard K. Sprenger in his book 'Trust', on how to respond to a failure to acknowledge a breach of trust.
'Why does the military need the DFDA?' I asked the classroom of First Year Cadets and Midshipmen at the Australian Defence Force Academy.
I was delivering another lesson in the Defence Force Discipline Act.
No hands went up.
'Why do you need your own military laws? Why can't you just be subject to the same criminal laws as every other resident of Canberra? Of Australia?' No response.
They looked uncomfortable. Unlike 18 year olds at civilian universities, my rank demanded their attention and they had to pretend to give it.
Finally, a hand slowly rose.
'Yes?' I said, nodding towards the red-faced Army cadet.
'Sir, because we've got guns in our bedrooms, Sir?'
His classmates laughed.
'Correct.'
Sailors, soliders and airmen who are caught breaching society's laws, values or implied rules of behaviour are subjected to higher media attention and scrutiny and public shaming than the average civilian who might do the same.
Rightly so.
A democracy makes a deal with its 18 year olds with uniforms and guns.
We trust you.
We'll fall asleep in leafy suburbs next door to where you slumber beside your weapons.
We trust you not to turn those weapons on us.
We know History. We can't afford not to give you uniforms and guns.
We know History. We can't afford to wait to see whether our trust in you with guns was misplaced. That would be too late.
Instead -
We demand that you have higher levels of behaviour enforced by extra criminal laws.
We'll let you come onto our streets with your guns as long as we see you marching in controlled, neat, shiny, uniform ranks and snapping to attention when ordered to by superiors who have superiors who have superiors who defer to our elected government who we can vote out and ridicule on talk back radio and on Facebook.
If you behave in any way that hints that our trust in you might be a mistake:
Then we'll punish you immediately and mercilessly and publicly - disproportionately than if you were an unarmed teenager.
It's not your misogyny, pot smoking, petty theft, drunkenness, harassment or racist emails that we want to protect ourselves from.
It's your judgement.
And the guns in your bedroom.
Debate.
The boss is busy. He's important. He's got so many important things to worry about. Meetings to attend. Emails to write. Reports to read. It's unreasonable to expect him to have time to spend consulting with you. Anyway, his matters are lofty and serious. He doesn't have to explain himself to you. You wouldn't understand anyway because it's very complicated. He knows what he's doing because he's the boss. It's serious work being a boss. Don't waste his time and just get your work done so he can do his. The boss is busy.
In mid-1942 Prime Minister Winston Churchill rose to address the House of Commons. The Second World War was in its third year and the British Army was in full retreat in North Africa. The German Afrika Corps was forty miles from Alexandria and eighty from Cairo. Prime Minister Churchill was debating a vote of no confidence in his leadership. He was being accused of allowing the Axis forces of Germany and Japan to conquer and enslave the remaining free world.
Churchill did not use fighting a World War as an excuse for not preparing for and engaging in open debate on his decision making. On the contrary, 'What a remarkable example it has been of the unbridled freedom of our Parliamentary institutions in time of war,' he said.
The boss can't be expected to know everything that's going on. How can he be responsible for something that was done two or three levels below him?
'The question of whether Tobruk could be held or not is difficult and disputable. It is one of those questions which are more easy to decide after the event than before it...But those who are responsible for carrying on the war have no such easy options open. They have to decide beforehand. The decision to hold Tobruk and the dispositions made for that purpose were taken by General Auchinleck, but I should like to say that we, the War Cabinet and our professional advisers, thoroughly agreed with General Auchinleck beforehand, and, although in tactical matters the Commander-in-Chief in any war theatre is supreme and his decision is final, we consider that, if he was wrong, we were wrong too, and I am very ready on behalf of His Majesty's Government to take my full share of responsibility.'
Why can't someone just make a decision? Everything takes so long. There is so much bureaucracy. Ask anyone what needs to be done and they will tell you. The boss is useless.
'Complaint has been made that the newspapers have been full of information of a very rosy character. Several Hon. Members have referred to that in the Debate, and that the Government have declared themselves less fully informed than newspapers...The war correspondents have nothing to do except to collect information, write their despatches and get them through the censor. On the other hand, the generals who are conducting the battle have other preoccupations. They have to fight the enemy.'
The boss wants to be briefed. He wants to have everything run past him. He wants to approve every decision. He wants papers. He wants meetings. He wants pre-meeting meetings. He wants updates. He wants to step in if necessary.
'Although we have always asked that they should keep us informed as much as possible, our policy has been not to worry them but to leave them alone to do their job. Now and then I send messages of encouragement and sometimes a query or a suggestion, but it is absolutely impossible to fight battles from Westminster or Whitehall. The less one interferes the better, and certainly I do not want generals in close battle, and these desert battles are close, prolonged and often peculiarly indeterminate, to burden themselves by writing full stories on matters upon which, in the nature of things, the home Government is not called upon to give any decision...Therefore, the Government are more accurately, but less speedily, less fully and less colourfully informed than the newspapers.'
The boss likes people who work late. Who show how much they care by the number of furrows in their brow.
'Some people assume too readily that, because a Government keeps cool and has steady nerves under reverses, its members do not feel the public misfortunes as keenly as do independent critics. On the contrary, I doubt whether anyone feels greater sorrow or pain than those who are responsible for the general conduct of our affairs.'
The boss wants to know why the plan went wrong.
'Sir, I do not know what actually happened in the fighting of that day. I am only concerned to give the facts to the House, and it is for the House to decide whether these facts result from the faulty central direction of the war, for which of course I take responsibility, or whether they resulted from the terrible hazards and unforeseeable accidents of battle.'
The boss wants to scrutinise every decision. He won't approve anything until he's absolutely certain that it is perfect.
'How do you make a tank? People design it, they argue about it, they plan it and make it, and then you take the tank and test and re-test it. When you have got it absolutely settled you go into production, and only then do you go into production. But we have never been able to indulge in the luxury of that precise and leisurely process. We have had to take it straight off the drawing board and go into full production, and take the chance of the many errors which the construction will show coming out after hundreds and thousands of them have been made.'
The boss has a serious job. He's a serious man making very, very serious and important decisions. Don't mock the boss. He deserves our respect.
'This tank, the A.22, was ordered off the drawing board, and large numbers went into production very quickly. As might be expected, it had many defects and teething troubles, and when these became apparent the tank was appropriately re-christened the "Churchill."'
The boss doesn't like mistakes. He wants the job done right the first time. If not, he'll lay the blame where it belongs. He can't be held responsible for what others do.
'I cannot pretend to form a judgment upon what has happened in this battle. I like commanders on land and sea and in the air to feel that between them and all forms of public criticism the Government stand like a strong bulkhead. They ought to have a fair chance, and more than one chance. Men may make mistakes and learn from their mistakes. Men may have bad luck, and their luck may change. But anyhow you will not get generals to run risks unless they feel they have behind them a strong Government. They will not run risks unless they feel that they need not look over their shoulders or worry about what is happening at home, unless they feel they can concentrate their gaze upon the enemy.'
It's a serious business being a boss. It's no laughing matter. He's engaged in important things.
'I have stuck hard to my blood, toil, tears and sweat, to which I have added muddle and mismanagement...'
The boss acts on instinct. He makes decisions and expects his authority to be carried out. No questions. If something goes wrong, let's spin ourselves out of it. Don't admit anything.
'Nearly all my work has been done in writing, and a complete record exists of all the directions I have given, the inquiries I have made and the telegrams I have drafted. I shall be perfectly content to be judged by them.'
Prejudice.
'In order to put prejudice aside it is first necessary to acknowledge it.'
- Her Honour Judge Braddock SC
The Fourth Step in the Five Steps to a Good Decision is to Check for Bias.
Each step in the Good Decision Making process is a forcing function. It compels us to pay attention to information that we might otherwise skip over or overlook or assume.
A good boss has her finger on the pulse. She knows her people. She knows her Widget. She knows the imperfections in each. It is impossible for her to not have an opinion. She could get away like most with making decisions on instinct.
The good boss also knows her own imperfections. The better she gets at decision making, the more conscious she becomes of her fallibility. [A great way to tell a good boss from a boss.]
In her Fourth Step, the good boss pays attention to her thoughts. She may even invite others to listen to her speak them. Has she pre-judged her decision?
[A good boss is a teacher. The Five Steps make visible her thinking for the benefit of others.]
As with the First Step, the Fourth Step allows the decision maker to acknowledge the imperfections that make her human. Her biases that may not serve her Widget.
In doing so, she invites those around her to do likewise. To be themselves.
The flaws that allow her to become who she is - free others to do the same.
The steps to a good decision elevate us - and those around us - beyond the decision. It quickly disappears in the distance as we continue our journey to become who we are.
Inquiry.
'Whether it’s in political parties, juries, or boardrooms, groups of humans tend to make better decisions, and to be better at solving problems, when composed of individuals who see the world differently from each other.
Good decision making is a deliberate process of inquiry that advances you towards where you want to be.
Inquiry is a brave act. Risky. It declares 'I Don't Know'.
What boss will admit that? What other things might she not know? Why is she being paid the big bucks if she doesn't know?
Might she not know things that she needs to know for me to know things? I've got a job to do. Where does her not-knowing - leave me?
Not knowing.
Inquiry is a brave act. It levels the power scales. The boss and I are equally ignorant. We learn the new thing together.
The good boss gathers people around her in her inquiry and invites them to tell her she's wrong and encourages me to watch. Brave. [The good boss is a teacher.]
Inquiry implies the boss isn't certain of her footing. She's unsure of the world and needs to know more. She's off balance. Vulnerable to a push from above or below.
Inquiry invites new information that may erase the old. It may call into question everything we assumed. It may even demand that the boss says: 'I was wrong.' Oh dear.
Inquiry is counter to the decisive, busy, brain-in-the-next-meeting, heroic boss.
Thus most bosses don't inquire. [Good bosses are rare.] They pretend to know. They make decisions using instinct. Or delegation (up or down). Or they do nothing and let entropy decide for them. We let them get away with it because he's the boss and we just want a decision - any decision - so that we can plug it into our Widget and have an alibi if the Widget doesn't work and go home and moan about the boss and our life.
A good boss inquires because she is curious. Because she is impatient in her advance towards her Widget which she knows lies beyond the Knowing.
A good boss doesn't decide with power. Or by keeping her workers ignorant. Or by pretending. Or mothering us by protecting us from the scary world of not-knowing.
A good boss knows that I Don't Know might be the three most powerful words in the dictionary.
Or not.
[Let's speak them and see what happens.]
Observed.
'For if we are observed in all matters, we are constantly under threat of correction, judgment, criticism, even plagiarism of our own uniqueness. We become children, fettered under watchful eyes, constantly fearful that -- either now or in the uncertain future -- patterns we leave behind will be brought back to implicate us, by whatever authority has now become focused upon our once-private and innocent acts.'
- Bruce Schneier
The Leader begins by creating the Space. She invites others into the Space to become who they are. She assumes that they will make mistakes. Get things wrong. Fail.
The Leader doesn't respond with regulation. The opposite. She ultimately Retreats - leaving us to do our work. To make more mistakes. To continue becoming.
Her faith in us mostly doesn't end well in the measure of the world. We fear freedom. Getting it wrong. We don't know what to do. No-one has taught us. We want to be told. We want someone to blame for our choices. For our unhappiness.
We feel threatened when observed. [I'm not trusted.'] We feel threatened when unobserved. ['I don't get any feedback or gratitude.']
Eventually the Leader is replaced by a manager. He tells us what to do. He checks and corrects. We chafe and share our grievances with each other during our designated breaks and are secretly grateful that we are no longer responsible for our unhappiness.
Constantly fearful.
Longing for Leadership.
Slack.
'One thing I said I could help him with was Leadership. Because I was thrust into that with West Coast.
'And I'll be honest as I have said to him privately...probably not publicly as much as I am about to now...but I probably let him down a few times giving him...probably cutting him too much slack to go home and do all those sorts of things.
'So I don't think I actually helped him. I thought I was doing the right thing by him keeping him happy so he would continue to play football which is...ultimately...I was trying to help the Club.
'But from a Leadership...from a pure Leadership point of view...would I have done that in [his home town of] Melbourne? Well...I would not have had to have done that in Melbourne...to give him a training session off here and there so he could stay back with family and friends back in Melbourne.
'But I thought to keep him happy...to keep him playing happy...I thought that was the most important thing from an early point...
'I went to him and said 'I've probably let you down'.'
- Guy McKenna, Coach of the Gold Coast Suns AFL Team, speaking about Gary Ablett.
The first job of a Leader is to create the Space. Allow people to stretch and become who they are. Whack them if they breach it. Not as discipline or punishment. Not as an exercise in power. Not to diminish the person. To invite them to become as she knows they are.
Evidence that Guy McKenna is a Leader. His humility. His honesty. His measure of himself by his service to others. He doesn't wait to be criticised - to be complained about - for him to proactively admit - 'I failed you. Sorry.'
A month after this interview, Guy McKenna was criticised for allowing Gary Ablett too much freedom leading up to a big game.
The day after the article was published Gary Ablett led in possessions as he captained the Gold Coast Suns to a 40 point win - its first ever - over his former club Geelong.
Saying.
Decision-Making is THE act of communication.
What am I saying?
We are the products of our Decision-Making, not our words.
How's that going?
How's the organisation's Decision-Making budget?
Compared to the iDevice budget?
The Marketing one?
Where's Decision-Making in the Staff Development Agenda?
In the Leadership Training?
In the Performance Reviews?
In the Recruitment ads?
In the KPIs?
How do we make right versus right decisions under stress?
How do we integrate what we already know - or think we know - with what we need to discover?
How do we orientate ourselves?
What is the relationship between our problem‐analysis and our Decision‐Making?
What happens when what actually happens does not track with what we assumed?
What awaits us when we look inwards for our moral compass?
What happens when we're wrong?
How do we Make Decisions of Love and Hope?
Advocate.
"The real hell of life is everyone has his reasons."
- Jean Renoir
The Premier of Western Australia Mr Colin Barnett has not supported a push to remove one of his party members who continues to criticise his government, including calling for Mr Barnett to resign.
Another example of a leader who is on top of his game.
Allowing a critic to remain within the ranks is the sign of a confident leader. And not because of her ego blinding her to the criticism.
The good leader knows that there is wisdom in testing arguments and positions inside the tent before they are released into the wild.
As Dr Tim McDonald says: 'Private honesty. Public loyalty.'
Mr Barnett's accommodation of a dissenting view is also his compliment to the community he serves. He assumes of us what he is demonstrating himself: the maturity to accept that difference is not to be feared.
Mr Barnett is not afraid that the voting public may assume that his party's internal dissent calls into question the ability of his government to run our hospitals and schools and keep our streets safe.
This is what leaders do. They create a space that invites us in to see the version of ourselves that we want to become. 'See?' Mr Barnett says to us. 'I can run an entire State amidst criticism from one of my own. I'm not fleeing. I'm not fighting. I'm smiling. Try it in your own family, workplace, community.'
Very, very few people or organisations can do this. Basically, we don't know how. We don't have the skills. We haven't practised accommodating dissonance. We actively discourage dissent - often quashing it under cover of a breach of 'values' or 'code of conduct'. We drive the our critics to the fringes - until they have to scream so loudly that any merit in their shouted message is dismissed with labels such as 'vexatious'.
If you want to test the maturity and confidence of an organisation or person - say 'complaint'.
Mature people and organisations will seek out dissenters to join their decision making process to kick the tyres.
If they can't find such a critic, they will appoint one. The 'devil's advocate' was someone appointed by the Catholic Church to argue against the canonisation of a person into sainthood.
The mature organisation knows that a dissenter is one of the ways to avoid the trap of groupthink.
The critic - whether internal or external - demands that we explain ourselves - rather than just declare, or even be satisfied by giving reasons for a decision.
A recent study showed that people who were asked to give reasons for an opinion remained convinced of its rightness. While other people who were asked to give a step by step explanation of how they arrived at their opinion were more likely to recognise an error in their thinking and start reviewing their assumptions.
(Herein lies the value of the Five Steps to a Good Decision.)
Therein also lies both the solution and the problem.
Better to cling on to the flawed certainty of our understanding of the world than to expose ourselves to the panic of finding out that we've been wrong.
It's a rare person who can accommodate the distraction in time and energy of a critic.
Which is why we need leaders like Mr Barnett who have the confidence to show us that whether we label it criticism, dissent, disloyalty, or even treason, it's just information.
Another opportunity for us to measure how we're going with our Widget.
Good leaders are rare.
Important.
'It's only in our decisions that we are important.'
- Sartre
Next time you're bored in a meeting, try this.
A Decision will be made.
It can be now. In a few seconds. Later today. Tomorrow. Next year.
One absolute certainty is that a Decision will be made. (Even by default.)
You don't know what the decision will be - you know there will be one. Thus it's almost irrelevant.
Use this certainty as a reference point to work out who are the managers and who are the leaders in the meeting.
The managers will be the ones assembling their dot points for their post-mortem speeches in case the Decision goes wrong. (Most likely to be delivered in hushed tones and with eye rolls in the tea room. 'I tried to tell them that....but they...')
The leader will be holding the space. (She may not be the person at the head of the table by the way.)
She's allowing for the Five Steps - the deliberate process of inquiry - to run its course.
She knows that if she makes a decision that advances her towards where she wants to be - that she cannot make a bad decision.
Her wisdom about the answer liberates her to focus on others.
Watch the leader bravely hold the space. She listens. Asks questions. Listens. Questions. Listens. Listens.
Listens.
Watch the managers and others compete to fling the most words, statements, fears, challenges, complaints, criticisms, and egos within and against the boundaries of that safe space being held for them by the leader.
Spot the manager promoted one or more steps above his competence. You can tell him by his confident assertions. His aim is to declare his opinion rather than to allow it to be tested by the evidence. (That would be too risky.) He wants to be seen as decisive. Sure. Stable. Knowledgeable. Courageous. He does so with the luxury of knowing that he doesn't have to make the decision.
The real bravery in the room is in the leader. Risking being seen as weak. Indecisive. Uncommunicative. As she's talked over. As she holds the space. As she listens.
As she serves everyone else.
Including you. Learning from her as you watch, safe in the space she's created for you. (Guess what - she knows you're watching.)
Regardless of whether it's her decision that is made or followed, she's a leader. Because she created the space and invited you to enter and become who you are.
Allowed you to advance towards your Widget on the way to building hers.
Decisions don't make us important.
The Deciding does.
[Never spotted a leader in a meeting? Of course not. Good leaders are rare.]
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'.
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.'
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.
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.
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.