Broomsticks with Feedback.
'Being right is occasionally useful in bars but it's very useless in life. It just doesn't open avenues for learning.
[Hospitals] engage in serious errors. The nature of Lourdes is that they don't get better at miracles because they're not learning from their mistakes.
400 years ago everyone believed that broomsticks could fly. Then these views of the world bifurcate and we have broomsticks that still don't fly terribly well and Jumbos that fly rather well. Jumbo Jets are just broomsticks with feedback.'
A Leader's decisions create errors that teach and invite us (educate - educare - 'to draw out') to overtake her, and make different errors for others to learn from and overtake us.
Contempt for the mistakes of others and fear of making our own are why true Leaders are rare.
The Root of All Conflict.
All conflict is this:
Did you make your Widget.
In every courtroom this is the case for the plaintiff, applicant, appellant, prosecution:
Where's the Widget you promised?
Where's the speed you said you'd drive at when we licensed you?
Where's the house you said you'd build in our contract?
Where's the work you said you'd do when we employed you?
Where's the safe workplace you said you'd provide for us?
The judges who rule on these questions can't build those Widgets. They have their opinions but that's Hell, not justice.
Judges assume that you're the best person to define your Widget specifications. In the contract you signed, the law that binds you, the policies that you wrote.
The judges decide like this:
'We've never built your Widget. But we can read the Widget blueprint in your policies, contract, agreement, legislation.'
'We've heard the evidence of what you delivered.'
'Is there a gap?'
'Did you drive at the speed you agreed to when you got your licence?' (Judges aren't experts in town planning, physics, or metallurgy.)
'Did you build the house with the brand of bathroom tiles your contract promised?' (Judges aren't experts in Interior Design or Italian slate.)
'Did you do what the company's code of conduct required of you?' (Judges don't assume that their values are yours.)
Judges trust that you're the best Widget definer.
If what you made isn't what you promised - then the Judges order: 'Make what you said you'd make', or alternatively 'Do what you agreed you'd do if you didn't.' (Pay a fine, go to prison, pay compensation.)
Do what you said you were going to do.
Make your Widget.
It's called 'Integrity.'
It's all about the Widget.
Words Matter.
'Rhetoric . . . is not a set of techniques to impress (oratory, eloquence), nor a means of manipulating the will and emotions of others (sophistry, advertising), but rather a way of liberating the freedom of others by showing them the truth in a form they can understand.’
- Stratford Caldecott
Ian and I were 14 year olds in our Air Force cadets Flight Drill Squad that competed in the inaugural Squadron Drill Competition.
Our 17 year old Cadet Flight Sergeant didn't know how to execute the drill movements in the sequence that we were to be judged on. Correct drill was whatever his drill instructor had taught him. So he carried on the tradition and made them up.
We came second.
The next year Ian convinced the Flight Commander to allow him to lead the Squad despite just being promoted to Cadet Corporal. 'I promise you we will win, Sir,' the 15 year old told our forty-something Flight Commander. 'I've got a plan.'
Ian found a forgotten copy of the AAP 5135.001 Manual of Drill and Ceremonial, cracked open the spine and studied every drill movement until he knew each command, cadence, timing, foot height, toe angle and the two-three pauses in between by rote.
He then made us copies to study and learn for ourselves.
Our squad of teenagers spent hours and hours practising responding to Ian's commands.
We spent hours and hours practising without his commands.
We won the next two years' competitions. Second the third year. And won the year after that.
(The year we ran second it was to a team led by an ex-cadet from our squad who Ian had trained.)
Cadets Ian had led or who had been trained by ones he'd trained led winning squads from other Flights over the next few years.
Ian taught me to go to primary sources of information.
I took for granted that good leaders are teachers who aren't afraid of their students knowing as much or more than they do.
I haven't had a need to execute a right form from the halt, to the halt at all since then.
I sometimes wonder if should have practised piano for all those hours.
Precision Ordinance onto a Target.
'All the departments are vital to make a jet fly off the carrier and put a piece of precision ordinance onto a target as per national tasking. Without one department- without Religious Ministries without the Legal department without the Reactor Department without Supply Department without hot water without cold water and steam for the catapults - none of it works.'
- Officer on the nuclear powered aircraft carrier USS Nimitz
Few organisations have the Widget clarity of the literal or figurative precision of ordinance striking its target.
Yet the military camouflages its Widget - 'Applying the maximum amount of violence permitted by law onto the enemy' behind 'Defending Australia and its national interests'.
If that more palatable language promotes the people and the government to provide the defence force with resources and recruits to to inflict violence on the enemy - then its Widget is served.
If Religious Ministries helps launch weapons platforms into the skies to drop explosives that shred property and flesh - then praise the Lord and pass the ammunition!
If 'People are our most important resource' increases the share price, then preach!
Without one department - none of it works.
The bombs don't hit targets.
The share value doesn't rise.
The Widget doesn't get made.
Be honest with yourself about the Widget that you choose to give your time and attention.
Words matter.
Naming the Widget.
'All consciousness begins with an act of disobedience.'
- Carl Jung.
The Widget can inspire rebellion.
'My life is not just making Widgets'.
'I'm a people person not a Widget person.'
'My work is not reducible to a Widget.'
'I don't like the idea of a Widget.'
'It's not that simple.'
Okay.
What is your life about then?
What does being a people person mean?
What is your work?
Why is it complicated?
Naming the Widget - the thing we serve eight hours a day, five days a week - may be confronting.
We awaken to how meaningful - or meaningless - our life is.
Or we confront that we don't know what it is that we doing with our hours.
Or we respond with the not the Widgets.
We declare: 'That's not what I do, not who I am, not what I stand for.'
'That's not what I've sacrificed my hours, my dreams, my relationships, my time with my children, my integrity, my soul for.'
The Widget is a reference point that can tell us were we are - or where we're not.
It can have as much or as little value or connection to reality for us as time, a clock, a compass, a map, our age, our name, our job description, our boss's feedback, or the money in our bank.
Our reaction to the concept of a Widget can teach us.
Even its rejection announces: We have a pulse!
The Secret Deal With the Boss.
'Leaders and followers collude in the imagining of leadership as heroic feats that will fix problems and usher in a new era. These practices are seductive because they release individuals from the work of leading themselves, from taking responsibility for thinking through difficult problems and for critical decision-making.'
- Amanda Sinclair, Leadership for the Disillusioned
The dominant narrative in Leadership is the Leader as hero, protector, parent.
A recent article in Bloomberg Businessweek is evidence of the power this story has in our culture.
It also shows the myth of 'If only I had more power, things would be different'.
The President of the United States is the most powerful man in the world.
The article quoted 'administration veterans' as saying that President Obama responds to crises in 'a very rational way, trying to gather facts, rely on the best expert advice, and mobilise the necessary resources'. He is said to treat a crisis 'as an intellectual inquiry' where he 'develops his response through an intensely rational process'.
'As former CIA Director Leon Panetta said recently in a TV interview, “He approaches things like a law professor in presenting the logic of his position.”'
In doing so, he is said to 'adhere to intellectual rigour, regardless of the public's emotional needs'.
President Obama 'disdains the performative aspects of his job' and resists 'the theatrical nature to the presidency.'
These characteristics of the President were cited as weaknesses.
The article quoted a poll that found that 65 percent of Americans say they fear a widespread outbreak of Ebola in the U.S, despite the facts showing otherwise. 'People fear what they can’t control, and when the government can’t control it either, the fear ratchets up to panic.'
(26 per cent of Americans also think that the Sun revolves around the Earth and more of them think that President Obama is a Muslim than believe in the theory of Evolution.)
The President was said to be 'hampered' by 'an unwillingness or inability to demonstrate the forcefulness Americans expect of their president in an emergency.'
'A thought bubble over his head seems to say: “I can’t believe everybody’s flipping out about this stuff!” But as Panetta also said, “My experience in Washington is that logic alone doesn’t work.”'
The article acknowledges that President Obama's record 'even on issues where he’s drawn heavy criticism', is often much better than the initial impression would lead one to believe.
'He may tackle crises in a way that ignores the public mood, yet things generally turn out pretty well in the end. He and his economic team, though deeply unpopular, halted the financial panic and brought about a recovery that’s added jobs for 55 consecutive months. His signature health-care law addressed a slower-moving crisis; while similarly unpopular, it has delivered health insurance to more than 10 million people. Even Deepwater Horizon was nothing like the environmental cataclysm it threatened to become. “It really became a parable of how government can mobilize to solve a big problem,” Axelrod says. And he adds, “Bush didn’t get bin Laden—Obama did.”
And yet...
Author Peter Block noted the dominant 'patriarchal leadership narrative' when he said that:
'Obama is reluctant to attack Syria. When he decides to consult with Congress on it he's considered like he's waffling...and then when Russia comes along and says 'Wait a second you don't have to attack I think we can reach an agreement' and they play a good third party role, [it is portrayed as] a sign of Presidential weakness that he allowed another country not so friendly to us to be decisive in bringing peace and avoiding war in the world. That interpretation of events is what we're dealing with. There needs to be an alternative narrative - an alternative story telling.'
One of the hardest demands on a new leader is to resist the pressure to take people to where they already are.
A leader invites people to go where they otherwise wouldn't.
She needs confidence in her Widget before she can invite us to join her in its creation.
She assumes the best in us that we crave to be discovered and acknowledged.
She draws us out of the comfort of our fears and prejudices and oppressive, suffocating narratives, cadences and routines - and into the anxiety that is the surest sign that we are free.
Compliance.
'I'm certainly not the first person to point out that general rules cannot handle all cases. This is exactly what Aristotle had in mind with the notion of Equity: The necessity of judgement making a correction to a rule - not because there is something wrong with a rule, but because of the generality of a rule that will necessarily make it inappropriate to some cases that it will seem to govern. Trying to accommodate or replace equitable judgement with additional rules simply won’t work.'
- Stephen Cohen
Deloitte released a Report last week that found Australia spends $250 billion a year on rules and compliance by both governments and businesses
That's more than eight and a half Defence budgets.
That's over $10,500 for every man, woman and child in the country.
The private sector spends $155 billion a year administering and complying with self-imposed rules
1 million people - one in every 11 workers - are employed in ‘the compliance sector’.
Middle managers and senior executives spend 8.9 hours a week complying with the rules that firms set for themselves, with other staff spending 6.4 hours.
These rules cost $21 billion a year to administer.
They generate $134 billion a year in compliance costs – double the matching compliance cost of public sector regulations.
The Widget for many people is ticking boxes.
There are many good reasons to learn and apply good decision making.
Cost is one.
The last job of a Leader is to get out of the way.
We Are Wide Open to Criticisms.
The Blue Angels is the United States Navy's flight demonstration squadron.
Its Widget is 'to showcase the pride and professionalism of the United States Navy and Marine Corps by inspiring a culture of excellence and service to country through flight demonstrations and community outreach.'
After every flight the team goes through a critical debriefing process which they consider is as important as the actual flight itself. They talk about what worked, what didn't, and 'no punches are pulled'.
'We are as wide open as can possibly be to criticisms. We want to become our own worst critics.'
The debriefing process takes twice as long as the flight took. 'Rank doesn't come into play.'
'We have a term that we use: 'Glad to be here''. It's a way of reminding themselves of the privilege of flying with the Blue Angels while their fellow pilots are doing night carrier landings in the Mediterranean Sea.
'We have two 'critiquers' on the ground that look at the manoeuvres and tell us their impressions basically.'
'We make these mistakes and we 'fess up to them and we do it every time we fly. It's an extremely important aspect of what we do. What we do after we've said it is 'I've made this mistake. I'll fix it. You always say you're going to fix it It leaves the rest of us with the feeling that you've recognised your mistake and you're going to take corrective action not to let it happen again. So it doesn't drop our confidence level in another person in the formation.'
'You gotta be able to learn each and every time you go flying because there's never been the perfect flight demonstration yet.'
Something Funny Happens on the Way to the Widget.
A good decision is one that advances you towards where you want to be.
You make a decision.
Ping! (You.)
Listening....listening....listening...
... ... ...
PING! (Your boss or your team or your client or your family or The Universe reacts.)
Hmm....Ah-ha. Adjust course to Widget: zero-two-niner degrees...
Often the speed and path of the Decision Ping and therefore our measurement of the distance between us and where we want to be is distorted by passing through media of varying density.
Mostly other people.
Which is the Big Revelation of good decision making; namely:
Good decision making teaches more about where we are in relation to others, than our distance to our Widget.
It's all about the Widget.
It's never about the Widget.
The More Important the Decision the Longer It Should Take.
In September last year, two Qantas Airbus aircraft with a combined total of more than 600 passengers almost collided.
The Air Transport Safety Bureau classified the incident as 'Serious'. It stated that it expected the investigation to be completed 'no later than September 2014.'
More than a year later and a month after the anticipated completion date the investigation remains Active.
The more important a decision, the longer it should take to make.
Interested third parties will be patient if the decision maker manages their expectations.
Underpromise and Overdeliver.
If the decision is likely to take a month, predict two and make it in one and a half.
Artificially compressing decision time adds drama and gravity and importance to the decision - and thus to the decision maker's prestige.
Widget focus - keeping the end result in mind - can help to settle the ego.
The ATSB can take time to learn from how several hundred lives were almost lost in circumstances that are repeated thousands of times daily in the skies.
There are few workplace decisions that can't allow the same.
The Divisive Decisive and The Indecision Villain.
'For the perfect accomplishment of any art, you must get this feeling of the eternal present into your bones — for it is the secret of proper timing. No rush. No dawdle. Just the sense of flowing with the course of events in the same way that you dance to music, neither trying to outpace it nor lagging behind. Hurrying and delaying are alike ways of trying to resist the present.'
- Alan Watts
We boo the Indecision Villain.
We cheer the Divisive Decisive.
Both share the awkward discomfort of their uninvited guest: New Information.
('Behind you! Behind you!)
The Divisive Decisive waves their Positional Power Wand over New Information and says the magic words:
'I think that...'
And magically pulls Decisions out of...their...hat.
The Indecision Villain just ignores New Information.
Boo!
The Good Decision Maker sits with New Information for a while.
Then - feeling the eternal in their bones - rises and takes New Information into the space created by the Leader.
Counts out the Organisation's Widget rhythm (Step 2, two three, Step 3, two three...)
And they dance.
Course Orderly Creep.
Officers Training School Morning Parades with Inspections by the Flight Commander were at 0750.
The Warrant Officer Disciplinary 'suggested' we form up at the rear of the Parade Ground by 0740 so that he could do an inspection before we marched on for the Inspection.
Our Drill Sergeant assembled us by 0730 to inspect us for the WOD's inspection for the Inspection.
The rostered student Course Orderly wanted us to be in place for the Sergeant by 0720.
We agreed to march off from our block at 0710 for the ten minute march to the Parade Ground.
We formed up outside at 0700 for the Course Horse to inspect us before the Sergeant would.
The Course Horse would begin yelling 'One Course...On the ROAD!' at 0650.
An hour before Morning Parade.
We called it COC. Course Orderly Creep.
We were 24 trainee leaders who submissively aided the theft of our sleep, trustworthiness and sense of humour.
A ritual designed for a commander to personally assess the well being and morale and therefore combat fitness of his troops - depleted all three.
Every organisation has versions of COC.
Pre-meeting meetings.
Hierarchies of pre-decision decisions.
Layers of redundancy filtering or distorting information on its way to the decision maker and destroying trust along the way.
Mostly good, professional people efficiently and competently working hard to successfully perform self-contained often inherited duties - innocently oblivious to any drag on the Widget - yet each with a gnawing dissatisfaction.
Inevitably a cry arises from management - 'We need leadership!'
Code for: 'What's our Widget?'
If You Build It - Happiness Will Come (Maybe).
'Alastair Clarkson [Hawthorn Coach] ringing all his players asking them if they like him and if there's anything he can do to make them happier.'
- A wag's riff on the 'resignation' by the Bulldogs' coach after his captain asked to leave.
Alastair Clarkson coached Hawthorn to the 2014 AFL Premiership.
The wag implies that winning the Grand Final is the Widget. Do this as coach - and your players will be happy. Happiness may be a by-product of the Widget.
('We're a happy team at Hawthorn' begins the team song.)
The word 'Happy' comes from the middle English hap meaning 'chance' or 'good luck'. Hence the word 'happenstance'.
It's your Widget.
If you want to use Happiness - someone else's or your own - as your Widget, then good luck and God's speed.
Alastair Clarkson also coached Hawthorn to the 2013 AFL Premiership.
Three days later his champion Lance Franklin left to play for Sydney.
Be Open to Surprises.
The Chief Executive of the organisation that governed most of the civilised world for the last two thousand years has some claim to know about good decision making.
As the boss of the largest private employer in Australia with 180,000 employees, over $100 billion in assets and an annual income of over $15 billion, he's worth listening to - regardless of whether you are a customer.
Earlier this week he warned about the risk of creating 'masterpiece' systems hat were so perfect that they closed themselves off from the potential for 'surprise'.
He reminded us that we need to remember that we are 'on a journey....and when we set out on a journey, when we are on our path, we always encounter new things, things we did not know.'
He reminded us that the law - systems - are not ends in themselves - but the means to an end. If those systems do not bring is to our Widget - then they are 'dead'.
He said that we should ask ourselves: 'Am I attached to my things, my ideas, [are they] closed? Or am I open to...surprises? Am I at a standstill or am I on a journey?'
A good decision is one that advances us towards where we want to be.
Good decision making is a deliberate process of inquiry - a journey open to 'surprises' - that advances us towards where we want to be.
The challenge for organisations - whether the Roman Catholic Church or a factory - and those of us leading them - Pope Francis or a line manager - or the rest of us in the pews or in open plan cubicles - is to create and maintain a framework for decision making that does not tether us but frees us to be surprised.
That takes courage.
And leaders who are brave.
If You Name It - You Own It.
'If you name it you own it. And they don't want to own it.'
- Anonymous US official and the lack of a code name for operations against the Islamic State.
Few workers can name their Widget - the thing they're being paid to make.
Most managers find it difficult to state their subordinates' Widget - the thing that they supposedly need made to make their own Widget.
It's either because they don't know what their Widget is, or they have disowned it.
How extraordinary. What's everyone doing if not making their Widget?
They're talking about making - something.
Without Widget Clarity - it's meetings all the way down.
Go Widget or Go Home.
'I wish to God that you protected the White House like you are protecting your reputation here today. I wish you spent that time in that effort to protect the American President and his family...'
- Representative Stephen Lynch to Director of the Secret Service, Julia Pierson.
Widget focus helps us to apply our finite reserves of time and intellectual and emotional energy towards the job that we are paid to do and by which we will be measured and which will give us currency and calories - and more.
If we divert time and energy away from building our boss's Widget and towards defending our ego, we weaken our ability to produce the thing that will answer our critics.
Amidst the noise and distraction of information and our fight-or-flight responses, the Five Steps towards a good decision keep us focussed and on task.
Even when the Widget battle is lost, we should resist the urge to go down fighting for our ego.
Begin building our next Widget for our next boss by learning what went wrong with our construction of this one.
Because the boss is always right.
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.
Three Points of Contact.
'Speak as they please, what does the mountain care?
Ah, but a man's reach should exceed his grasp,
Or what's a heaven for?'
Course 1 of 90 Officer Training School learned Rock Climbing at Mount Arapiles during Exercise Discovery. Cute.
Four holds on the rock face - both hands and both feet - in the known. Secure. For as long as the muscles can hold your weight.
Keep at least three points of contact on the rock face at all times. Reach for the next hold with one hand or foot at a time.
That was me. Halfway up a cliff face.
Abandon one of those holds and stretch out an arm or a leg to inquire of the rock face above. Feel. Grasp. Test. Commit. Move.
That wasn't me.
I wasn't inquiring. I only had the strength to hold on. My legs were trembling with the strain - the 'sewing machine leg' we'd been warned about by our instructors.
To move I had to reach above and feel for a hand hold. I didn't know if I'd find one. I did know that the effort would suck my energy and probably for no gain. So I held on.
An instructor abseiled down beside me and I hated his encouragement that there were holds above me if I reached up because he was sitting in a harness of six month old blue sterling fusion nano rope and I was clinging to million year old quartzite.
Purely to hasten the standard tedious 'What did you learn from that?' debrief that we had at the top half an hour later I put up my hand and said 'Sir, I will reflect on today's exercise whenever I feel like I'm stuck.'
In the nearly 25 years since that answer it has never served as a metaphor for anything.
Until today.
A good decision is one that advances us towards where we want to be.
Three fixed holds that secure the inquiring reach for the next unknown hand hold:
- My Widget
- The decision making process
- My response to what happens next
Each anchors a reach into the unknown - exceeding our grasp.
(Or what's a Widget for?)
The Widget is the North Pole of Decision Making.
A good decision is one that advances us towards where we want to be.
Good decision making is a deliberate process of inquiry that advances us towards where we want to be.
Where do we want to be?
Wherever that is - that's Our Widget.
The Widget is the Magnetic North Pole of Decision Making.
It defines where we are, where we've been, and where we want to be.
Our Widget is one of three things we control in a decision.
There have been trillions of trillions of journeys that have used Magnetic North to navigate.
A couple of hundred ever reached it.
Our Widget may be over the horizon and yet it guided us today.
The Widget is a fixed point against which we can measure our progress.
In our work.
In our relationships.
In our life.
Which is why it's all about the Widget.
Amidst the Chaos We Control Three Things.
Life is random.
Luck.
Chance.
Grace.
Fate.
Misfortune.
We decide. Then Life happens.
So what's the point of good decision making?
We control three things: