The Widget is the Salve, Balm and Lotion for Every Ill.

"Purpose and principle, clearly understood and articulated, and commonly shared, are the genetic code of any healthy organisation.  To the degree that you hold purpose and principles in common among you, you can dispense with command and control.  People will know how to behave in accordance with them, and they'll do it in thousands of unimaginable, creative ways.  The organisation will become a vital, living set of beliefs." -

Dee Hock
CEO Emeritus, Visa International

Define your Widget!

Imagine whatever your employer produces is a car. What part do you contribute on the assembly line?  What is your metaphorical nut, bolt, wheel, axel, driveshaft, transmission, piston, engine..?

Go and ask your boss. Say: 'Boss - what do you rely on me to do so that you can do  your job?' (Be prepared for your boss not to answer straight away.)

Define your Widget!

Widget clarity is the answer to EVERYTHING!

Feeling disengaged? Instant re-engagement happens the moment you start thinking about what your Widget is.

Feeling disconnected from your boss? Say: 'Boss - what is it that you need from me to do your job?' Click! Connected!

Feeling unsupported by your staff? Say: 'Staff - I can't do my job (Widget) for my boss if you don't do yours (Widget) for me.' Wow. She's just like us! 

Feeling bullied? Say: 'Boss, I'm finding it hard to make that Widget for you that you said you needed to make your Widget while Frank makes me sad by calling me names.' What? Frank's endangering my Widget?! Frank! Get in here!

Feeling underpaid? Say: 'Boss - here's what it takes for me to make this Widget for you that you need to make your Widget. I think that's worth a lot to you.' You're right. You are indispensable!

The only thing that you can be sure that you have in common with your boss, your staff, Frank, your boss's boss and that other team of strangers on the third floor who you're supposed to be cross-functional with - is the Widget.

It's the atmosphere you're all breathing, the language you're all speaking, the thing that's paying all your mortgages.

You don't have to get a consultant in to tell you that.

You don't have to hold hands with Frank at an off-site team building day and each share a secret to tell you that.

Find out what your Widget is.

Then make it.

For this boss.

Or another one.

Good Decision Making Is Hard.

'Attempt #158: I’ve finally mastered the tungsten carbide battle axe. I can rip through a Mimic’s endoskeleton with a flick of the wrist.'

'Learning what would get you killed and how to get your enemy killed— the only way to know a thing like that is to do it.'

- Hiroshi Sakurazaka, All You Need is Kill.

The movie Edge of Tomorrow is based on the Hiroshi Sakurazaka book.

'Attempt #158' refers to the 158th time that the main character Keiji Kiriya or Major William Cage in the movie, is fighting a battle against the 'Mimics' - alien invaders.

Major Cage is a slick public relations officer, a natural with the the PR patter, but with no combat experience.  He finds himself on the front line where he is infected by a substance from one of the aliens when he's mortally wounded. It 'resets' him back to the beginning of the day of battle each time he's killed.

Each time he's reset, Major Cage has to relive the day from the beginning, although with the benefit of knowing what is going to happen. He uses this information to anticipate and evade the source of his death last time. He lives a little longer with each 'reset' - until a new threat happens and he dies - and is reset back to the morning of the battle.

Far from making life easier for Major Cage, his advanced knowledge of what lies ahead makes it harder. With each new life, he spends hours reviewing, training, planning, strategising and finally applying his growing skills to advance him a few seconds further in his quest to defeat the aliens, only to begin all over again.

The more that he learns, the harder he has to work at thinking and acting. The harder he works, the greater his exposure to new information about his battlefield surroundings and new ways to die. He inches his advance towards the alien control centre, and is challenged by more information that he has to incorporate into his understanding of his environment to be able to survive a few seconds more.

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.

A good decision teaches us about where we are in relation to where we want to be.

We incorporate that new understanding into our next decision, and so on.

We have three reference points - constants amidst the uncontrollable chaos:

• Where we are
• Where we want to be
• Our process.

The first obstacle to good decision making is if we don't know where we want to be - our Widget.

The second obstacle is that we don't have a fixed process into which we can plug each variable - new information.

The third obstacle to good decision making is that it's hard work.

The more good decisions that we make - the more we learn - the more we learn, the more we have to incorporate that learning and apply it. Repeat. Forever.

Each decision exposes us to new information and therefore to the shame of ignorance.

It resets us back to where we began.

Our truth is dead, or at least discarded in the same pile as other people's opinions.

Either way, it hurts.

Kahlil Gibran described pain as the breaking of our shell of understanding. 

Good decision making is painful.

Bugger that - let's just stick with opinions, positional power, and instinct.

President Obama is Disappointed in Me.

'You've got to know when to hold 'em
Know when to fold 'em
Know when to walk away
And know when to run.'

- The Gambler, Kenny Rogers

President Obama is disappointed in me.

In you. In all of us.

He's trying to lead the World.

And our inertia is frustrating him.

St Benedict reluctantly abandoned his sixth century hermit life after monks pleaded with him to become the Abbot of their monastery.

He set doing what he'd been asked to do - lead the monks.

They rebelled and tried to kill him.

Benedict defied the hero leader model.

He shrugged his shoulders and walked out.

As Gregory the Great explains in his Dialogues on the life of the Saint, if he hadn't done so, Benedict risked 'losing himself' and 'not found them.' If you 'perceive [your] labour to be fruitless in one place....remove straight to another, where more good may be done.'

Benedict went on to found twelve more monasteries, perform many miracles, and most importantly for us, write his Rule of St Benedict, containing everything he'd learned about how to live in community under the authority of an Abbot. His Rule influenced the secular rule of law in Western Europe and beyond. All because he abandoned his leadership post.

One of the many myths in Leadership Lore is that leaders don't quit.

Giving up is the antithesis of mythical leadership.

So leaders persist beyond when they should have followed Benedict and 'removed' themselves.

If you're a leader and no-one is following - hand in your badge.

Even the well-meaning leaders keep standing at our cell door they've opened for us, frustrated that we won't budge. (I'm looking at you, President Obama.)

The bad ones rely on positional power and our need for currency and calories. 

Both losing themselves and everyone who suffers them.

If the President of the United States can feel that we've let him down, so can you.

Leader or worker:

If your labour is fruitless

If you're out of aces.

Quit.

Go and give reforming Western Europe a go. It might be easier.

Or stay and do your job.

But whatever you do - 

Don't quit and stay.

Directly Involved Parties.

'They that have the power to hurt, and will do none...

...they rightly do inherit heaven's graces.'

- William Shakespeare, Sonnet 94

The Investigation into the loss of separation between Airbus A330 VH-EBO and Airbus A330 VH-EBS near Adelaide SA on 20 September 2013 continues.

It was estimated to finish 'no later than September 2014'.

On 17 November 2014, two months after it was expected to conclude, there was a progress update:

'Completion of the draft investigation report has been delayed due to other investigation priorities, and the draft report is now anticipated for release to directly involved parties (DIPs) for comment in December 2014. Any comments over the 28-day DIP period will be considered for inclusion in the final report, which is anticipated to be released to the public in January 2015.'

'Released to DIPs for comment' and 'any comments...will be considered for inclusion in the final report.'

Step 5 in the Five Steps to a  Good Decision: Give a Hearing.

Allow any person who may be adversely affected by the decision the opportunity to consider your reasons for potentially reaching that decision, and to offer an argument why you should come to a different one.

Inviting a person affected by a decision is a powerful tool in good decision making:

• It harnesses the perspective, energy, focus and power of another brain (and heart) to contribute to your thinking (and feeling) while still works in progress and open to change.
• It informs you with the strongest argument against your own thinking - thus testing it - yet without the artificiality of appointing the 'devil's advocate' within your own team.
• It provides a forcing function to counter rote, systemic, thinking.
• It gives you a dress rehearsal of the likely criticisms that may follow your decision.
• It can counter groupthink.
• It reminds you of what is at stake for other people and thus focusses your attention.
• Those invited to contribute are more likely to accept the ultimate decision if it goes against them.
• It buys you time - thus creating more space (a mini- Step 1).
• It meets part of the procedural fairness required by law in many decision making processes.
• It shows transparency and evidence-based decision making.

Despite this impressive list in its favour, many decision makers avoid offering a hearing for fear that they will find out something that may undo all the time and energy invested so far; that it may create an expectation that they will be persuaded to change their minds; and that such an invitation undermines their authority.

A good decision maker acknowledges these fears, (perhaps even taking another Step 1: Step Back to indulge and then purge them) - then reminds herself of the logic of the benefits listed above, drafts the invitation to be heard such that it manages expectations, and reads Shakespeare or the writings of any good leader to understand that real power is demonstrated in the restraint in its exercise.

One Bold Black Line.

''Maybe if you played something like you used to when you played that song, you might like it again? Things might be better if you do it the way you used to?'

'But why?  Why do they want that? Why would I want to do that?'

'Well, that's you. You're the one who wrote the song, and did it that way, and it was great.'

'Yeah, but why would I want to do that? Why, when I've aready done it?'

Until that moment I'd never quite understood Miles Davis; his deliberate dissection of form. His insistence on playing one long note, or turning his back to the audience. in the same way I had a hard time appreciating contemporary artists like Mondrian, who painted one perfect black line across a canvas and called it a day.

But, sitting there with my old friend Peter Green, all of it made sense to me, and it has ever since. It was almost too much to bear. Peter had been so far ahead, he'd done all of what the rest of us had considered the only thing to do. He'd done all that could be done within the confines of structure so expertly that the only thing that made sense to him anymore was one bold black line on a blank page.'

- Mick Fleetwood in his autobiography Play On, recalling a conversation with co-founder of Fleetwood Mac, and 'best guitarist ever' Peter Green.

Leadership, leadership, leadership, leadership, leadership, leadership, leadership, leadership, leadership, leadership, leadership, leadership, leadership, leadership, leadership, leadership, leadership, leadership, leadership, leadership, leadership, leadership, leadership, leadership, leadership...blah, blah, blah.

Everyone's wanting leadership.

Really?

Leaders like Peter Green, Miles Davis or Mondrian?

The workplace won't tolerate the equivalent of the one black line worker.

Step outside the confines of structure in your job and you step into a one way conversation with your line manager assisted by a representative from HR.

Despite the leadership talk in organisations, they are inherently hostile to it. The workplace can't accommodate lots of people doing their own thing. It doesn't 'scale'. It's too chaotic and unmanageable. It's a threat to those in power.

The person who breaks structure, by definition breaks the organisation.

The person who plays one long note, or turns their back on the audience, or paints a single brush stroke - tends not to attract followers. Clients. Investors. Promotion.

They also rely on the First Follower if their rebellion is to evolve into Leadership.

Organisations and the people in them who call for more Leadership should be careful for what they wish for.

And know that - like Peter Green - anoint the rebel as Leader and she'll probably quit the band.

If she's not already been sacked.

Everything You Do Sends a Message.

'I have given you an example, that as I have done, so should you do.'

 - Jesus Christ, The Gospel of St Matthew

Everything.

If You're Happy And You Know It - Thank Your Boss.

One would assume that our boss - one of the biggest influences on our well being and happiness, and thus productivity, and thus their own well being and happiness and productivity, is applying the results of years of research, data, education, pedagogy, heuristics and science on how to get the best out of us.

After all - aren't we our boss's 'most important asset'?

She's done all that training, right? She's attended courses on everything - First Aid, Equal Opportunity, Work Health and Safety, Mental Well-being, iPads, Performance Management, Mediation and Meditation, Work-Life Balance, Difficult Conversations, Code of Conduct, Recycling, Train the Trainer, and of course, Good Decision Making.

She's got KPIs and budgets and 360 degree feedback and performance reviews and lists 'Teamwork' and 'People Person' and 'Leading High Performance Teams' on her LinkedIn page.

She's being measured and measuring within an inch or 2.54mm of her life.

It's all evidence based - isn't it? This whole management thing?...

(Psst....We have proof. She's making it up as she goes along. Every boss in the World is.)

A discussion paper released by researchers in Germany has found 'little research' anywhere in the World on how bosses affect the quality of the lives of their workers. Indeed, it claims its data and findings are the first of their kind. 

It's okay. The research evidence supports what a good boss has worked out for themselves.

The evidence 'is consistent with the view that boss competence is central to employee well-being and thus to the behavior of labor markets'.

The paper cites 'growing evidence' that ‘happier’ workers are more productive. (In true researcher style, they took into account potential for bias in more cheerful employees reporting higher levels of job satisfaction and boss competence.)

The researchers write:

'Bosses are, in principle, special workers because they are in charge. They make a range of important organizational decisions. Therefore, it may be desirable not to view a boss as just another factor of production, or as altering only the quality of an employee’s input through greater marginal product in the production function. Instead, it may be appropriate to view a boss as being able to shape the nature of the organization itself.'

The workers surveyed showed that while most thought that their boss couldn't do the worker's job if the worker was absent, their bosses were good at being....bosses.

Employees enjoy their jobs far more where the supervisor is assessed as 'technically competent'. 

Indeed, the data shows that the technical competence of the supervisor has double the effect on employee satisfaction than does the employee's wage.

The researchers conclude from the data that 'the quality of workers’ lives is higher if the supervisor is highly competent, in a technical sense, at his or her job.'

They acknowledge that the results are so intuitive as to be 'obvious'. But they argue that now we have proof that our boss can make us happy and therefore more productive, we need to do more research on how our boss can make us happy.

Perhaps it will show that a boss will be more likely to make us happy if she is happy.

And what might make our boss happy?

Probably us doing our job.

(Could it be that there's other stuff that bosses are making up as they go along?)

The Receptionist is a Leader.

''Decision'...or... 'Choice'?' Jonathon asked me.

'Same thing,' I said.

I was wrong.

''Choice' is selecting one of at least two options,' I later corrected myself to Jonathon. ''Decision' is the product of a good decision making process.'

I was happier with this distinction.

Until I read a 1980 article Shared Responsibility in Ecclesial Decision-Making by Robert T. Kennedy, a Canon Lawyer.

 He calls decision-makers 'choice makers'.

The decision/choice maker chooses between two or more options presented by what Kennedy calls 'idea people' - creative people who who have contributed their ideas towards a decision making process that arrives at the choices that are presented to the decision maker.

This view of decision making dramatically and constructively shifts deep and unsatisfying assumptions about power that are the source of much of the tension in workplaces.

As Kennedy says: 

‘To decide well, there is need for many, diverse talents. The rarity of finding all such talents in a single individual gives rise to the need for participation by many people. Influence and power, so far from being concentrated solely in the moment of choice, are diffused throughout all stages of the decision-making process. Responsibility for a decision does not rest solely with the choice-makers.’

'If the choice makers are choosing between two or more options presented by idea people – who really holds the power?'
 
‘Choice-makers are often held captive (for better or worse) by idea people.'

Kennedy's analysis flattens the hierarchy in organisations and communities between those who have authority to make decisions and the rest.

It also adds to our understanding of the role of the leader.

Kennedy says that what an organisation most needs from its leaders is 'facilitation of the decision making process'. The leader is responsible for identifying, drawing forward and coordinating the 'necessary gifts' among the team in service of the Widget.

Indeed, Kennedy says that 'A leader need not be a choice-maker, or data or idea person, or implementor or evaluator. The service of a leader is quite different and requires quite different talents.’

The Receptionist is a leader.

Kennedy also addresses the majority of disengaged workers who haunt our workplaces:
 
‘Irresponsible refusal to participate, moreover, is in its own way a form of sharing responsibility for a decision. We are responsible not only for what we do but also for what we refuse to do; withholding the contribution of our talent, therefore, creates responsibility in us for decisions poorly made because of our failure to participate.’

If we engage with the decision maker by applying our talents to the creation of choices that are presented to her, we are co-responsible for the decision - even if the 'choice' was not one that we presented. By adding our ideas to the options before the decision-maker, we have influenced her choice by allowing her to compare and contrast alternatives. She was only able to not choose our option because she had it as a comparison.

Kennedy's 'choice maker' analysis is also a powerful reminder to decision-makers and leaders that good decision making demands authentic relationships with the 'idea people' so that their gifts may be discerned and recruited to nourish the decision making process.
 

It's Not Working.

John is a manager who tosses a coin to decide half his decisions, only implements about two out of ten effectively anyway, and bases the majority on practices that are proven to fail.

John should be terminated.

Yet John is the average manager.

45% of managers use instinct to make decisions.

Only 15% of organisations can make and implement important decisions effectively.

Two of every three business decisions are based on failure prone practices.

95% of a typical workforce does not understand the organisation’s strategy.

90% of organisations fail to execute on strategies.

86% of executive teams spend less than one hour per month discussing strategy.

76% of Australian workers are disengaged from their jobs.

Australian bosses lose an average of three months per year productivity from each worker due to disengagement.

Australia ranks second last on productivity growth – ahead of Botswana.
 
 

Is the above average worker profile any wonder when John is her boss?

There is evidence that many organisations' priorities are not defined by productivity, customer or community service, share value or sales growth. They are defined by self-interest.

And yet...

Prescriptive decision making strategies [ie The Five Steps] in workplaces were more successful no matter what the urgency, importance, resource level, initial support, decision-maker level, industry sector or type of decision.

Want to be a 'high performing team'?

Teach and apply good decision making.

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.'

- David Walsh

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.

It's not about the Widget.

We're the They.

'No us and them. Just us.'

- Fr Greg Boyle

It sounded like a good idea.

She scheduled dozens of meetings to personally present the draft new workplace agreement to every one of the hundreds of staff members.

'We think that these new conditions are reasonable,' she repeated to each audience. 'But the Union disagrees. They won't negotiate with us. They are holding up the process.'

'We think that the increase in pay is generous,' she declared. 'But the Union wants more money and we can't afford it and so They are stalling your pay rises.'

The Union represented the staff in the agreement negotiations. One in five of the people in each audience was a Union member.

We were the They.

The manager calls a meeting to get advice.

'We need to confidentially access some staff computer and mobile phone logs to find evidence of misconduct.'

The IT Manager says 'We can do it and They won't know'. The Lawyer says 'We have legal authority and They don't need to consent.' The HR Adviser says 'We have contracts and They have agreed We have that power.' The Compliance Manager says 'We'll record that They did not need to consent.' The Line Manager says 'Good idea and They should know that We monitor them.' The Personal Assistant takes Minutes about what We will do to They. We nod that We agree with what needs to be done about They.

We vacate our chairs without making eye contact with a different team of advisers coming to meet with the manager and he closes his Open Door door. 

We return to our respective desks, and resume being They.

Advisers come and go from the manager's office closing the Open Door door.

Our spouses, work and social friends all wonder why we've changed to Gmail and have a new personal phone number and use it to text during business hours instead of email and don't update our Facebook and can't book the children's concert tickets online at 9am before they're sold out and don't come to Friday drinks with the boss as much and haven't re-nominated for the social committee and take a few more sick days and have asked the boss from our last job to be a referee.

The manager pays consultants to help him improve teamwork and morale.

'We'll run off-site trust games. They will love them. We'll put blindfolds on them and They will fall backwards and We'll catch them.'

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.

From Habits and Fears.

'The decision we will make....is a choice between....the habits and fears of the past, and the demands and opportunities of the future.'

- Gough Whitlam, Australian Prime Minister, 13 November 1972

'The Whitlam program as laid out in the 1972 election platform consisted three objectives: to promote equality, to involve the people of Australia in the decision-making processes of our land, and to liberate the talents and uplift the horizons of the Australian people.

This program is as fresh as it was when first conceived. It scarcely could be better articulated today.

Who would not say the vitality of our democracy is a proper mission of government and should not be renewed and invigorated.

Who can say that liberating the talents and uplifting the horizons of Australians is not a worthy charter for national leadership?'

- Noel Pearson, Eulogy for Gough Whitlam

'The essence of leadership is being aware of your fear, and seeing it in the people you wish to lead'

Seth Godin

'Am I any good? That's what I'd like to know and all I need to know.'

- Robert Frost, Four Times Pulitzer Prize winning Poet Laureate.

The first job of a Leader is to Create the Space.

Then invite us to raise our fearful eyes from white knuckles gripping our habits and towards our horizon.

And to remind us:

'You are good enough.' 

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.

Limitations Liberate.

'Leadership should be aimed at helping to free people from oppressive structures, practices and habits encountered in societies and institutions, as well as within the shady recesses of ourselves. Good leaders liberate.'

Amanda Sinclair, Leadership for the Disillusioned

A Leader Creates the Space.

This implies boundaries.

Boundaries give certainty of the resources - time, materials, people - with which to create.

Limits, rules, policies, regulations, contracts, processes, checklists - liberate.

The Leader, having created the space and its boundaries, stretches out her hand to us sheltering in our shady recesses and says:

'Come out and play!'

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.

Naïve Inquirer.

Scarlett's Mother: 'How do you feel after your [one year old] sister has screamed non-stop for an hour next to you in the back seat of the car?'

Four Year Old Scarlett: 'Puzzled'.