The Self-Cleaning Decision.
'We should also pay particular attention to the first decision we make in what is going to be a long stream of decisions...When we face one decision it might seem to us that this is just one decision without large consequences. But in fact, the power of the first decision can have such a long lasting effect that it can percolate into our future decisions for years to come. Given this effect, the first decision is crucial and we should give it an appropriate amount of attention.'
- Dan Ariely, Predictably Irrational
It's rarely practical to trace and review the great-great-great-great grandmother Decision that gave birth to the successive generations of decisions right down to the one that is now in labour in our brain.
The Five Steps to a Good Decision perform the kind of audit recommended by Dan Ariely without the need to identify and scrutinise the First Decision.
In Step 1, we remove our finger from the fight-or-flight trigger and surrender to the surrounding forces of emotions. We allow them to capture us so we can wallow in our solitary confinement of self-pity. We don't even try to put on the camouflage of reason and return to the decision making front. We lie on our bunk and sulk.
In Step 2, purged of our inward looking selfish emotions, we return to the external task at hand - serving our Widget - and name the issue before us that is relevant to our Widget work. We focus on what needs to be done today, and not what we did yesterday.
In Step 3, we assess the information that we have today, and gather more if we need it with an inquiring mind. We're looking at facts and data, not precedent.
In Step 4, we check for bias. We deliberately scan our thinking for anything that is obscuring our view of our Widget. We're filtering out echoes from past decisions.
In Step 5, we allow a hearing. We invite anyone who may be affected by our decision to go over our reasoning and see whether it supports our likely conclusion. We're bringing in an external reviewer to see if our options are backed up by data.
The Five Steps not only lead us to a good decision, they self-clean our brains of any residue that may taint the next decision.
Be attentively curious.
Life's Forcing Functions Ask: Who Do I Want to Become?
My friend Michael gave advice about operating gadgets that I often reflect on: 'If you have to force something, it's not the right way. You'll break it.'
A 'forcing function' is a step in a process designed to interrupt us. It forces us to pause and think before proceeding to the next step. It's usually a safety feature.
Closing a door before a microwave will operate is a forcing function. Child proof locks on the caps of bottles of medicine are another example.
Life has naturally occurring forcing functions:
- Time.
- Sleep.
- Emotion.
- Laws.
Organisations add to or tailor them:
- Contracts.
- Policies.
- Values.
- Budgets.
- Other People.
Each of these constraints forces us to pause in our stream of consciousness workflow, instinctive, opinion-based decision making - and to pay attention to what we're doing.
Yes - we could open the screw top faster if we didn't have to grip it at specified points and apply downward pressure while unscrewing.
Yes - we can get more work done by emailing in the evening and on weekends.
Yes - we can avoid the difficult conversation and ignore the poor performance.
Yes - we can use our positional power to override policies, ethics, emotions.
Yes - we can make decisions in one step instead of Five.
Yes - a monk could find God without having to live in community with other monks.
Yes - we can bypass the fiddly cap by smashing the bottle open.
Yet the higher and more permanent the stakes (prison, unemployment, loss of trust, eternal life), the more our evolution, jurisprudence and spiritual systems have designed the equivalents of the child-proof cap to interrupt our instinctive flow towards a decision so that we pay attention to what we're doing.
There's a good reason that the criminal justice system can take years to potentially put a person in prison. That an employee can't lose their job unless their boss follows the steps of procedural fairness. That we feel a twinge in our stomach at the thought of having a difficult conversation. That the more important the decision, the longer it should take. That it takes years for a monk to make final vows.
Forcing functions.
Not blocking our progress - just making us mindful of it.
We pause and deliberate on what we're doing, who we're doing it to, and who we want to become.
One of the top myths in Leadership Lore is that Leadership is hard and reserved for a special few because it demands high stakes decisions to be made under pressure that are too difficult intellectually or emotionally for lesser, more timid beings.
Many leaders - new and experienced - conclude that their sole job is to deploy their positional power to ignore or bypass the laws, policies, processes, values, emotions, promises, information and other forcing functions that have hindered the non-leaders from making a decision.
If the leader won't use their power - then what's the point of having it?
Leadership Lore says that the function of the leader is to bypass forcing functions and get things done.
Yet even a 12 year old knows this is not the bravery that defines Leadership.
Where does the leader of Leadership Lore get this power?
We give it to them.
When we encounter something that is hard - in work or in Life - we pine for a Leader.
Not for their wisdom, patience, humility, trust, curiosity, compromise, intellect, pacifism, service, vulnerability, love...
We want their power.
Our Leader smashes the bottle open.
Hooray! Decisive! Effective! Uncompromising! Fast! Courageous! Heroic!
We return to our desks and homes - relieved that someone has Led.
Tiny shards of fear embedded in our souls.
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.
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.'
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.
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.
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.
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.
Doing It Without Emotion.
'When I first started I'd have the laptop open and into reviewing the game as soon as I possibly could. So an hour after the game and long into the night at times.
Most games these days I don't do anything the night afterwards.
Just to have a bit of clear space to make sure that I'm doing it without emotion.'
- Brad Scott, Head Coach of North Melbourne Football Club
The First Step of the Five Steps to a Good Decision is to Step Back.
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?)
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 Only Way to Learn.
Sergeant Mortellaro - My Drill Sergeant during Officers Training School
“I have already chose my officer.”
And what was he?
Forsooth, a great arithmetician...
That never set a squadron in the field,
Nor the division of a battle knows...
- 'Othello', William Shakespeare
'The problem is that when we're new to something or when we're approaching intermediate skill at something, it gets dangerous. Because you need to have an awareness about how much more you could learn. There's the cataract of not being great at something that makes it difficult to know what you need to learn to get better. The only way to learn that is from other people. It's very difficult on your own.'
- Merlin Mann
When you become the boss for the first time, you're dangerous.
Lots of positional power and no experience of how to use it.
You've made lots of widgets so well that you've been put in charge of other people making widgets. They're completely different skills with only the widget in common. You're an arithmetician - full of the theory. Or maybe not even that.
Sure - you've had lots of leadership role models:
Parents. Older siblings. School teachers. The drill sergeants in the movies.
That's not the worst of it. As Merlin Mann says, you may not know that you don't know. Or if you do, you can't show it. Your people will eat you alive. Your boss wants you to deliver from day one. You've got to be strong. Decisive even. That's what they do in the movies.
So you set about being Mum, Dad, older sister, home room teacher and Gunnery Sergeant Carter. You stop being yourself.
Your people will teach you what it takes to be a good boss. Ask them. Engage them in good decision making.
Yes it's risky. They may take advantage of you.
Which is why they won't.
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.
Preside.
From the very beginning, Obama has been a presider rather than a decider. His modus operandi is to marshal existing political forces toward a particular, prgmatic set of goals.
- Andrew Sullivan
A good Leader Creates a Space.
She presides over that Space.
She holds it.
The measure of her power is not in what she does.
It's in what others do in that space.
It takes strength for her to hold that space against the forces that batter against it. Time. Money. Efficiency. Expediency. Fear. Ego.
And the most powerful of them all - her self-doubt.
'Preside' comes from the Latin praesidere - to stand guard over.
Anyone who creates a space and protects the process of discernment and decision making within - is a Leader.
Golf.
'It was 'process' and 'spot.' That was it.'
- Rory McIlroy, 2014 British Open Golf Championship Winner
Rory McIlroy had teased journalists all week about two 'secret words' that he used before each golf shot. He'd reveal them if he won.
He won.
Process. Spot.
"With my long shots, I just wanted to stick to my process and stick to making good decisions, making good swings," he said. "The process of making a good swing, if I had any sort of little swing thoughts, just keeping that so I wasn't thinking about the end result, basically."
It's all about the Widget. It's not about the Widget.
'Spot' was before each putt.
"I was just picking a spot on the green and trying to roll it over my spot," he said. "I wasn't thinking about holing it. I wasn't thinking about what it would mean or how many further clear it would get me. I just wanted to roll that ball over that spot. If that went in, then great. If it didn't, then I'd try it the next hole."
A good putt is one that advances you towards the hole.
A good decision is one that advances you towards where you want to be.
Good decision making is a deliberate process of inquiry that advances you towards where you want to be.
Process. Spot.
Power.
'The law always limits every power it gives.'
- David Hume
Step 2 of the Five Steps to a Good Decision: Name the Issue.
It's only an Issue if you have the power to make a decision in support of your Widget.
Ask: What power do I have?
Look for it in your contract.
Look for it in your policies.
Look for it in what your boss has said she expects of you.
No power? Then there is no Issue and therefore no decision required of you. Inform someone who does have the power.
Power?
Then ask:
What are the conditions or restrictions on the exercise of that power?
Welcome them. They give focus. Quieten the noise.
If you have a power - you have limits.
Be clear on what they are.
(You'll often find them in your Values.)
Then continue to Step 3.
Backed.
'Decisions made by my Chief of Staff and my Office have my full backing and authority. Anyone who suggests otherwise is wrong.'
When your boss says 'I'll back you,' - and she does - that's arguably one of the greatest gifts.
And a huge burden.
Pass both on.
Say: 'I'll back you,' to your people.
Say: 'I'll back you,' to your customers.
Say: 'I'll back you,' to yourself.
Feel your burden ease.
Feel the anxiety in your chest.
Backing them isn't a sentimental leap of faith into the unknown.
When you back them. When you promise them - or at least yourself - that they act with your authority and that you will stand by their decisions regardless of the outcome and accept all the consequences - you realise you're utterly compelled to:
- Know them
- Clearly define their expectations
- Define their Widget
- Equip them with everything you have - especially information
- Affirm them
- Get out of their way
When I reflect on my good bosses.
My peers.
My parents.
I think that the message - in words and deeds - of 'I'll back you,' taught me the most about work, myself, and life.
'I'll back you,' says: 'I believe in you. Go and become that person I see and believe in.'
[Now think of the converse and understand how damaging and destructive it can be not to have the backing of a boss. It wounds our soul.]
[Now think of a boss who backed you - and write to them and thank them for the faith they showed in you.]
Laying down your life for another isn't as literal as the mournful notes of the Last Post honouring war dead have us believe.
It's putting yourself at risk to back another.
Is this the answer to how we bring Love into our workplaces?
The Greatest Love?
By backing each other?
Punish.
'At an early stage Abbott defined his priorities: securing the site, returning the bodies, an independent inquiry, and punishing the guilty.
Each day his sense of mission is clearer. It is the key to crisis management. Abbott said late yesterday he had but one purpose: "to bring our people home"...'
The unconscious priority of decision makers is often the reverse: finding and punishing the guilty, then finding the information that supports the decision to punish.
Our decision making is influenced by the need to punish more than we realise.
(We don't make decisions - we make 'judgements'.)
Vengeance. Deterrence. Retribution. Justice.
No organisation other than the state can give any of these.
None should behave as if they can.
This subconscious need to punish is also why some won't make a decision.
'Who am I to judge?'
If we're not the decision maker, we project that assumption onto the person who is.
We won't offer information relevant to a decision.
'What if I'm wrong? I don't want to be responsible for what happens to someone else.'
We don't want to lead someone to the hangman's noose.
It's just information.
How do we avoid being distracted by our punishment bias?
Clarity of our Mission. Our Purpose.
