Come to the Edge.
Come to the edge.
We might fall.
Come to the edge.
It's too high!
COME TO THE EDGE!
And they came
And he pushed
And they flew.
A perk of being a lawyer is that you learn a little about a lot in the course of taking instructions from clients and asking questions about their work and lives that will help tailor the legal advice.
An airman explained to me about microfails. The way I remember it, every new aircraft type is put in a test laboratory and subjected to flexing and bending and other forces that replicate the stresses it will experience in flight. The airframe's responses are electronically measured and calibrated into units called 'micro fails'. When the airframe finally breaks, the engineers and designers know how many micro fails it took to do so and therefore its tolerance to the unpredictable forces of flight.
An airframe's life is calculated as being as long as it takes to suffer a certain number of micro fails. An aircraft that does a lot of high stress manoeuvres that result in G forces on it will suffer more micro fails in a flight than if it flew straight and level. It will therefore have a shorter life.
Instruments in the aircraft detect and record each micro fail. The engineers monitor the total and when it reaches certain amounts, they will replace parts of the airframe, and 'rewind' the micro fail measurement instrument to zero.
MIcro fails are invisible. As the name suggests, they are tiny fractures of the integrity of the airframe that gradually degrade its strength until the point when one too many stressors adds the micro fail that breaks the aeroplane.
The airman who came to see me was alleging that the engineers were rewinding the micro fail measuring instruments to avoid having to ground the aircraft and put them into maintenance.
People have micro fails in response to forces around them in the workplace.
Missed promotion. Bang. A hundred micro fails.
Frustrating meeting. Shudder. Ten micro fails.
Brusque email written in haste. Ouch. Two micro fails.
A name forgotten. One micro fail. Catastrophic explosive decompression resulting in loss of a sense of proportion and humour and crash landing into stress leave.
Everyone has a unique total micro fail capacity before they break. A boss can rarely predict the stressor that will push the worker beyond their limit. It's not always the obvious less than perfect act of management. It might be an innocent misunderstanding. Crack.
Organisations wrongly assume that a new employee starts on zero (ignoring the legacy of their last job and their life in general) and assume to standardise the total micro fails for each employee by their contract, policies, pay and values.
People also wrongly assume that quitting a job and finding a new one will reset their micro fail metre to zero. There's almost always leftover fatigue that transfers to the new boss.
Organisations have various ways of doing the people maintenance that they again assume allows them to rewind the individual and collective worker micro fail meters to zero from time to time
Pay increases.
Leave.
Promotions.
Public praise.
Sometimes bosses just replace the people frames for new ones.
Worse, they introduce the equivalent of fraudulently rewinding the meter by running a professional development or team building day, introducing some new values of code of conduct, or emailing out inspiring and motivating words.
After the butchers paper has been binned, the mandatory training has been completed, the all staff email has been deleted - a boss chips a worker in front of their peers and deep inside the metal of each witness staff member, fissures grow and the individual micro fail tally resumes its countdown to breakdown.
Legions of experts, lawyers, consultants, therapists and researchers make their living both inside and external to organisations from training, advising, measuring, mentoring, coaching, facilitating, supporting, assisting, delaying, mending and covering up the human equivalent of the micro fail.
It's mainly placebos. Good and bad bosses alike are never sure what act of theirs will be the one too many.
A bad boss can routinely be bad and his workers will keep on building Widgets.
A good boss may omit one name from a speech acknowledging thirty others and the entire office is sprayed with debris and body parts from the disintegrating staff member for months afterwards.
So we keep on legislating, regulating, training, coaching and parenting in a vain attempt to smooth out the turbulence of the workplace and keep everybody happy.
It's not working. It can't. We can keep rewinding the meter or flying straight and level and avoiding tight turns and gravity, but we're deluding ourselves and each other.
As M Scott Peck wrote in the opening sentence of his book 'The Road Less Travelled':
“Life is difficult. This is a great truth, one of the greatest truths. It is a great truth because once we truly see this truth, we transcend it. Once we truly know that life is difficult-once we truly understand and accept it-then life is no longer difficult. Because once it is accepted, the fact that life is difficult no longer matters.”
The workplace is part of Life. It's difficult. The more we seek to protect people from the stressors of doing their jobs with good and bad bosses, peers, subordinates, clients, customers, machines, and gravity, the greater disservice we do to them by denying them the opportunity to confront Peck's Great Truth, learn from it, and to transcend it. All in a relatively safe environment - the workplace - compared to the unpredictability of the rest of Life where there is no boss to blame for what befalls us, and often no Widget to measure our bearings from.
I checked with my Aeronautical Engineer friend Francisco about my memory of micro fails. He'd never heard of them. He works on modern Boeing 787s.
'I think that you're referring to aircraft structures of the past that were built with a safe life,' he said. 'Newer aircraft are fail safe.'
We need to rethink our 'work frame' design and maintenance. We need to evolve from our artificial 'safe life' philosophy of minimising the consequences of engaging with the healthy human stressors that arise from doing any job that's worthwhile - ie Life. We need to stop demanding that the boss shields us from the natural turbulence and forces of doing innovative, creative, speed-of-sound work.
We need workers to become the equivalent of fail safe and bosses with the wisdom and bravery to allow it.
We need to come to the edge so that we can fly.
Joy to the World.
'But then I had an epiphany. That was the only reason I hated the job was because I was doing it the way people had always done it. Badly.'
- James Risen, Pulitzer Prize Winning Journalist
One of my early Air Force bosses called me into his office one evening after I'd stopped by to say that I was going home.
'You need to think about whether you should be working back,' he said as I stood in his doorway.
I looked at my watch. It was 6pm. No Air Force Officer in Headquarters worked back after 4.30pm. Just ask any Army officer.
'It's...6pm, Sir...' I said from confusion rather than insubordination.
'I mean working back on work that you don't enjoy...' he replied.
This was years before George Constanza said: 'When you look annoyed all the time, people think that you're busy.'
Being busy is synonymous with working hard. Working hard means that the work is important. Only important people do important work. We want to feel important. We want to feel that we're spending our lives doing something worthwhile.
Scan the faces at a meeting and expressions from a dentist's waiting room.
The more sombre the expression, the more serious the work.
Another of my Air Force bosses was asked why Legal Officers don't wear a distinguishing badge on our uniforms. 'Our hang-dog looks are the giveaway,' he said.
If we laugh or are animated, we can't be taking our job seriously.
Like too much behaviour in workplaces, stony demeanours are theatre. Performance Art. Marketing.
If a worker directing the filming of a rock concert for a DVD that's also beaming live to an audience of millions can dance and cheer and clap in his office, then I can crack a smile in mine.
If a worker who's saving burn victims' lives can show passion as she assesses one of 28 bombing survivors queuing to be treated, then I suppose I can engage with others in meetings.
But if I smile, laugh, joke - what will people think?
Hamish Hamilton doesn't care. He acknowledged his critics' opinions about his directing and went back to work at the Oscars. He loves his job. It doesn't matter what others think.
Dr Fiona Wood doesn't care. She focusses on her Widget and the 99% of good news stories in the world and concentrates on her goal of scarless healing of patients.
As the actor and comedian Paul Hogan said in an interview:
'When you go into this business you very quickly learn that there's a lot of people who like what you do and they're entertained by it. There's a lot of people, for reasons best known to themselves, really can't stand you and have got it in for you and want to see you fail. But the thing to remember is that the great, great majority in the middle...don't even think about you. They see you on stage...entertaining...and they think 'Oh, that was good'. And then get on with their own lives. There are some people in this business who obsess over the ones who...now the trend is to call them 'Haters'. Anyone who doesn't love what you do is a 'Hater'....What's that poor kid, Justin Bieber? He talks about 'The Haters'. No Justin! They're not 'Haters'. They just don't give a shit about you.'
Who is this audience for our pout, frown, sneer, or hang dog look?
Maybe the lack of joy in our work isn't the boss's fault after all. Maybe it's because we're doing our job badly?
We really should seek joy in our work.
Because where Joy, or 'gladness' intersects the world's deep need - there's our Vocation.
Peace Among the Thorns.
Per Ardua Ad Astra - Through Difficulties to the Stars.
The Latin motto of the Royal Australian Air Force.
Pax Inter Spinas - Peace Among the Thorns.
The Latin motto of the Benedictine monks.
This is that motto in a logo form as it was in the mid 20th century.
See the Pax - Peace - clearly surrounded by thorns with three nails at its base.
This is that motto in a logo form in 2014.
See the thorns that once surrounded the Pax have been softened into a laurel wreath? The three nails replaced by the 'Three Mounds of Perfection'? (Faith, Hope, Love.)?
I can hear the Marketing Consultant: 'The Peace bit is awesome. People will love that. Not so much the Thorns bit though. Like...Lose the Thorns. And Love. Can you, like, add something about Love? Love's a sure winner. Yeah. Peace and Love. And you know what? Wrap them in a laurel wreath. People love laurel wreaths. Olympics and all that. Awesome!'
In 2014 we want the Peace. We won't suffer thorns to find it.
Save us from Difficulties.
Just give us the Stars.
Leave the Idiot Work to the Idiots.
'Leave the idiot work to the idiots.'
A bishop's answer when asked to define Subsidiarity - so the story goes.
The blunt interpretation is proof that even the noblest values can be demeaned and misappropriated.
Subsidiarity is the principle that says a decision should be made at the lowest appropriate level.
Subsidiarity allows each person their dignity.
It is a principle of social justice that, while used by the Roman Catholic Church, is wrongly attributed to it (and therefore possibly ignored!) It predates the Church and has universal application to good decision making. Its universality is demonstrated in the fact that it is part of the Treaty on European Union.
'Subsidiarity' stems from the Latin subsidies, which means 'help, assistance'. And here, as with all good ideas, is where it goes wrong.
The person who is interested in power, practices subsidiarity by choosing what power to delegate to those below him in the hierarchy. To him, subsidiarity is throwing crumbs from the decision making table. This apparent act of generosity and power sharing upon which most organisations operate has its sinister side. The person receiving the crumbs becomes dependent on the person throwing them.
The other version of where subsidiarity comes from is subsidiaries, which means 'of or belonging to the reserves'. In the Roman army, the reserves waited in the rear in case the front line army needed them to overcome a superior enemy. The reserve army did not initiate action, it waited to be called up. It strengthened, reinforced and perfected an act already begun.
In good decision making, subsidiarity presumes that a person should be left to make their own decisions - even 'wrong' ones - without interference from a superior authority. That 'superior' authority can be in a family, a community, an organisation, a state, or the world.
A person will concede part of their individuality as part of their membership of one of those groups. They may also concede some of their decision making authority. But only to the extent necessary to benefit the whole, from which they benefit.
If the authority that the person has conceded as part of their membership of the group is exercised 'beyond the necessary', then the group begins to destruct. The reason is that the person is unable to exercise the talents that they have brought to the group. As the group can only define itself by its works - the sum of each person's talents - then the loss of part of those talents means that the group is not able to function.
In short - subsidiarity requires that each person has as much autonomy and responsibility as possible, and as much control or intervention by a higher authority as necessary.
Individual initiative should only be limited where it is absolutely unavoidable.
The benefit of subsidiary to the higher authority is that it can focus with greater freedom and energy and effectiveness to tasks belonging to it, and to which it alone can accomplish.
Ironically, subsidiarity is one of the reasons to have a higher authority. Such authority exists to create the space to enable people to discover their potential. If the higher authority moves into that space then it contradicts its reason for being. If the boss starts interfering - for well meaning or other reasons - in the decisions and actions of the workers, the boss isn't doing his job.
The higher authority assists by removing obstacles to the person that the person can't remove themselves, or that are otherwise more effectively removed by the higher authority so that the person can focus on their core business.
A Leader practises subsidiarity when they create the space; when they define the purpose and invite the right person to stretch their potential towards it; when they equip the person with the tools that they need to leverage their talents, when they affirm without intervention, when they retreat...
Sadly, it is a perversion of subsidiarity that is most commonly practised. It is that a worker starts as an empty vessel - a human resource. The worker is loaded with information and authority and power by the boss to the extent that the boss feels necessary. The boss adds or removes that cargo as he thinks fit. The boss sets that vessel adrift, attached to a rope.
In short - the worker's power only exists in as much as it has been given to him by the boss. This is what most people mean by 'delegation'.
A healthy organisation recruits people who have existing talents that the organisation needs. It then lets them get on with the job. The boss's job is to remove the obstacles.
And stay out of the way.
I Brush Teeth for Me.
'I brush teeth for me. It ends up being useful for the world as well, but I don't have to analyse whether this is the right day to brush my teeth. It's just a thing that I do.'
- Merlin Mann.
The best analogy for the perfect job?
Challenge Them Into the Future.
Dr Fiona Wood, AM is one of the world's leading plastic surgeons who specialises in burns patients. Earlier this year she was interviewed about what she had learned from her surgical research and practice about Good Decision Making and Leadership.
She started where all Leadership and Good Decision Making begins - the Widget - or 'purpose' as Dr Wood described it:
'I think decision making is something that you have to really take on - I was almost going to say a level of aggression - but a level of purpose might be a better term. Because you have to make a decision. There is someone in front of you that needs your help - you have to make a decision.
Dr Wood acknowledged that decision making is cumulative - that each decision informs the next:
'That decision may not be right – you have to take that. You have to understand that the decision you've made, the action you've taken, has led to then making the next decision. Sometimes it will be right, sometimes wrong. You've just got do deal with it with a level of purpose. And so you bring to the table all your experience - the knowledge that brought you to that point. And it's a question really of visualising the outcome.'
Her Widget focus is paramount in her thinking, and relies on the systems that have been developed to support it:
'I see this individual....If you meet me as a professional you're having a bad day. So they are damaged, and now I want to use everything in my power, in our systems that we work in, in our systems and the knowledge that is out there to make their path to the outcome the very best it can be.'
Even though in each operation she is focussed on the person before her on that day, she maintains her disciplined focus on a more strategic Widget. Each patient illuminates the path to her Widget, yet in such a way that nether the immediate needs of her patient, or the longer term Widget journey is compromised:
'And the outcome that I've visualised for many, many years is scarless healing. We've changed the goalpost. We've inched doggedly there...are we there all the time? Absolutely not. But we're making progress. So it's visualising that outcome and making every play such that you can move it closer to that outcome day by day. And it's learning. It's always taking the blinkers off and learning so that whatever the decisions you've made today, you make sure that you make better ones tomorrow. And that has been actually an entrenched coping strategy to make sure that you critically analyse the work of today to make sure that tomorrow is better.'
Dr Wood's focus does not mean that she is blind to other new information that can serve her Widget:
'I see people out there that do nanotechnology, or genetics or all sorts of different things - psychology, neuroscience and they've got parts of my jigsaw. I need to get parts of that jigsaw and bring it in to play here. And therefore you have to make decisions on lots of different levels. But when you pare that all away you look at the person in front of you, you've got to get the removal of the dead tissue without them bleeding out such that you can repair them the best you can with today's technology such that you set them up for the best outcome.'
Her Widget focus allows her to quickly engage a surgical team with the needs of each patient:
'I teach my guys: As you walk in you make sure you connect with everybody in the room and if there's people you've never seen before you write everything on the board that you're going to do. You should not be making the decisions while you're doing it. You should have visualised it - you go in knowing what you're going to do and knowing your escape routes. So all of that has to be in your mind. And you have to see the landscape. What is it that you've got to work with in terms of your human resources - and engage them. Make sure they understand what you're trying to do and feel the passion - feel that for that period of time the only focus is for that individual. And that's a really important part of the whole. Engaging everyone.'
Dr Wood explained how the path towards the Widget is a meandering one, and that we should not measure our progress on the result of one decision alone:
'The outcomes have got to get better every day. And it's not linear. I don't live in an environment where every day that passes your chance of survival increases. It's not linear - it's a roller coaster. The waves of infection come relentlessly over, unless we've completely sealed - the person weakens and weakens and weakens. A third of the patients who don't survive will survive somewhere around three months. And they're hard days.'
Dr Wood affirmed Step 1: Step Back as being important in good decision making:
'We have this concept that 'Oh, it's macho to keep going'. But it isn't macho to keep going if your performance falls away. And so for a long, long time I've been very aware of people around me and trying to work out who needs to be rotated out...and so it's having that awareness and as I've got older, I don't stay in and so part of it is rotating yourself out, so that it becomes acceptable....
Dr Wood's ideas on leadership are consistent with Creating the Space and Defining the Purpose and inviting people into that space and using the focus on the Purpose as vehicles to reach their potential:
'I think leadership…Vision...is really interesting. Because I believe that everybody can dream. I think leadership is giving people permission to dream. Because I think if you take the time to listen to people you'd be amazed at what they dream. And then you encompass that dream into a vision.'
Yet always the laser Widget focus:
'I saw a child in 1985 and it changed my life. I thought 'That child is so badly injured from a cup of coffee?' We've got to be able to do better. I've carried that photograph around with me for a long time.'
Dr Wood addressed the potential for conflict between Widget focus and learning where we are in relation to our Widget, and the need to get the day-to-day work done. She described the importance of being disciplined in routine and preparation in order to be creative:
'What we want to be is innovative problem solvers but we want to generate outcomes on a regular basis. In every field of endeavour that is a conflict - on the surface of it. But when you start to dig a little bit deeper… I indicated that it is not appropriate to be making decisions about where you cut when it's right there in front of you. You've made those decisions previously. You've visualised. you've gone to the table - whatever table it is - with your outcome in mind and understanding the opportunities you've got to get there. So there’s an element of planning almost on the run all the time. It's getting into the habit.'
She affirmed the idea that good decision making is being confident enough about what you know, to be attentively curious about what you don't:
'What is it that I bring to the table? What's my experience? What's my knowledge? The lawyers do it all the time with precedent, looking back at old cases. Get into the habit that it's always ticking over. Questioning the landscape. And I think underpinning that is a fundamental belief that today is not as good as it gets. Not in that you criticise today. It's not bad. It's the best it can be - today.'
Dr Wood's approach to learning is to seek out feedback. She goes beyond a healthy belief in relying on the power of complaints to provide it. In fact, why wait for a complaint to inform you, and assume that if there is none that you are doing okay? She advocates declaring your understanding of your Widget to the world and inviting it to comment:
'As you've finished, as you've closed up and you walk away, you don't strut. You actually think 'Okay - given that same situation happens tomorrow, how could I have analysed it better, and then you go through the whole exercise again…the debrief. That's not specifically surgery, It's not specifically sport. It's part of exercising your mind. And the next step is doing that in public. Because that's when it starts getting exciting because there's absolutely no doubt we're in an environment where you need multiple minds to solve problems. And so you have to have that level of inquiry and sort of ticking over and then you connect. And you start to develop a language of innovation and visualisation. So you can push forward.'
Dr Wood shared her belief in the value of 'trauma' as a stimulus to growth, extending the literal trauma to her patients' longer term recovery and resilience, to a metaphor about character:
'I can track periods of my life where I went through post traumatic growth. And it wasn't painless. The hardest thing for me post Bali was that people wanted to know my name. Yet I recognised that as part of that I became stronger. And I became able to engage in this positive energy, in this positive good news stories. And I had my blinkers taken off such that i engaged with the community in a broader sense....How we can use energy that is so profoundly negative and turn that around - I think that's fascinating. It's tiring sometimes. And it's hard. But part of that post traumatic growth is having the infrastructure around you, having the people and connectivity around you that give you the ability to lead.'
She had some powerful advice to give on how to deal with criticism and how innovation challenges conventional thought about 'the way things are done':
'There's an element of inertia in practice. Whether that be clinical practice or business practice...This level of inertia is really quite an interesting animal. Because it's useful, but it's also a hindrance. We need to have a level of capacity to maintain things moving forward at a pace that can be managed. And equally, we have to have people testing out the front. And so I have engaged with surgical inertia up front and centre and I've had to make the decision not to engage in that negative energy but to continue to be driven by the positive outcome, collect the data, present the data. And as the things roll forward, the data will speak for itself. And so that inertia starts to be overcome. And I think that the challenge when you're in a situation with that level of inertia is to understand you've got a choice. You turn around and you fight it…and it's bigger than you. Or you stay out the front and you wait for them to catch up. And they get there.'
Yet always returning to the supremacy of the Widget - and the need for a leader to be clear about defining it to the team, regardless of how clear it is to her or how passionate she is about it:
'I had a really interesting lesson in leadership inadvertently in the early 90s. 1991 I hit the ground running. I was very focussed on time to healing. Every day in a burns unit is a day too long. I aggressively engaged in a skin culture programme....the social worker at the time who was a bit older than the rest of us came and said 'Stop!' I thought 'What do you mean, Stop? ‘Sit down. I need to talk to you. I've been asked to come and speak with you. Well you're too intimidating.’ (Give me a break! )‘We understand that what you're doing has got to be right. It's got to have some real benefit. But we don't know what it is. We can feel your passion. We have no idea how we can explain it to the parents, to the patients, to their relatives, to the new nurses when they come on. We're all at sea…’
Dr Wood learned the definition that a leader is someone who makes good decisions that others choose to follow:
'Leadership 101. No team - no leader. Done. The elastic was at breaking point and almost snapping behind me. And had I not had that energy that they all got caught up in, it would have snapped well and truly. So that's the point when I said 'Right. Everybody who's at this table is here for a reason. You've got to be able to be leaders in your own right....Passion on its own doesn't cut it. The communication bit has to be strong.'
A Leader retreats:
There is absolutely no point in me being so entrenched that as I get through my final kick, everything fades away. Succession is so important. It's not because I want to be remembered. It's because the people need treating! And they need to be treated better and better and better. So for me, it's delegation. But delegation with meaning. Empowerment in a real sense. I need to let them deliver. Such that I can get out of my head, get it on paper and challenge them into the future. But in a way that is not intrusive. Not imposing my surgical inertia on them. But allowing them to grow.
Dr Wood leads a team in Good Decision Making in life and death situations. It's not just theory to her. She is still able to use the language of 'dreams', 'visualisation', 'mistakes', 'passion', 'innovation' and 'personal growth' while literally operating at the leading edge of science.
If Dr Wood can save lives while still creating the space for these ideals that allow others to become who they are, then most workplaces have no excuse.
This is Leadership.
'With the greatest leader above them people barely know one exists.
The great leader speaks little. He never speaks carelessly. He works without self-interest and leaves no trace. When all is finished, the people say, "We did it ourselves." '
- The 17th Verse of the Tao Te Ching.
Create the Space.
Define the Purpose.
I Am Involved in Mankind.
'No man is an island entire of itself; every man
is a piece of the continent, a part of the main;
if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe
is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as
well as any manner of thy friends or of thine
own were; any man's death diminishes me,
because I am involved in mankind.
And therefore never send to know for whom
the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.'
- John Donne
What information moves us?
One Australian cricketer is killed by a ball bowled during a game of cricket.
28 people are killed by missiles fired from drones for each terrorist suspect killed.
Step 4 of the Five Steps to a Good Decision: Check for Bias.
Information refracts and bends through our biases.
Recognise this and pay attention to it.
We're human.
Spiritual Coffee Pods.
'We're expecting the next generation of domestic espresso coffee machines to include a coffee pod option,' the manager of the coffee machine retailer told me.
'It's inevitable that coffee pods will take over the market and we'll see fewer traditional barista style machines.'
'Manufacturers are mixing in powdered milk and chocolate and other flavourings and additives to the coffee pods. We're making our own blend. We're trying to fit more than the standard 7g of coffee into each pod to increase the strength and flavour.'
The satisfaction of a cup of coffee without the grinding and tamping and mess.
Instant and convenient satisfaction.
In 1950 95% of Australians believed in some form of higher power.
A 2006 world survey found that youth from Australia and the United Kingdom were the least likely to observe religious practice or see any 'spiritual dimension' to life.
Meanwhile:
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.
Opinion is Currency.
'We live in an era where opinion is currency.'
- Andy Miller
So many meetings are just people taking turns to kick their opinions furtherest around a cul-de-sac.
In my opinion.
One Leader is One Too Many.
'It is easy to derail an expert and ruin their performance. All that you have to do is force them to follow the rules.'
- Andy Hunt, Pragmatic Thinking and Learning
We write the job advertisement.
An invitation.
Sparkling with carefully crafted words of seduction.
'Come! Work with us!'
'We want you to bring your best self and help us to be better!'
You accept the invitation.
'I offer my Best Self to you.'
We choose you. That Best Self.
Seduction becomes Induction.
Rules, policies, values, visions, missions, hierarchies, teams, codes, reviews.
We overwhelm You and turn You into Us. Into a Team Player.
Left!...Left!..Left, Right, Left!
Another job advertisement.
'We need Innovators!'
'We need Leaders!'
Do Your Job.
A minute into addressing the media on the death of his team mate Phillip Hughes, the Captain of the Australian Cricket Team Michael Clarke falters under the weight of his emotions.
He pauses.
He whispers to himself:
'Do your job.'
Then delivers his statement.
Widget Focus.
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.
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.