The Controller Accepted Jurisdiction

'I....do swear that I will truly and honestly demean myself in the practice of a barrister and solicitor of the Supreme Court of Western Australia according to the best of my knowledge and ability.'

- Oath taken on admission as a legal practitioner.

The Report on Investigation into Loss of separation between Airbus A330 VH-EBO and Airbus A330 VH-EBS near Adelaide SA on 20 September 2013 referred a number of times to the air traffic controllers 'accepting jurisdiction'. For example:

'The controller accepted jurisdiction for the track of the eastbound 747 at 1204:58.'

'Accepted jurisdiction.' What a great way of saying 'The controller accepted authority to act.'

I had a boss in the corporate world who used to ask when he wanted a report on the progress of a client engagement: 'Who owns that relationship?'

Step 2 of the Five Steps to a Good Decision is to Define the Issue.

One way of the decision maker defining her issue amidst the noise of opinions and competing self-interests is to ask herself: 'Do I have the authority to make a decision that will advance my boss's Widget?'

Do I have the power? The authority? The jurisdiction? Where can I find the source of that power? In my contract of employment? A policy? What elements need to be in play to trigger my power to act? If I don't have the power - who does so I may 'offer them jurisdiction'.

Jurisdiction is a fine word for another reason.

The controller was required to make decisions. Not at their whim and discretion and subjective opinion. The origin of the word 'jurisdiction' is the Latin jur - law - dictio - saying.

To have jurisdiction - decision making power - requires the decision maker to speak the law. To give effect to a higher power. The controller's job was to serve and animate the will of a higher authority.

Or put another way, the controller's job was not to meet their needs - but the needs of their boss's Widget.

'Demean' is a word not often used, and when it is, it is in a pejorative context. It is about as unfashionable as the word 'obedience'.

Law graduates seeking admission to practice used to have to swear to demean ourselves to the Law. To humble ourselves. To put ourselves beneath. To serve.

I think this concept may be what organisations are grasping for when they speak of being 'committed to...'. They mean - demean. To make everything else secondary.

When we truly accept the jurisdiction for our Widget - to 'speak its truth';  
When we undertake to demean ourselves in the building of our Widget - put our egos aside and serve it;  
Then we liberate ourselves from so much of the distractions, self-interest and trivialities that sabotage good decision making.

Too much? Too heavy? Too...demeaning?

Then don't accept the job. Or quit.

The Cruisers Club.

'If we become preoccupied with prescribing, recording and counting the ordinary, and defining procedures for doing those things, then there is little opportunity to even tolerate, let alone promote the extraordinary.'

- Associate Professor Stephen Cohen
 

We heard the Corporal Physical Training Instructor in the pre-dawn black before we saw him. Which is why we were chatting and shuffling because we thought he was waiting for us back at the gym from where we started our 5km run twenty minutes earlier. The routine was that the PTI told us to walk around the gym in a clockwise - or as we called it 'PT-wise' - direction for three laps accompanied by The B-52s' Roam  - then sent us off to the other side of the airfield and back. Not this morning.

'Sirs! Stop!'

We fell silent and halted in front of the muscle bound shape of the Corporal. He didn't speak for a few seconds to allow the silence to betray our lack of panting and further incriminate us.

'Sirs, youse are the the last group.' We saw his head look back to where we had come from. 'Except for Ma'am - youse are the last.' 'Ma'am' was one of our Officers Training School course members who we had nicknamed 'Twenty One Forty' after the time it had taken her to run our initial 2.4km Physical Fitness Test (PFT) in our first week on Course. The pass time was 11 minutes.

The PTI put his hands on his hips and I could see his head slowly scanning us like a sideshow alley clown. 'I've caught youse out. I could make you turn around and do it again. But I'm not going to do that. Why not? Because the only people youse are letting down - are yourselves, Sirs. Because you're Cruisers. And you know what?'

'No, Corporal!' we said in unison. He was junior in rank to us but had our respect because he he could give us pushups and make us hold them mid push. ('That's not six inches Sir! I'll show you six inches!')

Another pause for dramatic effect. 'Because, Sirs, Cruisers...Are Losers!'

And thus the 1/90 Junior Officers Initial Course 'Cruisers Club' was born.

Our membership grew each morning as other Course members eased off their pace and fell back to join our shuffling chats. As long as we passed our fortnightly PFT, the Corporals surrendered and folded their muscular arms, shook their heads and let us Cruise. In the spirit of Cruising, we started a competition to see who could get as close to the 11 minute PFT 2.4km run pass time and thus not waste effort. The record was 10.59. We broadened our Club activities to stealing the Group Captain pennants from the Parade Ground and the senior course's bar fridge from their common room.

The Air Force taught me lots of things - the best of them unintentionally. Rules - many of them dumb and annoying and redundant for the majority of time when we weren't trying to kill an enemy and they weren't trying to kill us (for me that was all the time, thankfully) - can be catalysts for creativity, self-mocking, and fun. Otherwise 'accountability' mostly promotes mediocrity and compliance and not excellence and innovation.

The Corporal PFTs were right. We weren't accountable to their baselines. We were responsible for ourselves.

The inaugural members of the Cruisers Club conquered our self-letting-down and graduated from OTS with Distinctions, with one (not me) winning the Officer Qualities Prize. Twenty One Forty never caught up and was back coursed. She eventually passed and I understand overcame her inability to run fast to become a very good Nursing Officer.

The Cruisers Club had honoured the call of The B52s each morning before we shuffled off:

'Fly the great big sky see the great big sea
Kick through continents bustin' boundaries.'

Crime and Punishment.

'The sole objective of the investigation of an accident or incident shall be the prevention of accidents and incidents. It is not the purpose of this activity to apportion blame or liability.'
 
-  Clause 3.1 to Annex 13 to the International Convention on Civil Aviation

Vengeance. Retribution. Revenge.

Deterrence. Punishment. Justice.

Blame.

We have a powerful longing for these outcomes from decisions that follow errors.

Maybe its a carryover from our childhood. Parents. School. Discipline.

If there's an error and no-one gets publicly named and shamed, it's like an enthusiastic waiter has cleared our coffee cup from our table before we've drunk the last mouthful.

Perhaps we're trained in our thinking and expectations by stories from books, movies, and the news about the adversarial winner-loser criminal justice system that relish arrest, prosecution, trial,confession, admission, guilt, judgment, verdict, conviction, sentencing, penalty. 

There are no blockbuster movies where the hero rises to her feet in the middle of an Administrative Appeals Tribunal hearing and shouts 'You can't handle procedural fairness and natural justice and correct or preferable decision making in the inquisitorial process!' It's Crime and Punishment that is the classic bestselling literary novel. Not Ultra Vires and Certiorari.

Listen for assumptions about blame and punishment lurking ominously just beneath the surface of the benign, dull, haze-grey drone of our organisational language. 'Accountability' doesn't mean 'We'll celebrate and reward you and eagerly learn from you when it all goes well.' We know it really means 'Don't you screw it up - or you'll pay for it.'

Laws that were designed as shields to protect people are brandished like swords and waved menacingly towards us. Or instead of serving as cobblestones meant to pave society's streets of mutual progress, laws are seized by an aggrieved person grasping for reasons for some calamity and prised loose from their intended legal context to be used as missiles to hurl and draw blood from anyone deemed at fault.

The inquisitorial system is so alien to our thinking compared to the adversarial one, and our Whodunnit expectation so strong that it must be managed. Watch and listen to  Datuk Kok Soo Chon, the Investigator in Charge of the Malaysian Airlines MH370 disappearance, solemnly repeat word for word Clause 3.1 to Annex 13 of the ICAO Convention as part of his Interim Report on the investigation as he looks down the barrel of the camera at you and me. 'You'll not find blame here,' he's saying. 'We're not going to give you a head on a  platter,' he's warning us in more austere bureaucratic language. 'There's nothing more to see here except lessons for a better future.'

To paraphrase Clause 3, the sole purpose of a good decision should be to make a better decision next time.

There's also a lot of learning between 'It fell' and 'I dropped it'.

We don't become who we are on the back of the shamed and fallen.

A Good Decision Takes as Long as A Good Decision Takes.

On 20 September 2013 two Qantas Airbus aircraft with a combined passenger load of more than 600, nearly collided 12km in the air almost above Adelaide.

The Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) began an investigation that day. It said it would be finished by September 2014 - almost a year later. In November 2014 and already two months overdue, it updated the investigation status to be that the report would be made available to the public by January 2015.

On 5 March 2015, almost two and a half years after the incident, six months longer than the date it was first promised, and two months past the amended reporting date,  ATSB Transport Safety Report Aviation Occurrence Investigation AO-2013-161 was published.

Meanwhile, hundreds of aircraft carrying thousands of passengers continued to fly the same routes each day in the control of the same systems and people and decision making doing the same things that failed on 20 September 2013 and nearly killed 600 people.

The more important the decision, the longer it should take.

Decision makers can be tempted to do the opposite: Important decisions must be made quickly. Urgently. Decisively. Get it done. Get it over with.

Not so for the ATSB. The risk that the undiagnosed errors in person and machine could be repeated with catastrophic results did not compel it to compromise its decision making process.

How long should a decision take? It should take as long as a good decision takes. How long do the Five Steps take?

The ATSB process was not initiated by a complainant. Decision makers resolving complaints are under pressure to decide quickly. Complaints policies impose response times. Complainants demand answers. Neither serves good decision making.

This is one of many examples where a clear Widget cuts through the complexity. Does speed, appeasing a demanding complainant, or meeting an artificial time constraint in a policy or self-imposed serve the Widget?

The ATSB had a clear Widget:

'The ATSB’s function is to improve safety and public confidence in the aviation, marine and rail modes of transport through excellence in: independent investigation of transport accidents and other safety occurrences; safety data recording, analysis and research; fostering safety awareness, knowledge and action.'

As each self-imposed deadline for the report approached, the ATSB would have asked itself: 'Will publication on the promised date serve our Widget? Which is more important: the integrity of our deadlines or of our findings and recommendations about aviation safety?' Appropriately the answer was the latter. Let's update the information on our website and continue inquiring with excellence.

Time constraints - 'Complaints will be resolved in x days' - should only be added to decision making processes if they serve the decision maker's Widget. 'Your decisions take too long' is not sufficient reason alone to impose deadlines. Better to manage expectations. Under promise and over deliver. Next time ATSB - promise us a report in two years and delight us by publishing it in one and a half.

A deadline may be appropriate to improve the turnaround time for a broken toaster under warranty. Yet it may compromise the careful analysis needed to understand the failure of a complex system.

Such as why two 240 tonne aircraft with advanced navigation aids and under air traffic control converged at a closing speed of one and half times the speed of sound 38,000 feet above the earth.

Or why that person did that thing. 

Joe Defines Our Widget.

'All Australians share aspirations for economic security and an even more prosperous future — a better place for our children and the generations beyond.

But it is not enough that we share this aspiration. We need to make choices today to build a strong and resilient economy and lay the foundation for future prosperity.'

- 2015 Intergenerational Report: Australia in 2055

The Australian Government has been doing some Widget Thinking.

Yesterday its Treasurer The Honourable Joe Hockey published its five yearly Intergenerational Report which assesses 'the long-term sustainability of current Government policies and how changes to Australia’s population size and age profile may impact [sic] economic growth, workforce and public finances over the following 40 years.'

It begins by defining its Widget:

'All Australians share aspirations for economic security and an even more prosperous future — a better place for our children and the generations beyond.'

Bang.
Widget.
A big Widget.

Welcome aboard, Australian citizens. This is Joe speaking. Me and my successors will be your Captain on our journey to Economic Security and An Even More Prosperous Future. Our flight time is 40 years and the estimated arrival time is 2055. There will be some turbulence from the left wing during take off and weather at our destination in 40 years is sunny with the occasional rainbow and unicorn.
 

The Widget is reinforced in the Report with a solid foundation for good decision making:
 

'The term Australian Government is used when referring to the Government and the decisions and activities made by the Government on behalf of the [legal entity] of the Commonwealth of Australia.' (Emphasis added.)
 

The Government is - defined by its DECISIONS and by its ACTIONS - on behalf of the Commonwealth of Australia. If the government does not decide and act - it does not exist. Put more practically, the electors vote it out.

An organisation isn't what it says it's going to do. An organisation is defined by its workers' DECISIONS and their ACTIONS. An organisation does not exist if it does not decide and act.

Organisations are abstract constructs that come to life in the decisions made by their decision makers.

This is why decision making is the DNA of an organisation and why it needs to be good.
 

'The projections in this report are very unlikely to unfold over the next 40 years exactly as outlined. Things will happen that are not anticipated in the report’s assumptions, and government policy will change. The projections are not intended to be a prediction of the future as it will actually be, rather they are designed to capture some of the fundamental trends that will influence economic and budgetary outcomes should policies remain similar to current settings. They help to inform us about where there are opportunities to be seized, and where there are challenges to be overcome.'


The Report recognises that a good decision is one that advances us towards where we want to be. A decision is made from what we know now. The world's response to our making it will reveal more information that tells us new things about the world and our Widget that we will incorporate in our next decision.

The Report is the Government taking Step 5 of the Five Steps to a Good Decision.

It invites the Australian people to be heard. It is the Government saying:

'Here is the information that we have about the state of our country and which we will use to make decisions that will affect you, your children and your grandchildren. Please let us know what you think because you have the most at stake and you might teach us something that we missed and which will make us change our decisions.'

The Report says 'Here we are. Here's where we want to be. Here's how we think we'll get there.' To which Australians can in turn decide 'Yay' or 'Boo' or 'Meh' or 'Vote Labor' or 'I'm emigrating.'

Or as The Honourable Joe Hockey told Parliament when releasing the Report :

'This is the conversation that the nation wants to have and we are ready for it.'

That's a Good Question.

'The people who do ask a question have demonstrated to themselves that they have good enough judgement to be able to put something into the world that hasn't been said before. That's what makes it a good question. And that practice is something that we should learn and we should teach our kids and we should teach our colleagues how to do it.'

- Seth Godin
 

Good Decision Making in three words:

Be attentively curious.

Our Shelter Amidst the Chaos of Information.

'The best way to learn about normal structures and normal function I think is to study disordered functions and disordered structures. When one has spent that amount of time studying abnormalities one develops an enormously healthy respect for normal, an enormously healthy respect for how equilibrium is maintained.'

- Sherwin Nuland, Surgeon

Decision making is an act of creating certainty from chaos. 
 

Buffeted by new information our compass spins and our map is ripped from our hands.

A good decision making process is a structure that shelters us from the push and pull of wild gusts of instinct and bias and the howling of opinions and creates a space for us to think.

We emerge with our decision beneath cloudless skies, a zephyr caressing our cheeks and clutching a new map with new terrain and a compass needle pointing steadily towards our Widget.

We step forth into the arc of a raindrop and the distant roll of thunder and our compass needle wobbles.

The Decision is Superior to the Decision Maker.

'The poem has an intelligence that the poet does not have.'
- Jane Hirshfield

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.

Decision making is an act of creation with its own Muse.

Decision makers who serve a process and engage with others along the way, summon forth ideas, creativity, options, perspectives, insights, wisdom and outcomes that were invisible when they were presented with the need to make a decision.

Good decision making has an intelligence that the decision maker does not have.

Often Decisions Break Things.

'Don't worry if you break it Darcey. I can put it back together because I designed this house actually.'

- Five year old Scarlett to her one year old sister Darcey.

Often decisions break things.

If our decision breaks something -
- or someone in our team's decision did
- and we or they made it using a deliberate process of inquiry -

(Instead of 'Hey! Look at me! Let me show you how high I am up HR's wire diagram!' or 'Eenie, meenie, miney, mo...' or 'I need to do something or we're all gonna DIE!')

- then we can inspect the wreckage and work out what happened.

Learning is behaviour modified by experience.

We will make a better decision next time.

We will advance closer towards where we want to be.

Leadership Perfection.

'Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he had come from God and was going to God...began to wash the disciples’ feet...'

- The Gospel of John

The most powerful entity in the Universe.
He can do anything.
Be Anything.
Yet -
He chooses to kneel and do the job of a servant.
Washing the filthy feet of a friend who will fatally betray him.

All the libraries and rhetoric on Leadership offer less than this act.

'I have set you an example that you should do as I have done for you,' he tells them - and us.

Believe him the Son of God or a man of fiction, one could aspire to model their entire leadership philosophy and behaviour on this lesson of Jesus Christ.
 

'One is never so big
As when one stoops down.'

- David Byrne, Never So Big

Everything is the Consequence of Multiple Decisions.

'I was so incredibly lucky to grow up in the context of workshops...[I acquired] a natural understanding that everything...is made, and is the consequence of multiple decisions.'

- Sir Jonathan Ive, Senior Vice-President of Design, Apple Corporation.

Jony Ive understands and makes decisions. Apple has sold one and a half billion Widgets he designed.

A hundred thousand Apple employees and millions of shareholders and retailers rely on his decision-making.

He applies Widget Thinking.  Steve Jobs described him as 'the most focussed human being I've come across.'

“I’m always focussed on the actual work, and I think that’s a much more succinct way to describe what you care about than any speech I could ever make.” He understands that design is ultimately about delivering something. It's all about the Widget.

Jony Ive is on a relentless pursuit of perfection. Billions of dollars depend on it and hundreds of millions of us benefit from it in our use of Apple products. How can he accommodate mistakes?

'Everything we make I could describe as being partially wrong, because it’s not perfect...We get to do it again. That’s one of the things Steve and I used to talk about: ‘Isn’t this fantastic? Everything we aren’t happy about...we can try and fix.’ ”

Who Cares What You Think?

'His Honour made the orders in respect of which there is now an alleged contravention. [The Respondent] was quite open in saying that she did not agree with His Honour's finding on that day.'

She said "It was just what he thought".'

- Judgment of His Honour Judge Bennett, Federal Magistrates Court of Australia - Family Law, in the case of B&B

Thankfully for our justice system and the maintenance of social order, unlike Ms B the great majority of people honours the decisions of judges. We take that obedience for granted.

Today, in hundreds of Australian courts, judges will say: 'Here is what I think.'

People will go to prison, be fined, lose a licence, their source of income, their homes, their children. The effects will ripple through families, businesses and communities. All because an unelected person in a robe on a chair behind a bench on a raised platform in a beige courtroom will decide: 'Here's what I think should happen'.

Some will not agree with the judge and choose to appeal the decision. In about 95% of those cases the appellate tribunal will decide: 'We agree with what he thought.'

Why is Ms B's dismissal of the judge based on it being 'just what he thought' and her defiance of his orders the exception? It can't all be explained by the deterrence of courts' enforcement powers.

Could it be because those affected by the judge's decision see, and often even participate in, the process leading up to it and witness that the judge:

• Is dispassionate,
• Applies rules,
• Relies on evidence,
• Is unbiased, and
• Allows both parties to be heard?

Could decision makers in other fields with far less consequences earn similar respect and compliance with their decisions if, instead of making decisions based on:

• I'm smarter than you.
• I was at the meeting and you weren't.
• I know someone who told me things.
• My job title has manager/leader/chief in it.
• A university gave me a degree.
• I've been on the payroll longer.
• I can sack you.

They openly:

• Stepped Back
• Named the Issue
• Assessed the information
• Checked for Bias
• Allowed for a hearing

Could it be that the lack of engagement, hundreds of billions of dollars spent on compliance, low productivity and unhappiness in our workplaces are because so many of us who are affected by decision makers can't see or understand how those decisions are made? Are we just like Ms B? -

Meh. That's just what the boss thought.

Our Process Serves our Widget.

'That's how I make decisions. I draw how I approach a lot of issues from aviation when it comes to the management of ideas. One of my favourite sayings is that if you muck up the approach you muck up the landing.'

- The Hon. Sussan Ley, Minister for Health & Sport

‘Check wheels,’ the Air Traffic Controller would radio to the student military pilot as he commenced his approach to land.
'Wheels down,’ the student would reply by rote and habit as he continued his descent with undercarriage fully retracted and the ‘Wheels Up’ alarm in the cockpit blaring.

Process is important.
We get good at it.
We turn up to our desk. 
Read and type emails. 
Attend meetings. 
Write reports.

Go home.

Repeat.

The routine of our working day becomes the Thing We Do. The process gradually replaces our Widget as the Thing We Make. 

We attend staff meetings and professional development days and listen and nod to sincerely but falsely acknowledge we’ve heard and responded to the 'Check Wheels' and cockpit alarms as our boss and peers and consultants and guest speakers and strategic papers and Ted Talks and even our own little voice warn us that we’ve forgotten to engage our Widget.  

Our knowledge worker rituals and the clatter of weasel words that herald them deafen us to the feedback on our process and progress and obscure the Widget it is meant to serve.

If you tapped the student pilot on the shoulder at 500 feet from violently colliding with the runway and asked whether he was doing his job he would say 'Of course. I'm flying. Now let me get on with it.'

Tap any office worker on their shoulder and ask what their Widget is and in my experience, few can answer or even see it as relevant. 'I'm too busy being busy.'

The curt voice of the vigilant Air Traffic Controller radioing 'Go Around!' would interrupt the student's doomed approach and save him from belly landing in a shower of sparks and grinding metal.

Like monks being called away from their manual labour seven times a day to pray, bosses must regularly call 'Check Widget' and force us back into conscious, engaged, mindful recitals of our decision making process and the Widget it's ultimately serving.

Passionate Doesn't Cut It.

'Sometimes I worry that the people who are seen as the most expert...are those who care the most or worry the most.'

- Professor Stephen Smallbone

'Good morning and welcome aboard. I'm Kurt Ranger and I'll be your Captain today on our flight to New York. I'm passionate about flying and committed to getting you safely to your destination. I was kept awake last night with worry about all the reasons we may not make it. So sit back, relax and enjoy your flight.'

'Passionate about...'
'Committed to...'
'What keeps me awake at night is...'

(Evidence that being 'committed to' is passé and losing its punch is found in the rise of 'totally committed to...' and even 'absolutely committed to...') 

Words matter.

Declarations of passion are most often made by characters in Shakespeare's plays and reality TV talent and cooking show contestants - the latter then dissolving into emphatic sobs.

'Hi. I'm Sam. And I'm passionate about food/dance/losing weight.'

Do I want my child's teacher to be passionate - or to be a good teacher?

Do I want my dentist to be passionate - or a good dentist?

Do I want my local member of parliament to be passionate - or a good legislator?

Do I want an infantry soldier to be passionate about his work of killing the enemy?

Of course it doesn't have to be either/or. My surgeon can be passionate and a good surgeon. Perhaps she is good because she is passionate enough about surgery to perservere beyond good enough.

Fiona Wood, one of the best surgeons in the world, spoke about how she learned that 'passion on its own won't cut it'. It had undermined her leadership. Each of the Five Steps to a Good Decision filters out emotions - including passion - that may distract the decision maker from her purpose. Professor Smallbone was expressing his concern about 'caring' equating to expertise in the area of child protection.

As in many things, before declaring one's passion, it's helpful to ask: 'Whose needs are being met?' 'Passion' ('to suffer') implies it's about me and how I feel. Perhaps compassion - 'suffering alongside another' (the client, the boss, the bloke in the next office) - might be worth developing?

Organisations' language of selling its Widget to consumers has leached into how we speak to each other. We market ourselves - even to ourselves. 

‘Look at me! I'm passionate. about my Widget!’ 
Good for you. Now make the thing so your boss can make hers.

Maybe we're whistling past the workplace graveyard of disengagement. 'Hi-ho, hi-ho, it's passionately off to work we go...'.

If you're a boss exhorting your people to have passion in their work, and what you really mean is - do the work well - then just say 'I want you to do your work well.' Or perhaps even 'I'm passionate about supporting you to do your work well.' Or even 'I'm totally committed to putting money in your bank this fortnight.'

I can be passionate. Committed. Caring. Just as long as I do my job - or help others do theirs - well.

And while Hi-ho-ing with passionate gusto, remember to belt out the rest of the lyrics:

'Hi Ho Hi Ho , Its Off To Work We Go!!
We did dig dig dig dig dig dig dig
In our Mine the whole day through
To dig dig dig dig dig dig dig dig 
Its what we like to do
It aint no trick
To get rich quick
If ya dig dig dig
With a shovel or a stick
In the Mines.'

How to Succeed Every Time.

'If you do something every day, its a system. If you're waiting to achieve it someday in the future, it's a goal...Goal-oriented people exist in a state of continuous presuccess failure at best, and permanent failure at worst if things never work out. Systems people succeed every time they apply their systems, in the sense that they did what they intended to do. The goals people are fighting the feeling of discouragement at each turn. The systems people are feeling good everytime they apply their system. That's a big difference in terms of maintaining your personal energy in the right direction.'

- Scott Adams.

Good Decision Making is a deliberate process of inquiry that advances you towards where you want to be.

Integrity - doing what you said you were going to do.

Leaders with integrity apply a system of decision making that advances them towards their Widget, for the world to see, emulate, and learn from.

Harry is Unhappy.

'There's a critical question that I ask myself:

What do I need to do right now tend the root of inner wisdom that makes work fruitful?'

- Parker Palmer

Dear Harry

Thank you for your letter in which you requested that I make you happy.

I have considered your application in accordance with our Happiness Policy, in particular Clause 17.2 which makes me responsible for the happiness of the employees in my line of management.

As part of my consideration of your request, I sought advice from a number of people, including our Chief Happiness Officer, our Human Resources Officer, our Finance Officer, the Chaplain, Payroll, and your line manager. I also reviewed your employment history and your current duty statement.  

On 17 July I wrote to you and summarised what each of them had to say and invited you to comment on any of it.

I carefully read your 427 page all caps reply and have taken each of your submissions into account in making my decision. I also want to express my sympathies about your cat, your football team, and your ongoing acne irritation.

In accordance with Clause 19.8 of the Happiness Policy that authorises me to make decisions about employee Happiness, I have decided that we have met all of our obligations to make you happy, namely:

• Paid you each fortnight
• Performed every other term of our employment agreement with you
• Listened to you whine about your unhappiness and considered whether we were responsible for it

Unfortunately the space-time continuum and the limitations of our technology budget do not allow us to send you back in time to get more hugs and fishing trips with your Poppy.

I encourage you to take advantage of our Employee Assistance Plan to support you as you grieve about Tiddles, suggest that you consider joining the company Rounders team to engage you with a winning recreational pursuit, and I will approve personal leave for you to seek medical advice about your zits.

I happily look forward to you doing your job.

Warmly. 

What I Learned From Invading Australia.

We were outgunned, outnumbered and surrounded.

We were attacking Australia.

We were winning.

'I need to lodge small groups of special forces soldiers at various points on the Australian coast,' the Kamarian Commander of 311 Raider Battalion briefed me. 'I want to hide them beneath the decks of fishing vessels that will drop them off without the vessels being intercepted by the Australians. Can I fly the Mussorian flag on them under International Law?'

'Yes Sir. It's called a 'Ruse of War. It's legitimate. Your only obligation is to lower the flag and raise our Kamarian flag if we are discovered and need to defend ourselves. Your biggest risk of interception is by fisheries inspection officers so don't display any fishing gear.' It was much more fun being legal adviser to the bad guys on military exercises.

Following the sabotage and destruction of military and civilian infrastructure across the north of Australia by unknown foreign military elements, the Australian government responded. It suspended the right of innocent passage. No vessel, including ours operating under false flags, could transit Australian terrotorial waters. The Commander asked me for my advice.

'Declare victory, Sir,' I said.

$13 Billion of trade that came through Australia's northern waters annually was halted.

Australia's response to the threat of three civilian fishing vessels and a handful of commandos had self-inflicted billions of dollars of damage to its economy. Much more than the weapons of the armed forces of the mythical tiny island state of Kamaria could ever have done.

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

Boundaries should be liberating catalysts for creativity.

Be generous and discerning in the size of space you create for people - in agreements, rules, policies, practice.

Once you limit the horizon, you have to patrol it. You have to enforce it. You have to mend it. You have to justify it.

You will add to the $250 Billion Australia already spends each year on compliance.

You will constrain and restrict innovation and cause other unforeseen damage.

You can be sure that each person down the hierarchy will define the operating space even smaller for their people.

If someone exploits your generous boundaries - breaks a rule, abuses your trust -  be careful not to respond by drawing the lines in tighter. You'll catch more than the stray in your net.

If they breach the boundary again - don't shoot.

Instead, invite them to leave your space and create their own.

Invite them to be a Leader.

Joy is Peace Dancing.

'Joy is Peace dancing. Peace is Joy at rest.'

- Frederick Botherton Meyer.

In 2012 Michelle Jenneke went to work.

Heat 2 of the 100m Hurdles for Women in the IAAF World Junior Championships.

Representing her country. Serious business. Very stressful.

'Having fun,' the commentator reports before the race.

'Constantly dancing around.'

'Happy about performing.'

'Youthful exuberance coming out.'

'Let's see if she can buckle down and put together a technically good race,' the commentator cautioned.

Ms Jenneke had a very precise Widget to make.

Sponsors to please. 

Coaches to honour.

Her workplace was live on TV.

She kept dancing and smiling right up to her blocks.

Then went to work making her Widget.

'Very aggressive to that first hurdle,' the commentator said.

Focus and determination. No smile for 13.52 seconds.

Michelle Jenneke won by 0.19 of a second. (Literally less than the blink of an eye.)

No room for error. But enough to dance.

'I get this feeling when I'm going to compete and I just get really happy and really energetic.'

'When I'm out on the track I'm thinking about what I'm doing, not focussing on them.'

'It's really about whether you're happy with yourself.'

We can be joyful in our work.

We can dance and make our Widget.

We don't need our boss's permission.

Just our own.

We don't need to wait for a private moment.

The world craves our dancing.

It begins by being happy with ourselves.

Becoming who we are.

Last week, two and a half years later, Michelle Jenneke danced as usual behind her blocks because she's just really happy.

Then ran the fifth fastest womens hurdles race in Australian history.

Change Your Mind About Changing Your Mind.

'The greatest enemy of any one of our truths may be the rest of our truths.'

- William James

Either/Or. 

Guilty/Not Guilty. 

Trustworthy/Untrustworthy.  

Hired/Fired.  

With me/Against me.

On/Off.

These black/white filters of information sabotage good decision making.  

They shut out new information.

Our fear is that it may compel us to do that terribly humiliating thing:

Change our minds.  

Information liberates.

It allows us to exercise the true test of our freedom: 

Choice.  

At a cost:

Anxiety. (I might be wrong.)

Which is why we get paid.  

Be the naive inquirer.

Try this:

Treat all information that you receive as new.

'How interesting! Tell me more...'

Try This Conversation.

Hey boss - try this conversation:

'Here's what I want from you.'

(Describe it in Widget terms.)

'What do you want from me?'

Then listen.

Listen.

Listen.

Ears not bleeding yet?

Keep listening.