A Leader's Decision Making Says: Come With Me!
“ Many in the design community understand that design must convey the essence of a device’s operation; the way it works; the possible actions that can be taken; and, through feedback, just what it is doing at any particular moment. Design is really an act of communication, which means having a deep understanding of the person with whom the designer is communicating.”
The Design of Everyday Things - Don Norman
Let’s substitute ‘decision’ for ‘design’ and ‘leader’ for ‘device’ and see what we get.
A decision must convey the essence of a leader’s intent; the way she works; the possible actions that can be taken; and, through feedback, just what the leader is wanting at any particular moment. Decision making is really an act of communication, which means having a deep understanding of the person with whom the leader is communicating.
Let’s rewrite this further.
A leader’s decision making communicates what she knows we are capable of doing.
Indeed, what defines her as a Leader as distinct from a boss is because she knows we have the capacity to do, and be, and go - what, and who, and where, but for her - we would not.
A Conscious Reflection
Ethics is the explicit, philosophical reflection on moral beliefs and practices. The difference between ethics and morality is similar to the difference between musicology and music. Ethics is a conscious stepping back and reflecting on morality, just as musicology is a conscious reflection on music.
When we step back to allow ourselves to indulge and wallow in our reflexive, emotional response to events forcing a decision, we are at our most human.
We are not Boss or Manager or Decider. We are, by stepping away, stepping into our humanity. Which means we are at our most connected to our neighbour. We are We.
What better place to reflect on morality? Elbow to elbow with those who our decision may affect?
If we skip Step 1, we remain aloof, distant, disconnected, arrogant, selfish. Me.
If we are to decide and act ethically, we must Step Back.
Distance.
Psychologist Yaacov Trope argues that psychological distance may be one of the single most important steps you can take to improve thinking and decision-making.
Step 1: Step Back.
We step back each time we move to the next step in our decision making process.
Stepping back can be literal (pushing our chair back during a meeting, leaving the office, going for a walk) or temporal (pausing for one second, one hour, one day …).
It can be social (spending time alone).
It can be taking a different point of view.
Each tine we step back - we liberate ourselves from the limits of that moment.
Revealing previously hidden pathways.
The Secret
The secret to mastering your time is to systematically focus on importance and suppress urgency. Oliver Emberton
The Five Steps (or your preferred steps) to a good decision is a System.
Each step focusses us on one task.
Step 1: Step Back.
Step 2: Define the Issue.
Step 3: Assess the Information
Step 4: … what? … you’ve what? … oh.
Problem solved.
Amused
He finds that throughout history the cutting edge of innovation lies wherever people are working the hardest to keep themselves and others amused.
Review of Wonderland: How Play Made the Modern World, by Steven Johnson
Step Back.
Have a laugh. An ironic one. A dark one. A ‘woe is me!’ victim moan.
Give yourself time to see the joke. The absurdity. The farce. The humour.
Feel the seriousness lift from your shoulders.
Ring or email or text a mate. Share the mirth. Mock the thing. Mock yourself. Engage in some irreverent banter. Black humour. Amuse yourself. Feel the mischief.
Then, armed with an innovative mindset - Step 2.
We Can Be Heroes
Decision making wire diagrams and hierarchies have their place. They plot out the ‘if this, then that’ of decisions.
Our brains prefer stories. Preferably ones with us in them. Preferably ones with us as the main character. Preferably ones with us as the Hero.
The Five Steps to a Good Decision allow us to hear/tell a story.
Our brains love stories.
Peak Stupidity
'Attention and awareness are deep interior human capacities that never get any training or air time. What gets all the attention is thinking.
So when you begin to cultivate intimacy with these other capacities it actually balances out our remarkable capacity for thinking and also for imagination and creativity.
A lot of the creativity comes out of the stillness of awareness in not knowing.
So rather than just keeping tabs on what we know, it's really helpful to be aware of how much we don't know. And when we know what we don't know then that's the cutting edge upon which all science unfolds.'
John Cabot Zen
Step 1 to the Five Steps to Good Decision Making: Step Back.
At the moment we’re smacked in the face with information demanding a response. A Decision. We are at Peak Ignorance. We Don’t Know.
Yet what’s our usual response?
To respond. To Decide. To Act.
An Impulse, not a Decision.
Why would anyone make a decision at Peak Stupidity?
Pause.
The Science of Good Decision Making unfolds when we Step Back and allow ourselves to watch ourselves crumple into an emotional bean bag and be ourselves.
And mould the soft cushion into the Cutting Edge of a Good Decision.
Studies Have Shown That
Judges who take breaks are more likely to rule on the merits of a case, than maintain the status quo. The longer the judge sits, the less rulings they make in favour of an application by a defendant, until it falls to zero.
The theory is that the mental grind reduces the judge’s capacity for nuance. The break, mentally replenishes the judge. A snack may also have glucose benefits.
Zen Master of Optimism
When someone gives you an idea, try to wait just 24 seconds before criticizing it. If you can do that, wait 24 minutes. Then if you become a Zen master of optimism, you could wait a day, and spend that time thinking about why something actually might work.
If new information simply hammers in our bias - what’s the point of listening?
What’s the point of anyone giving it?
What’s the point of anything?
Pause and silently count 24 seconds.
That’s the sound of Optimism.
Of Life.
A Problem Not of His Making
Kevin gave frank, independent and impartial legal advice at the highest level. There were times when his advice was frozen out. If you’re going to do something that is questionable, the last thing you will do is ask someone who will tell you so. Kevin would always give that advice. In order to avoid that advice, his was not sought, or it was sought from people who will tell them what they wanted to hear.
Kevin didn’t complain. He was just there to pick up the pieces of a problem not of his making.
The Honourable Chief Justice of the WA Supreme Court Peter Quinlan eulogising His Honour Kevin Parker, AC RFD KC
Detach
One of the best skills a person can have to overcome these problems is to be able to detach. To take a step back.
Jocko Willink, former US Navy Seal
Would you expect the words ‘step back’ to come from the lips of an elite special forces operator trained to sprint into danger?
It’s not inconsistent.
Detaching. Stepping back. Thinking.
Often takes courage.
Generosity.
Intelligence.
Wisdom.
The anxious, frightened, selfish, simplistic, shallow positional power boss is often decisive. Bam, bam, bam. Dispose of that complex issue. Postpone the consequences. Deflect them and any fallout onto someone else. Days or years later. Or never.
All the while, the aspiring leaders look on. Learn that leadership is being decisive.
Listen
Vacuuming with noise cancelling earphones when a client rang.
I switched off the vacuum and took the call.
The client began explaining the background to her question. After a minute with vacuum in one hand and phone in the other, I muted my microphone, pocketed my phone, and resumed vacuuming; client-focussed with a muffled whine background.
The client talked without pause for about five minutes. Floorboards grew cleaner.
She finished. I paused, waited a few seconds to be sure she was done, took a second or two to reach into my pocket, pull out my phone and unmute my microphone.
I was about to begin my advice when she said:
‘You are such an attentive listener.’
Subsidiarity
"It is a fundamental principle of social philosophy, fixed and unchangeable, that one should not withdraw from individuals and commit to the community what they can accomplish by their own enterprise and/or industry."
Pope Pius XI
Subsidiarity is the social justice principle that presumes each of us is capable of making decisions that stretch us towards our potential.
A ‘higher authority’ may only intervene to assist us to overcome an obstacle that prevents them from advancing towards their potential.
The ‘higher authority’ must then withdraw.
Parent to child. Family to parent. Community to family. Society to community. Government to society.
The elegance of Subsidiarity and its application towards personal growth depends on two things:
Each person taking responsibility for advancing towards where we want to be, and
The higher authority only intervening when lower entity capabity is exhausted AND withdrawing afterwards.
The more we fail to take personal responsibility for our decisions and their consequences, the more higher authorities will intrude into our lives.
Once they have intruded, higher authorities almost always weaken our personal agency, meaning the higher authority has an excuse for remaining, and eventually becoming permanent and relied upon.
Each time I look to ‘the boss’ or ‘the government’ to address my personal, family, community, or society deficits, I invite the boss and the government into my decision making, and the more my decision making muscles atrophy.
We only identify our need for the help from a higher authority if we attempt to lift the weight of a decision. With each decision rep, we increase our decision muscle.
The stronger we are at making decisions, the more capacity we build to look outwards for opportunities to serve others.
By advancing towards where we want to be - we invite others to accompany us on the journey.
Man with a Plan
The man who sticks to his plan will become what he used to want to be.
James Richardson
A good decision is one that advances us towards where we want to be.
With each decision, we learn more about ourselves and the world.
We recalibrate and refine where we want to be.
Who's Teaching Good Decision Making?
'Perceived organizational justice influences employee behaviour in many ways including their level of satisfaction, commitment and trust in management. For example, in a study of 217 employee reactions to pay- raise decisions, the procedural fairness with which the decisions were made was found to influence pay satisfaction, trust in supervision and organizational commitment
Furthermore, where procedures of resource allocation and conflict resolution were deemed to be fair, employees expressed satisfaction with the outcomes of said procedures and were further committed to the firm and to their supervisors.
Similarly, in a sample of hospital workers, overall distributive fairness allowed there to be increased job satisfaction and enhanced attitudes towards one’s boss.
Additionally, perceived procedural justice and opportunities for voice related to employees’ loyalty to the organization and satisfaction with supervision.
Perceived justice led to perceived legitimacy thus leading to compliance with the system. Thus a great deal of goodwill and efficiency can be gained by organizations that focus on establishing fair systems and procedures.
Organizational justice: The search for fairness in the workplace. (1992)
Good Decision Making - a deliberate process of inquiry - is THE source of workplace satisfaction, commitment, trust, boss-love and...COMPLIANCE.
Fantastic!
So … who’s teaching Good Decision Making?
A Question to the World
"Prototype as if you are right. Listen as if you are wrong."
Diego Rodriguez
A decision is a prototype.
A dip of your toe in the water.
A taste of the simmering broth.
A question to the world.
I need to tighten this nut.
I need to wait to dive in.
I need to add seasoning.
Is that better?
Thank you for your answer, world.
Break Glass to Break Impasse
How do you know if a smarter and more experienced decision maker has made a good decision?
Because you watch or have watched them make it.
Their process.
You think: ‘I don't really understand the reasons or even agree with the decision. However, I have confidence in how she decided.’
Herein lies the problem with positional power decisions. The decision maker is easily tempted into declaring and asserting and rationalising rather than showing.
Wait. There’s More. The positional power decision maker - particularly if they are inexperienced or lack self-esteem, is more likely to deploy positional power decisions to prove that they have positional power and will use it. ‘Don't mess with me.’
To ‘fly overhead with the bomb bay doors open’ as a friend used to put it.
Isn’t that why I was given this power? To be decisive?
Sometimes. Rarely. Seldom.
The positional power is there to break the rare right-versus-right impasses.
(‘Rare’, because if you’ve been a good boss, your people will have learned to resolve the right-v-right in service of the Widget.)
‘In case of Emergency: Break Glass to Break Impasse.’
Even so, the decision maker can still show their working out.
‘I recognise the merits in both arguments and in the interests of moving beyond this impasse and progressing towards our Widget, I’m approving Option B.’
Yet every time a positional power decision maker flexes, they grow weaker, not stronger. They deny themselves a decision making Five Step rep workout. Eventually they don’t have the strength to show their working out, even if they could.
Worse.
Handfuls, dozens, hundreds of subordinates are watching. Learning.
Not how to make good decisions. But how to defer to your positional power.
And some will conclude they must seek and gain positional power to be Leaders like the boss. So they act like the boss to please the boss. Yet without positional power.
And so on.
Wash. Rinse. Repeat.
An Oasis
“Create an oasis, where your mind can come out to play.”
- John Cleese
Step 1 of the Five Steps to a Good Decision is Step Back.
Stepping back gives our mind permission to authentically respond to the decision before it, unfettered by formality or process or logic or performance.
We can be ourselves. We can be who we are. Raw. Emotional. Human.
Our indulgence creates an oasis for frivolity, immaturity, and selfishness.
Purging and emptying of the inner so we can turn our mind towards others.
A springboard for the four steps that follow.
A marker of where we were emotionally before our decision.
Helping us look back and remark at how far we’ve evolved.
Finality
The requirements of good administration, and the need for people affected directly or indirectly by decisions to know where they stand, mean that finality is a powerful consideration.
High Court Chief Justice Gleeson
A good decision advances us towards where we want to be.
We can only plot a course towards where we want to be if we know where we stand.
If another awaits our decision - follow the Five Steps.
Tell them where they are in relation to you so they can move on.