Healthy.
"Disempowerment is at the heart of poor health – physical, mental and emotional."
Johan Hari, ‘Lost Connections.’
Good decision making gives you agency over the process that leads to an outcome that leads to information that leads to learning that leads to understanding that leads to decision making that leads to good health.
Looks Like.
The liar relies on their lie looking like the truth.
The boss relies on their bossing looking like leadership.
The lucky man relies on their luck looking like hard work.
The incompetent relies on their chaos looking like transformation.
The pie-warmer relies on their inertia looking like wisdom.
The challenge for the honest, hard working, transformative, competent, wise leader:
Your work looks like failure.
Especially to the lucky, liars, bosses, incompetent, pie warmers.
Busy.
You start your new job.
Not much work. Nobody knows you or your skills.
You’re almost bored.
You complete some tasks and if you do them well … more work comes in.
(If you don’t do them well, work fizzles because you add no value to others’ work.)
More good work begets more work. Until you’re doing so much work that you earn that badge of honour that, when people ask ‘How’s work?’ You qualify to answer:
‘Busy.’
You’ve made it.
And that’s where most of us stay.
Busy. So busy. Can’t-wait-for-the-weekend busy.
You’ve learned that Busy is the natural state of a good worker.
Ask around.
Everyone is busy.
Busy = success = good person = alibi for missing a child’s assembly. Busy.
Busy. Always busy.
You don’t want not to be busy - because, as explained above, it’s a sign of incompetence.
You’re wrong.
Not being busy is evidence of being outstanding at your job. You stand out. Exceptional. You are the exception. In the 1% of 1% of those who do your job.
Going from being flat out busy to not being busy - means you’ve given those who rely on you the greatest gift a person can give another in a workplace:
The confidence to do business.
You’ve exerted the extra time, intelligence, energy, creativity, and risk - to go upstream and work out why the bodies are falling in - while still hauling bodies out. Because you’re doing two things: hauling and going upstream - you’re super-busy for a time. You’re going beyond what you’re paid or acknowledged for. There’s a hump.
Whether it’s through mentoring, training, harnessing technology or removing gatekeepers and unnecessary bureaucracy - you have succeeded in transferring enough of your knowledge to others that they rarely need you to do their jobs.
Explaining why nobody sets out to reach this level of not busy in their work.
Not only is it hard and takes creativity and a period of super-busy. But because not being busy looks exactly the same as someone who’s incompetent or lazy.
It puts your job in jeopardy when the boss or HR come looking to cost cut.
It makes it hard to justify why you can’t help out at your child’s school.
Removing friction from the trajectory of another’s decision making should be the objective of every worker. It’s a remarkable act of selfless service.
Especially when that friction is you.
The New Boss.
Yeah
Meet the new boss
Same as the old boss.- Pete Townshend
The new boss begins.
Spends 90 days listening, observing, learning.
Tick.
She meets with you, and while you’re wary about disclosing too much about your frustrations with the incompetence and dysfunction, her discerning questions reveal she gets it.
Tick.
A friend from the new boss’s old organisation confides in you that the new boss gets your workplace, but can’t make any changes yet.
Tick.
Four months in and the new boss asks your advice and you’re reassured that she gets it, and values your opinion on how to make changes.
Six months in and you’re in a meeting where the new boss asks some good questions and you see the other bosses subtly shut the new boss down. You sense this is not the first time the old bosses have put the new boss in her new boss place.
Nine months in and the new boss has a new car.
Twelve months in and the new boss is leading some projects with the old bosses and making decisions needing old boss approval and cooperation - and her ‘teamwork’ is publicly acknowledged by the old bosses.
Eighteen months in and the new boss is identified with many decisions made with the old bosses and your friend says he doesn’t speak much with the new boss and therefore can’t offer any insight into the new boss’s thinking these days.
Two years in and the new boss is an old boss and has ‘Chief’ added to her title.
The Five Steps.
Step 1: Step Back
[In our head]: What did I do to deserve this? Why are people so stupid? Why am I working here? Why aren't I paid more? Why aren't I lying on a beach somewhere? Why don't I quit and write a novel? Why don't people listen? Why do I keep getting let down? Why didn't I make myself clear? What did I do wrong? Who can I blame? What If I'm to blame? Am I any good? Do people take me seriously? Can I put up with this any more? Why didn't I get enough hugs as a child?
Step 2: Define the Issue
What’s my Widget? What’s my boss’s Widget? What does my boss want me to do? Do I have the power to make that decision? If not - who does?
Step 3: Assess the Information
What policies do we have relating to the information that I have? Do I need to get more information? Who might have that information?
Step 4: Check for Bias.
How am I feeling about this information? Am I able to make a decision that serves my Widget? Is there something that's distracting me from that outcome? Do I have a personal interest in the outcome that may be at odds with my Widget?
Am I open to persuasion? Do I have a prejudgement that the evidence can change? Is there any lingering remnant of personal angst I didn’t shed in Step 1 that means I need to step back again or pass the decision onto someone else? Am I open to the better argument?
Step 5: Give a Hearing
Who might be adversely affected by my decision? Who has a stake in it professionally such that their perspective may help me?
Epaulettes.
We defer to a stranger with a set of epaulettes.
Badges, baton or thing to point with are optional.
See him on the streets re-directing vehicle and foot traffic, in building foyers controlling visitors, on the edge of merry-go-rounds scolding small children.
People and organisations pin epaulettes on sentences as power symbols.
Vigorously defend.
Zero Tolerance.
Committed to.
Totally committed to.
Dry clean only.
Do not wash or tumble dry with the Truth.
Untruth.
“Even if every individual possessed the truth in private, yet if they came together into a crowd ... untruth would at once be let in. The crowd is untruth.”
The organisation continues to act consistently with its fictional story of what it is, in spite of evidence to the contrary.
If the reality organisation and fictional organisation passed in the street they would not recognise each other.
If the organisation was a person, it would be diagnosed with a mental disorder.
Supreme Court Gardens 1989.
““Learning is finding out what you already know.
Doing is demonstrating that you know it.
Teaching is reminding others that they know just as well as you.
You are all learners, doers, teachers.”
― Richard Bach”
It was 1989.
Shaun and I were chatting on a bench in the Supreme Court Gardens.
Sometime during our conversation, we co-created the idea of designing and delivering training that would give a student the knowledge and skills to do something.
That ‘something’ was whatever it was that the student had to do as a result of the training.
By working backwards, a trainer should go to the workplace, observe what workers do - or more correctly produce or perform - and teach students how to do those things.
In 1989, Shaun and I Discovered Objectives.
Later, we also discovered that Peter Drucker wrote about Objectives in 1954.
Maybe he thought it up sitting on a park bench.
For Shaun and me, it didn’t matter. Indeed, knowing that a world-renowned management guru (and no doubt many lesser-known experts) had already written about ‘our’ idea, only strengthened our sense of competence and creativity.
Leaving us to remind our students that they know as much as we did.
Engage the Enemy.
Engage the enemy and see what happens.
Napoleon
A good decision is one that advances us towards where we want to be.
‘The enemy’ is an infinite number of futures.
Closed doors.
Engage one.
Open it.
See what happens.
Reveal what other enemies and doors await to take its place.
For you to engage.
And see what happens.
Identical.
Chaos. Conflict. Dissent. Low morale. Staff turnover. External criticism.
Transformative stewardship looks almost identical to Dysfunctional leadership.
Leaders are rare.
Leaders are brave.
Leadership is hard.
Pie Warmer.
Pie Warmer (n.):
A person in a position of power, adding no value who simply maintains the status quo.
Translated from the French:
Bain-marie.
Attaboy!
In the act of praise, there is the aspect of it being ‘the passing of judgement by a person of ability onto a person of no ability.’
- Ichiro Kishimi and Fumitake Koga, ‘The Courage to Be Disliked’
The ‘Attaboy!’ is a standard currency of every organisation. The reflex taught in school of rewarding progress by certificates and public acknowledgement segues into our workplace parent-child dynamic.
The same blush of pride we felt when the teacher returned our work with a gold star is repeated when the boss says:
Attaboy!
Thus gently reminding us who is in charge of our mortgage and our self-esteem.
Positional Power.
We never credit the undercurrent for carrying us so swiftly; we credit ourselves, our talents, our skills. I was completely sure that it was my swimming ability that was carrying me out so swiftly that day. It did not matter that I knew in my heart that I was a very average swimmer, it did not matter that I knew that I should have worn a life jacket and flippers. On the way out, the idea of humility never occurred to me. It was only at the moment I turned back, when I had to go against the current, that I even realized the current existed.
Shankar Vedantam
You work.
Progress.
Get promoted.
Get rewarded.
Work harder.
Get promoted.
Watch others stagnate, fall back, leave.
Feels good.
Life’s good. You’re good.
A small slight. An injustice. A boss dumb decision.
You speak up. You question. You turn. You paddle.
Next thing, you’re treading water. Then going backwards. You paddle harder. You’re tiring. Why is it so hard just to stay afloat when it used to be so easy to move ahead?
As you sink, others effortlessly float past - riding the rip of positional power.
Killer.
The etymology of ‘Decide’ has roots in the Latin verb caedere, meaning ‘to cut’, or even ‘strike’, with ‘ide’ having its origins alongside ‘homicide’ and ‘suicide’.
When we decide, we kill other futures.
Open Loops.
Open Loops.
Not following up. Not taking ownership. Not giving advice. Not making decisions.
Everything stops.
Anyone trying to do good work is forced to chase and attempt to close open loops.
Like playing frisbee without a partner.
Tossing a stick without a dog.
It’s exhausting.
Fancied Situations and Imaginary Problems.
Professional ignorance is often the real source of the ethical problems that men feel. For with more knowledge … men know instinctively what they ought to do and they do not conjure up fancied situations and imaginary problems.
- Sir Owen Dixon, Chief Justice
You’re not a bad person.
You’re not devious or corrupt or seeking personal gain.
You were professionally ignorant.
You felt embarrassed and ashamed.
You sought to hide your ignorance.
You spoke on, or advocated for, or decided upon - a subject not within your expertise.
It went badly.
You felt more embarrassment and shame.
You covered it up with fancied situations and imaginary problems.
And your positional power.
Wash. Rinse. Repeat.
You’re the boss now.