Always. Never.
It’s easy to accuse someone of ‘always’ or ‘never’ behaving a particular way that offends us.
A person we’ve just met, perhaps in a meeting, enthusiastically prosecutes a view we don’t agree with. Or they’re late. Or they make a mistake. Or they are directly critical of a position we’ve taken; perhaps constructively and reasonably, perhaps not.
If you met President Kennedy during the Bay of Pigs fiasco, you would come away thinking he was weak - as did President Khrushchev of the Soviet Union. If you sat with him amidst the Cuban Missile Crisis - you would think him cool under pressure.
Sadly, many of us, often unknowingly, are characterised by others, and characterise them, based on a single experience. We are denied, and deny them, what the Law calls ‘procedural fairness’ - the opportunity to hear and address the adverse case against us. We go through life with both them and us robbed of the opportunity for a relationship, and to learn and mature from our first impressions.
Because of ‘Always’ or ‘Never’.
Name, Rank, and Browser Activity.
During the Second World War, Axis spies scoured local newspapers to glean anything about a serviceman’s life that, if the sailor, soldier, or airman was captured, might be used during interrogation to trick or coerce them into revealing military secrets.
Spying in the next war will be a doddle.
A Lot of Learning.
There’s a lot of learning between ‘It fell’ and ‘I dropped it’.
- Anonymous
There’s a lot of maturing between ‘the car stalled’ and ‘I stalled the car’.
Natural Debriefers.
The group of children drops their stand up paddle boards and runs to the grass to towel off.
Each competes with the other to describe their experience on the water. ‘I was about to stand and then this small wave unbalanced me and I went in!’ ‘I couldn’t stand and hold my paddle!’ ‘I almost stood, but slipped!’ Each is breathless in their excitement to share how their experience was different or the same as the other children in the group. Everyone eagerly listens.
Over the age of two when they’ve overcome their selfish stage, children and young people are natural debriefers. They spontaneously, and eagerly share and compare with their peers and sometimes adults perceptions of what happened to them during an activity.
Until we become adults, and revert to being selfish, petulant toddlers.
The Corporate Gate Crasher.
Reading much of what’s written in most workplaces evokes many emotions. Or worse - none.
One feeling is sadness.
We write our job application. Accept the invitation to contact our potential future boss (or HR if we’re unlucky) and ask more information about it. We research the position and company. We go to the interview. We are introduced to our potential boss. We hit it off. We like them. They like us. We leave feeling hopeful and quietly excited about the potential for us and our boss.
Perhaps another interview as part of the ‘short list’. And then the letter to say we’re offered the job.
Induction. Staff meetings. Some external consultant comes in and we do tests to identify our ‘type’ and the ‘type’ of our boss and what we both need to do to get along and be productive and avoid conflict. We share Birthday cakes and charity runs and dress up for good causes and toss a gold coin in with the boss’s and then maybe Friday drinks after we’ve dressed casually.
All this effort to get to know each other. Perhaps there’s one or two FTE positions whose job descriptions include Wellness and other responsibilities designed to make us more human and authentic and therefore a little vulnerable in our workplace.
Only for a stranger to gate crash and destroy all the carefully crafted relationship building.
The corporate letter.
The written correspondence bearing no resemblance to the banter and small talk as we waited for the kettle to boil or the microwave to ping. Written in a style, tone, and level that we would never recognise and identify in a line up of our bosses. Like the annoying stranger with no emotional intelligence who interrupts your deep and meaningful conversation at a party. The corporate letter, email, policy, memo, Powerpoint deck, meeting script, media release, marketing propaganda, performance review.
Nope. Sorry, officer. None of those verbose, cold, officious, empty, meaningless string of words fits the description of the warm and humorous and chatty human beings I’ve got to know since I applied for the job. Can’t help you.
The way many people in organisations write is why artificial intelligence is quietly thinking: ‘Hold my beer’.
We Need a Story.
That was the moment I gave up on decision analysis. No one ever made a decision because of a number. They need a story.
- Daniel Kahneman, Nobel Prize Winner
When we follow a good decision making process we commission ourselves as authors of a story.
At the end, we are led by our narrative to a decision.
Cast Our Net.
Your chief weapon to improve your decisions is turning some of the stuff you don’t know into stuff you know.
- Annie Duke
The first step to converting unknowns into knowns is creating a decision making process.
Simply by having a process we create a net to cast out into the hidden depths.
With each step in our process we haul it back onboard, feeling it grow heavier with information.
The Dormant Seed of Hope.
In the soil of most lies is a dormant seed of hope, waiting to push into view.
In covering the truth with dirt, we acknowledge there is a truth.
Waiting for sunlight.
Be Sad to One’s Heart’s Content.
When one is sad, one should be sad to one’s heart’s content. It is precisely when one tries to escape the pain and sadness that one gets stuck and ceases to be able to build deep relationships with anyone.
- Ichiro Kishimi
Step 1 of the Five Steps to Good Decision Making is Step Back.
Only after we’ve attended to our own shock, pain, sadness, anger, disappointment - can we begin to authentically give the attention and energy needed to consider the effect on others of our decision making.
Conjunction.
'We become who we are in conjunction with other people becoming who they are.'
- David Brooks, 'The Social Animal'
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.
Good decision making is a generous act.
We make our work visible.
We show our labour.
We share our thinking with others in each step so that they may benefit from it.
With the exception of Step 1 - Step Back, good decision making faces outwards to the world.
It is a confident, poised, creative process that, while present, gazes ahead to seek a better future.
Step 2 - Define the Issue. We declare ‘Here’s what I understand Reality to be.’
Step 3 - Assess the Information. We declare ‘Tell me what you know.’
Step 4 - Check for Bias. We ask ‘Am I open to be persuaded by a better argument?’
Step 5 - Give a Hearing. We invite ‘Here’s what i’m thinking of doing that might affect you. What do you think?’
We make our decision, leaving breadcrumbs of others to either follow us, or to feed on during their own journey.
In Plain Sight.
“I had been on the Johnny Carson show for nine years. Nobody at NBC - nobody - not one person after nine years of going on Carson three and four times a year and killing - nobody said ‘Why don’t we talk to this kid?’”
‘Nine years of killing on the Carson show should’ve triggered something in them?’
“Nothing. Nothing.”
- Jerry Seinfeld interviewed by Howard Stern.
It took George Shapiro, Seinfeld’s Manager, to call NBC and point out Seinfeld’s talent for NBC to meet and offer a sitcom.
35 years later, Jerry Seinfeld has an estimated net worth of over a billion dollars.
Remember Jerry next time you’re feeling your boss doesn’t notice, let alone appreciate you’ve been killing.
What it Takes.
Notice what it takes for a boss or organisation to hire, promote, or fire people.
More than hype and slogans and marketing - those decisions reveal what the boss values or feels threatened by.
Orderly.
'Be regular and orderly in your life, so that you may be violent and original in your work.'
- Gustave Flaubert
No plan survives first contact with the enemy.
Everyone has a plan until they’re punched in the mouth.
This isn’t an argument for not being prepared.
An orderly decision making process, regularly applied, sets us up to be violent and original - even in our response to chaos.
The Pretender.
There is a type of immature leader who plays at being what they think a leader does. It’s usually a mix of condescending authoritarianism with a benevolent bone thrown to the followers now and then.
They drape themselves in the uniform of some unearned virtue, and watch themselves mirrored in the wide eyes of the handful of sycophants. Their fawning is good enough for the pretender to conclude they are an effective leader.
And thus the pretender-leader plays the imitation of themselves in constant production. They recite their soliloquy on stage to the applause of the sycophants, lighting and sound kept in working order by the quiet, invisible competent few stagehands.
Meanwhile, the sycophants patiently wait as understudies - ready to be rewarded by their ‘leader’ and continue the incompetence for another generation.
The Problem With Being Good.
The problem with being good at your job that you identify and alert others to an issue long before it becomes - an issue.
Your boss is more likely to listen to you, look at the evidence, think of her list of priorities, and decide yours isn’t one of them.
Besides, the risk of addressing a potential issue is far outweighed by the glory of reacting to a crisis. People are far more forgiving of someone who is imperfect in an emergency than those who want resources to prevent one.
Big picture, strategic thinking bosses are rare. Most bosses reach their position by doing tactical jobs well. The day-to-day. Nobody teaches them the different skills, mindset, and steely nerve needed to think months, let alone years into the future. Plus, long term planning lacks the payoffs that come from the day-to-day, and the gratitude of another crisis ‘solved’.
Which may explain why we end up with bosses who prefer to shake hands and kiss babies, preside over meetings, and be hero leader when their failure to listen to you results in the crisis you predicted.
Because by then, if you’re smart, you’re long gone to work for someone with the self-confidence and wisdom to listen to you do what they pay you for.
Decision Making Lessons from a Dyson.
I was never a fan of vacuuming - until we bought a Dyson with a transparent bin.
Nothing as satisfying as seeing dust spinning around a previously empty canister as I pushed the vacuum around the house.
It’s been written that ‘When we compared people’s best days with their worst, the most important differentiator was being able to make progress in the work.”
We can make decisions based on gut feel, instinct or positional power. No progress. Just an action. Done. Next. Maybe we’re okay with that. We’re people of action. We’ve got other things on our To Do List. Fine.
But what about anyone else involved? What about their sense of progress? Do we deny them a ‘best day’?
Following a process - the Five Steps to a Good Decision is one - gives a sense of progress as we make our way through each stage.
Hopefully helping us make good decisions, and helping those affected by them as well.
The Power of One.
‘People respond well to stories,’ I offered.
‘I don’t,’ she said from her seat beside the boss.
So we didn’t use stories because they don’t work for her.
And there you have it.
The power of one.
At the Helm.
my eyes have seen what my hand did
- Robert Lowell, ‘Dolphin’
Good decision making is a deliberate process of inquiry that advances us towards where we want to be.
Good decision making gives us agency in our destiny where otherwise we may have little or none.
Good decision making makes us the Captain of our little lifeboat.
Standing upright at the helm, trimming the sails with the changing winds, smiling with a face covered in spray.
Energy Return System.
Modern sporting footwear includes an ‘energy return system’. The design and materials absorb the impact energy of the foot striking the ground, and then release some of this energy to aid in the next step, enhancing efficiency and reducing fatigue.
Good decision making has an energy return system.
Following a process improves feedback to inform the next decision - even if the result is not ideal.
A good decision making process can energise the decision maker in that it both cushions the impact of the decision outcome, conserving enthusiasm and motivation to apply the lessons to the next decision.
Every decision, no matter the outcome, contributes valuable insights that improve efficiency and effectiveness over time.
A good decision making process - like a good runner - has a rhythm.
Each decision propelling you to the next.
