Belief.

When we make a decision we show belief in ourselves.

When we execute the decision we display our self-belief to the world.

Resolution.

Reframe complaints and their policies away from fault, error, blame, and punishment -

- to bridging information gaps, learning, and continuous improvement.

When is a complaint resolved?

When the respondent has satisfied themselves that they have the best information to make future decisions.

The Real Boss.

Be sure to know who the real boss is.

You think you’re the boss, yet if people know you’re not, they will pay you lip service while keeping their eye on the real boss.

Your test of whether you’re the real boss is if you’ve got nobody to complain to.

Why Not?

If you’ve got positional power and can get away with it - why not?

In the unlikely event you’re challenged - use your positional power.

Why wouldn’t you?

What’s the use of positional power if you can’t abuse it?

Surfacing the Information.

Often it’s only by making a mistake that we surface the information that allows us to know we’re mistaken.

And for others to gleefully point it out.

Simple.

To someone who knows nothing about something, everything looks simple.

The Problem with Team.

The problem with ‘Team’ is it’s abstract.

Who or what is ‘Team’?

Urging people to work with the ‘team’ or put the ‘team’ first relies on each person sharing the same identity of ‘team’.

Better to say ‘work with Tom’ or ‘Dick’ or ‘Mary’ or even ‘the person relying on you’.

‘Team’ is like ‘School’.

Everybody can say it’s not them.

The One Rule Book.

When a decision maker applies positional power to make a decision affecting someone else, what they are saying is:

‘ I have a rule book that nobody else has, including you. Every time I apply that rule to you, my rule book resets and what may have been the rule yesterday, may not be the rule today. I get to decide when you break a rule and displease me, or when you don’t and please me. You won’t know whether you’ve displeased or pleased until I say so. So you’d better be nice to me.’

‘In short there is only one rule in the One Rule Book you need to know: Please me.’

Policies.

Policies are an organisation’s collective memory.

Punitive.

We are stymied in our actions by our framing of anything adverse to a person as punitive, when often it is liberating.

Resolution.

Writing is like photography.

The more accurate the words, the finer the resolution of the picture.

Applause.

The boss speaks, emails, meets.

APPLAUSE - the sign flashes.

We clap.

Error Co-Dependent.

The bad boss relies on the errors of the workers to keep their job.

As long as the workers fail, they need a boss to boss them.

Bad workers keep bad bosses employed.

War Cry.

The war cry of the mediocre:

‘We’re doing our best!’

Struggle.

In a grey area, struggle is usually a sign of serious thought and effort.

- Joseph L. Badaracco

‘Struggle’ is not the same as ‘hard’.

‘Thank you Mary for all your hard work.’

Imagine a boss thanking Mary for her struggle.

Delight.

The best worker delights the boss by working better than the boss expected.

The best boss delights the worker by allowing them to work better than the boss had in mind.

The best workplaces have bosses and workers who delight in each other.

Hype.

A quick way of dismissing something as aspirational empty hype:

Describing effort as anything above 100%

No Incentive.

A person who has risen to hold any positional power has no incentive to learn or create.

Easy Things.

‘Easy things lure us away from better answers.’

- Dr. Daniel Dennett, cognitive scientist and philosopher.

There’s nothing easier than exercising positional power.

Misplaced Virtue.

A friend swerved to avoid a fox running across the road, and rolled her car.

She and the other two occupants escaped with minor injuries.

‘Next time, run over the fox,’ was our advice.

Too many foxes live while others suffer because of mis-placed virtue.