The Boss is a Jerk.
Many go to work to literally disengage.
Work is a break from the pressure and anxiety of being a grown up.
Turn up. Predictable. Few surprises. Follow a routine. Follow (mostly) clear (mostly) directions for (mostly) clear outcomes.
Good social life, too.
Surrender autonomy and agency to the boss in return for having someone to blame for your unhappiness.
Boss getting a little uppity in their demands and causing a little pycho-social hazard?
Don’t worry. The government will rescue you.
Work is respite care from Life.
Daydream on the journey home of all the things you could achieve with family and work.
If only the boss wasn’t such a jerk.
Its Own Change.
The process is a decision.
The process creates its own change.
You see the world differently - and the world sees you differently - after the process.
The Opposition.
One of the functions of an opposition - whether in politics or in a healthy society or community - is to listen to and articulate the reasonable concerns or grievances of the marginalised or voiceless.
Otherwise there is the risk that those people will resort to disruptive and violent means to express their fears.
Redirect.
One of the skills of a leader is to identify and redirect towards the Widget:
Time
Attention
Energy
Resources
Emotion
Starting with themselves, then those under the leader’s authority or influence.
A leader recognises a person’s potential (including their own) and that it may be misdirected.
Instead of suppressing or punishing the misdirected time, attention, energy, resources, or emotion, the leader redirects it.
Teachers do this routinely with their students.
The Audition.
Step 1: Step Back
Pausing before beginning the decision making process gives us many of the benefits from reconnoitring multiple pathways.
We project ourselves along optional pathways, anticipating, considering, and feeling their respective consequences.
We choose one journey after auditioning multiple.
Two for One.
‘We need to consult with parents to get their opinions,’ he insisted.
As if no teacher was, or ever had been, a parent.
Mumbo Jumbo.
For the average worker in a medium to large organisation, management looks like magic.
Managers look like gods.
How things get done is a complete mystery.
Thus - the worker’s relationship to management is like the audience to a magician: curious awe.
After a while, the lustre fades and the worker sees the practice of management as necessary mumbo-jumbo.
The further up the hierarchy, the closer the worker moves to the machinery of management.
The mystique fades as the worker gets to witness the sleight of hand in the executive meetings.
‘I can do that!’ she realises, and signs up for the Aspiring Leader programme.
Believing that one day she too can be a god.
Assume the Burden.
In my view, this case was an example of a court being required to assume the burden of endeavouring to ascertain the rights of the appellant, which were obfuscated by his own advocacy. - His Honour Judge Sefton
A mature and confident decision maker, organisation, and process are not threatened by assisting a complainant or person with a grievance or interest from accessing their rights to be heard.
In the Heat of the Moment.
I am satisfied however that the opportunity afforded to the appellant fell short of that which at law was required to be afforded to the appellant. Regrettably, it would seem that both the appellant and the court were somewhat caught up in the heat of the moment. - His Honour Judge Sefton
Adulthood.
We reach full maturity the day we realise we have more to contribute to the world than what we assumed.
The day we don’t copy, or mimic, or regurgitate, or tinker, or follow, or respond to an external provocation.
We become an adult the day we reach inside and produce something new and present it to the world.
A Real Fête.
A real fête is one in which one participates as an actor. - Maurice Garçon
Most workers are spectators.
Which is why they are joyless.
Compensation.
Nobody speaks up to name the frequent wrongs in the workplace because we’re mercenaries.
When we choose to work for someone else we choose money over Truth whenever the two clash.
We accept the slow deterioration of our soul as a business expense.
That’s why another word for ‘salary’ is ‘compensation’.
Adding Value.
It’s about adding value.
Sizing up what you’ve inherited, recognising what you can do to make it better, and doing it.
Dormant.
Rules of Engagement (ROE) are a combination of a country’s national strategy, international law, and military capability.
ROE guide everyone from the Chief of Defence to a private solider on when they can use force against an enemy.
Countries have ‘dormant ROE’ which are pre-drafted ROE that can be activated as the strategic environment changes.
Every organisation has a governance structure - whether it knows it or not, designed it or not, applies it or not, or even knows that ‘governance’ means.
Every organisation has a dormant governance structure.
It’s perfectly compliant with every law and regulatory framework.
Regardless of what the board, the chief executive, or the governance person, reports or assumes to be their organisation’s governance, the dormant governance continues to apply.
What awakens and reveals the dormant governance?
A visit by a regulator. A crisis. An accident or injury. A whistleblower. A due diligence or merger or takeover or liquidity problem.
Any of these events triggers the measuring of the actual governance against the legal or regulatory or best practice governance.
You’ll get away with your presumed governance for as long as it takes for one of these events to reveal that the rest of us presumed your governance is.
Governance is like the iceberg.
Waiting.