Bernard Hill Bernard Hill

Recap.

Your Widget is where you want to be.

A good decision is one that advances you towards where you want to be.

Good decision making is a deliberate process of inquiry that advances you towards where you want to be.

Your process of inquiry leaves a path behind you.

If you look around and at least one person is following you …

…you’re leading.

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Tool.

The most powerful tool at the boss’s disposal:

The mortgage.

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People.

We’re not ‘individuals’.

We’re people.

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Vigil.

Changing the world demands nothing less than hunting down and rooting out of our subconscious all the limiting beliefs inherited from our families and teachers, naming and debunking them, then maintaining a constant vigil of our behaviour to prevent visiting them, especially those disguised as virtuous, upon our children.

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Ha-ha.

Humour is the shortest distance between two people.

Explains why the working day can feel so long.

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Commentry.

‘This place is terrible!’ they mutter. ‘Someone needs to do something.’ they complain.

‘Did you see what she did?!’ they decry. ‘How does she get away with it?!’

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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.

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Shackled.

No profession is as shackled to a technology as teaching is to the classroom.

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Inertia.

Never underestimate the power of the Known over the Better.

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Winning.

If you can’t dribble, then dribbling is winning.

If you can’t shoot, then shooting is winning.

If you can’t score, then scoring is winning.

If you can’t win, then winning is winning.

If you can’t lose …

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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.

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Stand By.

If someone is waiting for you to make a decision and you need more time, try saying to them:

‘Stand by'.

There’s something about those words that is more likely to elicit a sympathetic and respectful response to your request for time.

Words matter.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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