The Beached Boss.
Someone makes an allegation against the bad boss.
The boss who has ruled by positional power and presided over meetings of compliant, almost mute workers.
The boss who has, until now, imposed their will on events.
Then the allegation, followed by an investigation with interviews of workers.
The bad boss flounders like a beached whale in the shallows of their superficial relationships.
Perhaps one sycophant forlornly and tokenly splashes words of reassurance over the carcass.
The rest of the workers keep their distance and watch on - disengaged.
Like they always have.
Your Future.
“The future is already here – it's just not evenly distributed.” - William Gibson
Someone somewhere in your organisation has already resolved an issue that you’ve yet to encounter.
Your future - answering that question or solving that problem - is already here.
Who in you organisation has the job of evenly distributing it?
Move on from Everest.
When Sir Edmund Hillary conquered Mount Everest, you’d think that people would move on to other things.
But no.
People continue to want to climb it.
Why?
To say: ‘I did it.’
When someone solves a problem, writes a great template letter, creates a powerpoint deck, finds a cure, or does anything that someone else could benefit from …
… people still want to solve the problem for themselves, write their own template, recreate a powerpoint deck, search for a cure, reinvent the wheel…
People want to do it for themselves, meaning there’s almost no market for doing it for everybody.
Imagine if we treated Sir Edmund as a representative of humankind.
A collective conquering.
We did it.
Imagine what other things we could have ‘conquered’ with all the time we had if we moved on from Everest.
And powerpoint decks.
The Law is About.
The Law is 10% about rules.
The law is 90% about the process of applying those rules to different facts and circumstances.
Why He Got the Job.
He could tell you where the church hall used to be before it was demolished to make way for the school gym.
He could tell you what year that was, and the name of the parish priest at the time.
That’s why he got the job.
Why most do.
The Only Lesson.
The only lesson learned from asserting positional power is that nobody knows what to do except you.
A Bad Meeting Is Like.
Attending a bad meeting presided over by a bad boss is like being at a bad extended family dinner with a loud mouthed relative.
Except you can’t excuse yourself for respite.
Gullible Fools.
Often what we find most displeasing and objectionable about a bad boss is that they take us for fools.
I See You.
One of the most threatening things you can communicate to a bad boss.
I see you.
Attention.
I listened on the telephone to her horrific story of abuse from forty years ago.
I said sorry, and asked what we could do to help her healing.
‘Counselling,’ she said. ‘For me, my ex-husband, and my two adult children who have suffered because of my suffering.’
‘Of course,’ I said. ‘Anything else?’
‘A hundred thousand dollars.’
I arranged for the counselling and regularly called to see how she was going.
I’m flying in to visit a friend,’ she said during one call. We agreed to meet for coffee for the first time in person.
We talked for an hour about the things people do over coffee.
She said the counselling had been wonderful for her and her family.
‘You also mentioned a hundred thousand dollars,’ I reminded her.
She smiled.
‘I didn’t want the money,’ she said. ‘I just wanted to get your attention.’
Bobbing Boats.
Most so-called ‘leaders’ are boats bobbing on the surface of possibility, drifting lazy laps of their mooring buoy.
Tangled in the anchor chain of their fear and incompetence.
Good v Bad.
A good policy liberates the worker to be who they are.
A bad policy binds the worker to the boss’s mistrust.
A Good Boss Knows the City.
“We had this template that we rehearsed over and over again. So I always went into the same place.
I was always gonna be at the southeast corner. The same teams went to the same locations around the Target building. So all I had to do was know that's the Target building right there and I was immediately oriented.
I knew I was in the southeast side. I knew who was on the northeast, northwest, southwest. I knew Delta was inside the house.
So that's the orientation. But I never really knew where I was in the city. If you'd asked me to pull out my map and show you what street I was on, I wouldn't have been able to do that.
All I knew was what the Target house was and if I was in the right spot, I was locked into that template and that was my orientation.
- So looking back now, would you do more map study going in?
Oh yeah, without a doubt. Yeah, yeah, yeah, without a doubt.”
- Col. James Lechner, retired US Army Ranger
A good worker knows the template of the universal city block.
A good boss knows the city.
Commander’s Intent.
Commander’s Intent:
‘Seize and hold that hill.’
No detail about how many rounds of ammunition per man or what route to take or which soldier will lead each section.
That’s for you and I to work out to achieve Commander’s Intent.
Most organisations fail or don’t reach their potential because of their absence of, and failure to communicate, a clear Commander’s Intent.
Not hiring, retaining, and affirming, and trusting people who know what they contribute towards achieving Commander’s Intent.
Most organisations have a grab bag of values and slogans and cliches and rituals and people tugging in different directions.
Meanwhile, the hill remains in enemy hands.
Other People’s Stories.
Lawyers are voracious readers of thousands of other people’s stories as written by judges over hundreds of years.
The characters may change along with the setting and props, but there is really only one story:
Someone didn’t do what is expected of them.
The craft of a lawyer is founded on using those stories to predict how a client’s story may be written should the client commission a court to write it for them.
An experienced lawyer can listen to the client tell their story for a few minutes and already know how it may end.
This lawyer crystal ball is particularly handy when a client is proposing to do, or not do, something, and the lawyer’s job is to predict the possible consequences.
The lawyer doesn’t need to know too much about the client’s business or circumstances to do this.
They only need to know that there was something the client is or was meant to do, and they may not do it.
Same equation.
Different variables.
The Under Bidder.
You’re selling your home.
‘It’s worth what someone will pay for it,’ your friends unhelpfully advise.
You put it on the market and don’t list a price.
You wait.
The first offer comes in.
It’s below what you were hoping for.
But it’s The Market.
Then a second offer - lower than the first.
You breathe a sigh of relief and want to hug them.
Because you’re off.
The lower of the two - the ‘under bidder’ is your hero.
You tell the under bidder that you’ve got another higher offer.
If they up their offer and it’s not enough - you tell them.
If they increase their offer and it’s higher than the first … you know the drill.
If they drop out - then at least you have comfort that the first bidder is The Market.
All because of the under bidder.
In The Leap from the Knowing to the Unknowing
In the leap into the emptiness of the unknown we will land - and create a known.
First, we must leap.
A Resistance to Wrestle With.
Strict schools create sneaky students by design.
Teachers provide children and young people with a benign resistance to wrestle with.
Rules can be probed, nudged, bent, and broken - with predictable and contained consequences.
Children and young people learn to navigate authority.
In community.