Bernard Hill 26/12/25 Bernard Hill 26/12/25

Like Back Seat Passengers.

Behind every choice...there is a choice architecture, an unconscious set of structures that helps frame the decision. - David Brooks

Whether it’s five steps, or twenty, or one, or none…

We’re all applying our own decision making system.

Albeit like passengers in the back driven by our subconscious.

Bernard Hill 25/12/25 Bernard Hill 25/12/25

Liberty.

“If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.” - George Orwell

Which is why you no longer work there.

Bernard Hill 24/12/25 Bernard Hill 24/12/25

Seeing What is in Front of Our Noses.

In that letter from Birmingham City jail,” King … simply asked people to see what was in front of their noses. He begins by stating what he is doing in his campaign and how he is doing it. Step one, he instructs the clergymen, is “Collection of the facts to determine whether injustices are alive.” The other three steps, he continued, were (2) negotiation (3) self-purification; and (4) direct action. - Thomas E. Ricks

Dr Martin Luther King followed the Five Steps to a Good Decision.

Step 1: Step Back (In Jail).

Step 2: Define the Issue (Identify injustices.)

Step 3: Assess the Information (Collect facts.)

Step 4: Check for Bias (Self Purification)

Step 5: Give a Hearing (Negotiation)

Bernard Hill 23/12/25 Bernard Hill 23/12/25

X was Never Part of the Deal.

“Conflict provides us with information.” - Nikola Overall

A complaint is the complainant alerting us to an information gap.

‘I expected you to do X. But you did X minus Y.’

From this, we learn:

what the complainant expected.
what the complainant got

From this we can respond by:

giving the complainant what they expected or compensating for it
explaining to the complainant that X was never part of the deal.

Then we can set about:

making sure we give people what we promise
making sure we manage people’s expectations

Bernard Hill 22/12/25 Bernard Hill 22/12/25

Small l.

Small-l-leadership happens at every level of an organisation - mostly unseen.

It’s the job of the Capital-L-Leader to foster it, see it, acknowledge it, and authentically celebrate it.

Bernard Hill 21/12/25 Bernard Hill 21/12/25

That’s a Knife.

“That’s not a knife…”

No point in exhorting ‘excellence’ when no-one in your audience knows what your ‘excellence’ looks like.

For some, your excellence might even be a step backwards.

Bernard Hill 20/12/25 Bernard Hill 20/12/25

Familiar.

The trick of the average consultant is to make the familiar unfamiliar and to charge to make it familiar again

A good one will show the unfamiliar is familiar.

Bernard Hill 19/12/25 Bernard Hill 19/12/25

Mystery Solved.

“The difference between being very smart and very foolish is often very small.” - Amos Tversky

And hence the solution to the mystery of the promotion of the bad boss.

Bernard Hill 18/12/25 Bernard Hill 18/12/25

The Idea of the Thing.

“I was well on my way to meeting you, when I realised missing you was everything.” - Anon.

It’s often the idea of the thing - more than the thing.

Bernard Hill 17/12/25 Bernard Hill 17/12/25

The Band You’re In.

“We all brought songs to the Police but it was no fun working on them because I couldn’t write for Sting’s persona. That same material I used for Rumble Fish and got a Golden Globe nomination, so it didn’t suck. It just wasn’t suitable for the Police.’ - Stewart Copeland, drummer for The Police.

Stay in the band and be wealthy.

Or leave the band and be yourself.

Bernard Hill 15/12/25 Bernard Hill 15/12/25

The Usual.

In cases of the unusual - do the usual.

Bernard Hill 14/12/25 Bernard Hill 14/12/25

Living Dangerously.

Schools allow children to choose to act as non-player characters for six hours a day.

They watch other students make decisions then act on them, and see the consequences for the child.

As the children grow older and spend time with their friends in other households, they witness how their friends operate within their families and how those families operate.

Living dangerously vicariously, and learning, without the consequences.

Bernard Hill 13/12/25 Bernard Hill 13/12/25

The Jailer is Watching.

It has been written that Leadership is confronting people with their freedom.

A word of warning to the novice Leader:

While you are beckoning people to emerge from their prison,

The Jailer is watching.

And is not happy.

Bernard Hill 12/12/25 Bernard Hill 12/12/25

Pebbles Voting.

The avalanche has already started. It is too late for the pebbles to vote. Michael Straczynski

This is the 'opposite end’ of the Bishop Desmond Tutu quote:

There comes a point where we need to stop just pulling people out of the river. We need to go upstream and find out why they’re falling in.

Bernard Hill 11/12/25 Bernard Hill 11/12/25

Mr Squiggle.

Anyone who grew up in Australia in the 1970s remembers the TV show - Mr Squiggle.

Very young children would send in ‘drawings’ of random lines, strokes, dots and curves.

A puppet called Mr Squiggle, aided by his friend Miss Jane and Rocket who acted as an easel, would use his pencil nose to join all the random markings and reveal a picture.

Usually Miss Jane would have to rotate the paper so we could see what only Mr Squiggle had discerned.

That’s the same way we create a narrative to explain what happened.

Almost always with us as the Hero.

Bernard Hill 10/12/25 Bernard Hill 10/12/25