Be Yourself.
“Take that [rhythm] you’ve got in your foot and put it into your arm,” the maestro urges.'
- Sydney Symphony Orchestra Conductor David Robertson's advice to journalist and first time conductor, James Jeffrey
'I was telling my students about your little leadership habit,' Flight Lieutenant Waugh said when we caught up over lunch in the RAAF Base Point Cook Officers Mess. Kathy had been my Directing Staff or 'DS' during my Officer Training a few months earlier. I was intrigued. What did I, a newly-minted Air Force Officer, have to teach anyone about leadership?
'I told them about how you wrote down in your calendar when your Corporal said that she was having her hair done over the weekend so that you could remember to compliment her on it when you saw her on Monday.'
Something didn't feel right about that then, and it still doesn't.
The management books are full of 'fake it 'til you make it' advice to would-be leaders. Tips and tricks to look like you care about your people so that they will be motivated to work harder for you. I think I had been joking with Kathy about my calendar reminder, but I've been a bad boss so I've faked sincerity in other ways.
New and aspiring bosses get caught in the no man's land between remembering what they wished their boss had done for them, and not knowing how, or having the self-confidence, to do it for their workers. So we read the leadership books and do a bit of management by walking around, noting of people's children's names, and try to look interested during long winded responses to our rote 'How was your weekend?' questions.
It's hard.
As one of my bosses, the Abbot of New Norcia used to say to me:
Be yourself.
Take that steady rhythm of humanity in your heart, the wounds from so many bad bosses, your own fear that you recognise in our faces, the optimism and belief in the fundamental goodness in us all - including yourself - and put it into your baton.
Then lead us in playing each of our instruments in your original composition.
The Decision Making Momentum.
'Very often when we're asked to approve the use of targeted lethal force, it can only be in a matter of minutes. And so there's a lot of momentum to that. So to say no is like stepping in front of a 90-car freight train.'
- Jeh Johnson, Homeland Security Secretary and former Pentagon General Counsel
There can be a lot of momentum behind a issue requiring a decision.
President Kennedy learned this during the Cuban Missile Crisis.
It took enormous courage for him to absorb the momentum of opinion from the military and many of his advisers that he should start a nuclear war or risk losing one.
Few decision makers will confront these consequences.
There is a momentum of expectations acting upon all decision making.
The momentum of the experts and advisers that have contributed information and opinions towards their preferred decision and want to be right.
The momentum of the people who will be affected by the decision and who want to feel safe.
The momentum of those whose needs would be met by a decision in their favour and who want to be affirmed.
The momentum of the mythology of the hero leader/decision maker who is decisive and bold and thrives on urgency.
The momentum of the reputations of those who appointed the decision maker and can't be let down.
The momentum of the way it has always been done.
The momentum of a parent who didn't give enough hugs.
The momentum of the fear of being wrong.
The Five Steps to a good decision serve as shock absorbers that dissipate momentum and transfer its energy into outward visible inquiry, rather than internal, hidden friction.
Verify Range to Target.
'Verify our range to target. One ping only.'
- Captain Marko Ramius (Sean Connery) The Hunt for Red October
Our decisions are like a submarine's sonar pings.
They announce our position in the world - to the world - and the world pings back its position in relation to us - and we learn more about our position in the world - and we learn more about the world.
About where we are.
About our range to target. (Our Widget.)
About any course adjustments we need to make to get there.
The accuracy of the information learned from a sonar ping relies upon the constant of the speed of sound through water.
The accuracy of the information learned from a decision relies upon the constant of the Five Steps to a Good Decision.
The more good decision making pings we make - the more we learn about our Widget, the world, and ourselves.
Knowledge Workers Wear Badges.
Terry was a fast jet pilot who was my neighbour in the Officers Mess.
He was still in bed when I left for my office in the morning and I'd find him reclined on my couch in my room watching my TV when I'd return after work. It wasn't his fault. His Squadron flew Macchis and they spent a lot of time grounded with mechanical problems.
'What's the definition of an optimist?' I'd say within his earshot at the Mess bar. 'A 79 Squadron pilot in his flying suit.'
Terry's response was to take me flying, let me have a go for a bit, then turn off the cockpit air conditioning so hot air blew at my oxygen mask encased face, then do high G force aerobatics until I threw up.
One evening I'd been downstairs in the Mess Bar and returned to get something from my room. Terry jumped up when I walked in.
'Mate! Who are the chicky babes I saw you with you in the Mess?'
I explained that they were Uni students who were members of the Air Force Undergraduate Scheme, and as a graduate of the Scheme, I had been asked to host their orientation visit to the Base.
'Well, I'd better demonstrate my Officer Qualities, put on my flying suit, and go downstairs and introduce myself,' Terry said. After he'd changed, I watched him stride down the corridor, stop, look down and pat the empty velcro patches on his puffed out chest, glance and slap at each blank velcro square on both shoulders of his flying suit, then do an about turn.
'Badges! Not enough squadron badges! I need to put my badges on! Chicks dig flying suits with badges!'
Knowledge workers wear badges designed to impress.
'Let's scrub in on stakeholder engagement and designate a high performing team to drill down and exploit the leverage at our next all-hands meeting and get buy in on being fully committed to this project, going forward.'
Sewn into our writing and speech.
'To better position our team to compete in a highly fragmented and competitive market, we'll reach out and engage a thought leader to partner with us to think outside the box and transition to new markets.'
Declaring our organisational status.
'There's been a paradigm shift that has impacted the level playing field and re-tooled the key performance indicators for our deliverables so we need to get some skin in the game and shoe horn our people into places at the table.'
Someone successful adorns their language with badges. We want to be seen as successful. We clothe our writing and speech in them like faded army greatcoats bought from a surplus store.
Words matter.
Shortly before I transferred to the Air Force Reserve, someone decided to introduce a badge showing that a person had met their fitness and weapons handling standards. Yet if an Air Force member didn't pass those annual tests, they would be discharged. Therefore everyone wore the badge. It effectively said: 'I'm in the Air Force.' It was meaningless. It had the status of a button.
Same with this language. It's a recycled tacky plastic badge. It presents my credentials in a one way conversation. It betrays that I'm not confident in the substance of what I have to offer you. Terry didn't wear his badges when he was doing his job with his Squadron. He was judged on how he made his Widget of perfecting the strafing of ground targets. He deployed his badges to impress civilians who didn't know any better.
While we're at it, let's purge the valedictory 'Warmly's, 'Sincerely's, 'Faithfully's and other standardised, one-size-fits all regardless of the text that went before it - endings to emails. (I've often received an angry tirade in an email from a member of clergy expressing contempt for me that has closed with a variation of 'Christ's Blessings and Peace Be Upon You'.)
Stand out. Make the effort to use plain language. Step out from behind the mass produced patches. Delight us. Show us you trust us with - you.
Become who you are.
Try it.
Here's some templates to begin with that can be easily tailored for different contexts:
'Let's meet with Tom and Harry and get their help to decide what we want to do.'
'Our client is unhappy and we need to fix that.'
'I'd like to speak with you about the idea you had.'
'You were right. I was wrong. I'm sorry.'
'You did a good job.'
'Thank you.'
Words matter.
Monks Do What Monks Do.
'We monks should do what monks do. Here.'
- Abbot Placid Spearritt, Sixth Abbot of New Norcia
New Norcia needed 12 million dollars to maintain its heritage buildings.
One of my jobs was to help the monks to fund it.
The businessman was offering us lots of money in return for the use of the New Norcia brand to market his product.
'I'll need to take it to the brethren of course,' the Abbot said after I'd briefed him. 'I should warn you that I'll be voting against it. The proposal doesn't fit with our European, Aboriginal or Monastic heritage. I also need to be mindful not to distract the brethren away from their prayers. There are plenty of worthy tourist icons that could do with the money. As for us, we monks should do what monks do. Here.'
The Abbot of a Benedictine Monastery, the Air Officer Commanding Western Australia, the Chief of the Defence Force; each had clarity of Purpose - their Widget - to guide them when faced with a right-versus-right decision.
Monks seek God - therefore they pray. Yet they interrupt their prayer to find Him in each visitor to their monastery.
The Air Officer Commanding WA seeks to develop positive relationships with the local civilian community to ensure its support of his jets screaming over its homes - therefore he allows families onto his Air Force Base to cool off in the taxpayer funded swimming pool built to to train military jet pilots to survive a ditching into the ocean.
The Chief of the Defence Force seeks to defend Australia and her interests - therefore he deploys forces beyond our shores.
Teachers should teach.
Doctors should heal.
Bakers should bake.
Leaders of the above - principals, medical directors, bakery owners - should create the space and hire managers to keep it free of distractions from teaching or healing or baking.
Decision makers and their advisers faced with right versus right decisions should ask themselves: What's my Widget? Which decision will build it?
Good decision making begins with Widget clarity. Knowing where we want to be helps us to focus our time and attention, and that of those who support us, on making decisions that get us there.
The Abbot did approve another proposal - the New Norcia Abbey Ale. 'Monks have always brewed beer,' he said.
What Does Excellence Look Like?
My friend Ian coined the Deperdussin Theory.
The Deperdussin was the first aircraft to serve in the Australian Flying Corps, the predecessor to the Royal Australian Air Force. The Theory is that if a lost tribe looked up through the forest canopy and saw a Deperdussin flying overhead (max speed 210 km/h), they would declare it was the most remarkable and awe inspiring magic flying machine. It would become the benchmark against which they would measure everything else they saw or did.
Only because they'd never seen an F-111 (max speed 2665 km/h).
What does 'Excellence' look like?
It looks like the last thing that we thought was excellent.
So boss you'd better hope that it was an F-111 and not a Deperdussin.
Or better still - don't assume we know what you mean by Excellent. Instead, show us your Excellent. Or whatever other Adjective you want us to be.
(I think that's called 'Leadership'.)
And boss - keep innovating your Excellence because the RAAF retired the F-111 from service 18 months ago.
(Even good theories need updating.)
Everything You Do Sends a Message.
'All the riches will not buy a man. But promise him a ribbon and he will offer his life.'
- An Unknown General.
General Dwight Eisenhower was a career soldier who was responsible for the planning and execution of the D Day landings and subsequent invasions of France and Germany. He led the armed forces that liberated Nazi occupied territory in World War II and rescued Western Civilisation. He was NATO Supreme Commander and after retiring from the Army he served two terms as President of the United States.
President Eisenhower made his farewell speech at the height of the Cold War as Soviet and US nuclear missiles sat in their silos waiting to destroy the earth. His decades in uniform immersed in Army tribalism and identity did not blind him to warning of the threat to civil liberties of 'the military-industrial complex'. He used the word 'I' eighteen times.
President Eisenhower concluded with:
'We pray that peoples of all faiths, all races, all nations, may have their great human needs satisfied; that those now denied opportunity shall come to enjoy it to the full; that all who yearn for freedom may experience its spiritual blessings; that those who have freedom will understand, also, its heavy responsibilities; that all who are insensitive to the needs of others will learn charity; that the scourges of poverty, disease and ignorance will be made to disappear from the earth, and that, in the goodness of time, all peoples will come to live together in a peace guaranteed by the binding force of mutual respect and love.'
General Eisenhower was awarded ten US and decorations and chose to wear only a handful of them. He is buried in uniform, with his wife of 53 years, wearing only three.
General David Petraeus commanded all coalition forces in Iraq. He retired from the Army as the United States was struggling to contain guerrillas in Afghanistan.
His final speech was twice as long as General Eisenhower's. He affirmed the 'need to maintain the full-spectrum [military] capability that we have developed'. General Petraeus shouted 'Hoo-ah!' three times and said 'I' 79 times. He concluded with:
'May God bless each of you, our great country, and most importantly our men and women in uniform and their families.'
Fifteen months after his retirement speech, General Petraeus resigned as Director of the CIA after an alleged extra-marital affair with his biographer. He subsequently pleaded guilty to a charge of mishandling classified information that he had given to her.
General Petraeus wore over 30 ribbons and badges.
The Cruisers Club.
'If we become preoccupied with prescribing, recording and counting the ordinary, and defining procedures for doing those things, then there is little opportunity to even tolerate, let alone promote the extraordinary.'
- Associate Professor Stephen Cohen
We heard the Corporal Physical Training Instructor in the pre-dawn black before we saw him. Which is why we were chatting and shuffling because we thought he was waiting for us back at the gym from where we started our 5km run twenty minutes earlier. The routine was that the PTI told us to walk around the gym in a clockwise - or as we called it 'PT-wise' - direction for three laps accompanied by The B-52s' Roam - then sent us off to the other side of the airfield and back. Not this morning.
'Sirs! Stop!'
We fell silent and halted in front of the muscle bound shape of the Corporal. He didn't speak for a few seconds to allow the silence to betray our lack of panting and further incriminate us.
'Sirs, youse are the the last group.' We saw his head look back to where we had come from. 'Except for Ma'am - youse are the last.' 'Ma'am' was one of our Officers Training School course members who we had nicknamed 'Twenty One Forty' after the time it had taken her to run our initial 2.4km Physical Fitness Test (PFT) in our first week on Course. The pass time was 11 minutes.
The PTI put his hands on his hips and I could see his head slowly scanning us like a sideshow alley clown. 'I've caught youse out. I could make you turn around and do it again. But I'm not going to do that. Why not? Because the only people youse are letting down - are yourselves, Sirs. Because you're Cruisers. And you know what?'
'No, Corporal!' we said in unison. He was junior in rank to us but had our respect because he he could give us pushups and make us hold them mid push. ('That's not six inches Sir! I'll show you six inches!')
Another pause for dramatic effect. 'Because, Sirs, Cruisers...Are Losers!'
And thus the 1/90 Junior Officers Initial Course 'Cruisers Club' was born.
Our membership grew each morning as other Course members eased off their pace and fell back to join our shuffling chats. As long as we passed our fortnightly PFT, the Corporals surrendered and folded their muscular arms, shook their heads and let us Cruise. In the spirit of Cruising, we started a competition to see who could get as close to the 11 minute PFT 2.4km run pass time and thus not waste effort. The record was 10.59. We broadened our Club activities to stealing the Group Captain pennants from the Parade Ground and the senior course's bar fridge from their common room.
The Air Force taught me lots of things - the best of them unintentionally. Rules - many of them dumb and annoying and redundant for the majority of time when we weren't trying to kill an enemy and they weren't trying to kill us (for me that was all the time, thankfully) - can be catalysts for creativity, self-mocking, and fun. Otherwise 'accountability' mostly promotes mediocrity and compliance and not excellence and innovation.
The Corporal PFTs were right. We weren't accountable to their baselines. We were responsible for ourselves.
The inaugural members of the Cruisers Club conquered our self-letting-down and graduated from OTS with Distinctions, with one (not me) winning the Officer Qualities Prize. Twenty One Forty never caught up and was back coursed. She eventually passed and I understand overcame her inability to run fast to become a very good Nursing Officer.
The Cruisers Club had honoured the call of The B52s each morning before we shuffled off:
'Fly the great big sky see the great big sea
Kick through continents bustin' boundaries.'
Our Process Serves our Widget.
'That's how I make decisions. I draw how I approach a lot of issues from aviation when it comes to the management of ideas. One of my favourite sayings is that if you muck up the approach you muck up the landing.'
- The Hon. Sussan Ley, Minister for Health & Sport
‘Check wheels,’ the Air Traffic Controller would radio to the student military pilot as he commenced his approach to land.
'Wheels down,’ the student would reply by rote and habit as he continued his descent with undercarriage fully retracted and the ‘Wheels Up’ alarm in the cockpit blaring.
Process is important.
We get good at it.
We turn up to our desk.
Read and type emails.
Attend meetings.
Write reports.
Go home.
Repeat.
The routine of our working day becomes the Thing We Do. The process gradually replaces our Widget as the Thing We Make.
We attend staff meetings and professional development days and listen and nod to sincerely but falsely acknowledge we’ve heard and responded to the 'Check Wheels' and cockpit alarms as our boss and peers and consultants and guest speakers and strategic papers and Ted Talks and even our own little voice warn us that we’ve forgotten to engage our Widget.
Our knowledge worker rituals and the clatter of weasel words that herald them deafen us to the feedback on our process and progress and obscure the Widget it is meant to serve.
If you tapped the student pilot on the shoulder at 500 feet from violently colliding with the runway and asked whether he was doing his job he would say 'Of course. I'm flying. Now let me get on with it.'
Tap any office worker on their shoulder and ask what their Widget is and in my experience, few can answer or even see it as relevant. 'I'm too busy being busy.'
The curt voice of the vigilant Air Traffic Controller radioing 'Go Around!' would interrupt the student's doomed approach and save him from belly landing in a shower of sparks and grinding metal.
Like monks being called away from their manual labour seven times a day to pray, bosses must regularly call 'Check Widget' and force us back into conscious, engaged, mindful recitals of our decision making process and the Widget it's ultimately serving.
What I Learned From Invading Australia.
We were outgunned, outnumbered and surrounded.
We were attacking Australia.
We were winning.
'I need to lodge small groups of special forces soldiers at various points on the Australian coast,' the Kamarian Commander of 311 Raider Battalion briefed me. 'I want to hide them beneath the decks of fishing vessels that will drop them off without the vessels being intercepted by the Australians. Can I fly the Mussorian flag on them under International Law?'
'Yes Sir. It's called a 'Ruse of War. It's legitimate. Your only obligation is to lower the flag and raise our Kamarian flag if we are discovered and need to defend ourselves. Your biggest risk of interception is by fisheries inspection officers so don't display any fishing gear.' It was much more fun being legal adviser to the bad guys on military exercises.
Following the sabotage and destruction of military and civilian infrastructure across the north of Australia by unknown foreign military elements, the Australian government responded. It suspended the right of innocent passage. No vessel, including ours operating under false flags, could transit Australian terrotorial waters. The Commander asked me for my advice.
'Declare victory, Sir,' I said.
$13 Billion of trade that came through Australia's northern waters annually was halted.
Australia's response to the threat of three civilian fishing vessels and a handful of commandos had self-inflicted billions of dollars of damage to its economy. Much more than the weapons of the armed forces of the mythical tiny island state of Kamaria could ever have done.
The first job of a Leader is to Create the Space.
Boundaries should be liberating catalysts for creativity.
Be generous and discerning in the size of space you create for people - in agreements, rules, policies, practice.
Once you limit the horizon, you have to patrol it. You have to enforce it. You have to mend it. You have to justify it.
You will add to the $250 Billion Australia already spends each year on compliance.
You will constrain and restrict innovation and cause other unforeseen damage.
You can be sure that each person down the hierarchy will define the operating space even smaller for their people.
If someone exploits your generous boundaries - breaks a rule, abuses your trust - be careful not to respond by drawing the lines in tighter. You'll catch more than the stray in your net.
If they breach the boundary again - don't shoot.
Instead, invite them to leave your space and create their own.
Invite them to be a Leader.
Simplicity in the Difficulties.
'Everything is very simple in war, but the simplest thing is difficult. These difficulties accumulate and produce a friction, which no man can imagine exactly who has not seen war.'
- Carl Von Clausewitz, On War
Every worker who has sought to engage in the workplace knows the friction of accumulated difficulties.
Widget clarity is the key to victory.
Simplicity in the difficulty begins with the duty statement, job description or whatever the boss calls the piece of paper that defines the Widget and how she wants it to be made.
Few organisations write good job descriptions. They rank second to policies as effective dust collectors. You're already in trouble before the artillery barrage of opinions has started.
The military is a good model of how to write good job descriptions. It needs its soldiers, sailors and airmen to have absolute clarity about who they need to kill, how and when. They need simplicity wherever possible amidst the chaos when the enemy is trying to kill them.
Precision starts at the top and cascades down. The boss needs to be clear about what her job is.
These extracts from the job description for the Chief of the Defence Force written by his boss the Minister of Defence are an excellent example of Widget clarity. (You can almost hear the hum of the tension in the leash of democracy restraining the application of maximum violence):
Preamble: In accordance with my powers under s8 of the Defence Act....I give you strategic direction to achieve the Government’s defence outcomes.
Accountability: You are accountable to me for Defence’s performance, having regard to our statutory responsibilities. Any authorisation or delegation of my authority with respect to Defence is through you within the limitations below.
Results: I expect you to deliver:
a. ....operational deployment of the ADF to enhance our national strategic interests and our alliance relationships, to strengthen regional security and to successfully conduct joint military exercises and operations
b. Identification, development and provision of current and future capability to enable our armed forces to defend Australia and its national interests;
c. Enhanced intelligence, strategic policy, scientific and information capabilities, responsive to whole-of-government requirements;
d. Timely, accurate, coordinated and considered advice to the Minister and Government;
e. Proper stewardship of people, through developing and maintaining workforce skills and career structures, building and maintaining Defence’s reputation and providing a living and working environment that attracts and retains people;
f. Sound management of financial and other resources, operating within budgeted financial performance, meeting statutory requirements for preparing financial statements and optimal management and use of the Defence estate; and
g. Appropriate planning, evaluation and reporting documents, including an annual Defence Management and Finance Plan, and periodic Strategic Reviews and White Papers incorporating the above.
Guidance: You should pursue these results through effective leadership and management; and should ensure that:
a. Your actions are prudent, ethical and lawful;
b. Your actions are consistent with:
i. Government Policy
...your role as principal military adviser and statutory responsibilities and authority as commander of the Defence Force under the Defence Act 1903; and
c. You make your decisions and offer advice considering
i. The impact on relationships with others who contribute to national security, including with the leadership of Foreign Armed Forces and other Australian agencies with national security interests,
ii. My separation Directive to the Chief Executive Officer of the Defence Materiel Organisation,
iii. The risk to the sustainable delivery of Defence outputs; and
iv. The CDF’s proposals for promotions to Brigadier equivalent and above are made in consultation with the Secretary, VCDF and the Service Chiefs.
Minister for Defence
Words matter.
The Root Cause of All Conflict.
You can fight the same battle each time: each dispute, each complaint, each conflict, each difficult conversation over and over.
Same skirmish, different combatants.
Or you can move upstream and address the root cause:
Come to the Edge.
Come to the edge.
We might fall.
Come to the edge.
It's too high!
COME TO THE EDGE!
And they came
And he pushed
And they flew.
A perk of being a lawyer is that you learn a little about a lot in the course of taking instructions from clients and asking questions about their work and lives that will help tailor the legal advice.
An airman explained to me about microfails. The way I remember it, every new aircraft type is put in a test laboratory and subjected to flexing and bending and other forces that replicate the stresses it will experience in flight. The airframe's responses are electronically measured and calibrated into units called 'micro fails'. When the airframe finally breaks, the engineers and designers know how many micro fails it took to do so and therefore its tolerance to the unpredictable forces of flight.
An airframe's life is calculated as being as long as it takes to suffer a certain number of micro fails. An aircraft that does a lot of high stress manoeuvres that result in G forces on it will suffer more micro fails in a flight than if it flew straight and level. It will therefore have a shorter life.
Instruments in the aircraft detect and record each micro fail. The engineers monitor the total and when it reaches certain amounts, they will replace parts of the airframe, and 'rewind' the micro fail measurement instrument to zero.
MIcro fails are invisible. As the name suggests, they are tiny fractures of the integrity of the airframe that gradually degrade its strength until the point when one too many stressors adds the micro fail that breaks the aeroplane.
The airman who came to see me was alleging that the engineers were rewinding the micro fail measuring instruments to avoid having to ground the aircraft and put them into maintenance.
People have micro fails in response to forces around them in the workplace.
Missed promotion. Bang. A hundred micro fails.
Frustrating meeting. Shudder. Ten micro fails.
Brusque email written in haste. Ouch. Two micro fails.
A name forgotten. One micro fail. Catastrophic explosive decompression resulting in loss of a sense of proportion and humour and crash landing into stress leave.
Everyone has a unique total micro fail capacity before they break. A boss can rarely predict the stressor that will push the worker beyond their limit. It's not always the obvious less than perfect act of management. It might be an innocent misunderstanding. Crack.
Organisations wrongly assume that a new employee starts on zero (ignoring the legacy of their last job and their life in general) and assume to standardise the total micro fails for each employee by their contract, policies, pay and values.
People also wrongly assume that quitting a job and finding a new one will reset their micro fail metre to zero. There's almost always leftover fatigue that transfers to the new boss.
Organisations have various ways of doing the people maintenance that they again assume allows them to rewind the individual and collective worker micro fail meters to zero from time to time
Pay increases.
Leave.
Promotions.
Public praise.
Sometimes bosses just replace the people frames for new ones.
Worse, they introduce the equivalent of fraudulently rewinding the meter by running a professional development or team building day, introducing some new values of code of conduct, or emailing out inspiring and motivating words.
After the butchers paper has been binned, the mandatory training has been completed, the all staff email has been deleted - a boss chips a worker in front of their peers and deep inside the metal of each witness staff member, fissures grow and the individual micro fail tally resumes its countdown to breakdown.
Legions of experts, lawyers, consultants, therapists and researchers make their living both inside and external to organisations from training, advising, measuring, mentoring, coaching, facilitating, supporting, assisting, delaying, mending and covering up the human equivalent of the micro fail.
It's mainly placebos. Good and bad bosses alike are never sure what act of theirs will be the one too many.
A bad boss can routinely be bad and his workers will keep on building Widgets.
A good boss may omit one name from a speech acknowledging thirty others and the entire office is sprayed with debris and body parts from the disintegrating staff member for months afterwards.
So we keep on legislating, regulating, training, coaching and parenting in a vain attempt to smooth out the turbulence of the workplace and keep everybody happy.
It's not working. It can't. We can keep rewinding the meter or flying straight and level and avoiding tight turns and gravity, but we're deluding ourselves and each other.
As M Scott Peck wrote in the opening sentence of his book 'The Road Less Travelled':
“Life is difficult. This is a great truth, one of the greatest truths. It is a great truth because once we truly see this truth, we transcend it. Once we truly know that life is difficult-once we truly understand and accept it-then life is no longer difficult. Because once it is accepted, the fact that life is difficult no longer matters.”
The workplace is part of Life. It's difficult. The more we seek to protect people from the stressors of doing their jobs with good and bad bosses, peers, subordinates, clients, customers, machines, and gravity, the greater disservice we do to them by denying them the opportunity to confront Peck's Great Truth, learn from it, and to transcend it. All in a relatively safe environment - the workplace - compared to the unpredictability of the rest of Life where there is no boss to blame for what befalls us, and often no Widget to measure our bearings from.
I checked with my Aeronautical Engineer friend Francisco about my memory of micro fails. He'd never heard of them. He works on modern Boeing 787s.
'I think that you're referring to aircraft structures of the past that were built with a safe life,' he said. 'Newer aircraft are fail safe.'
We need to rethink our 'work frame' design and maintenance. We need to evolve from our artificial 'safe life' philosophy of minimising the consequences of engaging with the healthy human stressors that arise from doing any job that's worthwhile - ie Life. We need to stop demanding that the boss shields us from the natural turbulence and forces of doing innovative, creative, speed-of-sound work.
We need workers to become the equivalent of fail safe and bosses with the wisdom and bravery to allow it.
We need to come to the edge so that we can fly.
Joy to the World.
'But then I had an epiphany. That was the only reason I hated the job was because I was doing it the way people had always done it. Badly.'
- James Risen, Pulitzer Prize Winning Journalist
One of my early Air Force bosses called me into his office one evening after I'd stopped by to say that I was going home.
'You need to think about whether you should be working back,' he said as I stood in his doorway.
I looked at my watch. It was 6pm. No Air Force Officer in Headquarters worked back after 4.30pm. Just ask any Army officer.
'It's...6pm, Sir...' I said from confusion rather than insubordination.
'I mean working back on work that you don't enjoy...' he replied.
This was years before George Constanza said: 'When you look annoyed all the time, people think that you're busy.'
Being busy is synonymous with working hard. Working hard means that the work is important. Only important people do important work. We want to feel important. We want to feel that we're spending our lives doing something worthwhile.
Scan the faces at a meeting and expressions from a dentist's waiting room.
The more sombre the expression, the more serious the work.
Another of my Air Force bosses was asked why Legal Officers don't wear a distinguishing badge on our uniforms. 'Our hang-dog looks are the giveaway,' he said.
If we laugh or are animated, we can't be taking our job seriously.
Like too much behaviour in workplaces, stony demeanours are theatre. Performance Art. Marketing.
If a worker directing the filming of a rock concert for a DVD that's also beaming live to an audience of millions can dance and cheer and clap in his office, then I can crack a smile in mine.
If a worker who's saving burn victims' lives can show passion as she assesses one of 28 bombing survivors queuing to be treated, then I suppose I can engage with others in meetings.
But if I smile, laugh, joke - what will people think?
Hamish Hamilton doesn't care. He acknowledged his critics' opinions about his directing and went back to work at the Oscars. He loves his job. It doesn't matter what others think.
Dr Fiona Wood doesn't care. She focusses on her Widget and the 99% of good news stories in the world and concentrates on her goal of scarless healing of patients.
As the actor and comedian Paul Hogan said in an interview:
'When you go into this business you very quickly learn that there's a lot of people who like what you do and they're entertained by it. There's a lot of people, for reasons best known to themselves, really can't stand you and have got it in for you and want to see you fail. But the thing to remember is that the great, great majority in the middle...don't even think about you. They see you on stage...entertaining...and they think 'Oh, that was good'. And then get on with their own lives. There are some people in this business who obsess over the ones who...now the trend is to call them 'Haters'. Anyone who doesn't love what you do is a 'Hater'....What's that poor kid, Justin Bieber? He talks about 'The Haters'. No Justin! They're not 'Haters'. They just don't give a shit about you.'
Who is this audience for our pout, frown, sneer, or hang dog look?
Maybe the lack of joy in our work isn't the boss's fault after all. Maybe it's because we're doing our job badly?
We really should seek joy in our work.
Because where Joy, or 'gladness' intersects the world's deep need - there's our Vocation.
Peace Among the Thorns.
Per Ardua Ad Astra - Through Difficulties to the Stars.
The Latin motto of the Royal Australian Air Force.
Pax Inter Spinas - Peace Among the Thorns.
The Latin motto of the Benedictine monks.
This is that motto in a logo form as it was in the mid 20th century.
See the Pax - Peace - clearly surrounded by thorns with three nails at its base.
This is that motto in a logo form in 2014.
See the thorns that once surrounded the Pax have been softened into a laurel wreath? The three nails replaced by the 'Three Mounds of Perfection'? (Faith, Hope, Love.)?
I can hear the Marketing Consultant: 'The Peace bit is awesome. People will love that. Not so much the Thorns bit though. Like...Lose the Thorns. And Love. Can you, like, add something about Love? Love's a sure winner. Yeah. Peace and Love. And you know what? Wrap them in a laurel wreath. People love laurel wreaths. Olympics and all that. Awesome!'
In 2014 we want the Peace. We won't suffer thorns to find it.
Save us from Difficulties.
Just give us the Stars.
I Am Involved in Mankind.
'No man is an island entire of itself; every man
is a piece of the continent, a part of the main;
if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe
is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as
well as any manner of thy friends or of thine
own were; any man's death diminishes me,
because I am involved in mankind.
And therefore never send to know for whom
the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.'
- John Donne
What information moves us?
One Australian cricketer is killed by a ball bowled during a game of cricket.
28 people are killed by missiles fired from drones for each terrorist suspect killed.
Step 4 of the Five Steps to a Good Decision: Check for Bias.
Information refracts and bends through our biases.
Recognise this and pay attention to it.
We're human.
Good Decision Making Is Hard.
'Attempt #158: I’ve finally mastered the tungsten carbide battle axe. I can rip through a Mimic’s endoskeleton with a flick of the wrist.'
'Learning what would get you killed and how to get your enemy killed— the only way to know a thing like that is to do it.'
- Hiroshi Sakurazaka, All You Need is Kill.
The movie Edge of Tomorrow is based on the Hiroshi Sakurazaka book.
'Attempt #158' refers to the 158th time that the main character Keiji Kiriya or Major William Cage in the movie, is fighting a battle against the 'Mimics' - alien invaders.
Major Cage is a slick public relations officer, a natural with the the PR patter, but with no combat experience. He finds himself on the front line where he is infected by a substance from one of the aliens when he's mortally wounded. It 'resets' him back to the beginning of the day of battle each time he's killed.
Each time he's reset, Major Cage has to relive the day from the beginning, although with the benefit of knowing what is going to happen. He uses this information to anticipate and evade the source of his death last time. He lives a little longer with each 'reset' - until a new threat happens and he dies - and is reset back to the morning of the battle.
Far from making life easier for Major Cage, his advanced knowledge of what lies ahead makes it harder. With each new life, he spends hours reviewing, training, planning, strategising and finally applying his growing skills to advance him a few seconds further in his quest to defeat the aliens, only to begin all over again.
The more that he learns, the harder he has to work at thinking and acting. The harder he works, the greater his exposure to new information about his battlefield surroundings and new ways to die. He inches his advance towards the alien control centre, and is challenged by more information that he has to incorporate into his understanding of his environment to be able to survive a few seconds more.
A good decision is one that advances us towards where we want to be.
Good decision making is a deliberate process of inquiry that advances us towards where we want to be.
A good decision teaches us about where we are in relation to where we want to be.
We incorporate that new understanding into our next decision, and so on.
We have three reference points - constants amidst the uncontrollable chaos:
- Where we are
- Where we want to be
- Our process.
The first obstacle to good decision making is if we don't know where we want to be - our Widget.
The second obstacle is that we don't have a fixed process into which we can plug each variable - new information.
The third obstacle to good decision making is that it's hard work.
The more good decisions that we make - the more we learn - the more we learn, the more we have to incorporate that learning and apply it. Repeat. Forever.
Each decision exposes us to new information and therefore to the shame of ignorance.
It resets us back to where we began.
Our truth is dead, or at least discarded in the same pile as other people's opinions.
Either way, it hurts.
Kahlil Gibran described pain as the breaking of our shell of understanding.
Good decision making is painful.
Bugger that - let's just stick with opinions, positional power, and instinct.
Words Matter.
'Rhetoric . . . is not a set of techniques to impress (oratory, eloquence), nor a means of manipulating the will and emotions of others (sophistry, advertising), but rather a way of liberating the freedom of others by showing them the truth in a form they can understand.’
- Stratford Caldecott
Ian and I were 14 year olds in our Air Force cadets Flight Drill Squad that competed in the inaugural Squadron Drill Competition.
Our 17 year old Cadet Flight Sergeant didn't know how to execute the drill movements in the sequence that we were to be judged on. Correct drill was whatever his drill instructor had taught him. So he carried on the tradition and made them up.
We came second.
The next year Ian convinced the Flight Commander to allow him to lead the Squad despite just being promoted to Cadet Corporal. 'I promise you we will win, Sir,' the 15 year old told our forty-something Flight Commander. 'I've got a plan.'
Ian found a forgotten copy of the AAP 5135.001 Manual of Drill and Ceremonial, cracked open the spine and studied every drill movement until he knew each command, cadence, timing, foot height, toe angle and the two-three pauses in between by rote.
He then made us copies to study and learn for ourselves.
Our squad of teenagers spent hours and hours practising responding to Ian's commands.
We spent hours and hours practising without his commands.
We won the next two years' competitions. Second the third year. And won the year after that.
(The year we ran second it was to a team led by an ex-cadet from our squad who Ian had trained.)
Cadets Ian had led or who had been trained by ones he'd trained led winning squads from other Flights over the next few years.
Ian taught me to go to primary sources of information.
I took for granted that good leaders are teachers who aren't afraid of their students knowing as much or more than they do.
I haven't had a need to execute a right form from the halt, to the halt at all since then.
I sometimes wonder if should have practised piano for all those hours.
Precision Ordinance onto a Target.
'All the departments are vital to make a jet fly off the carrier and put a piece of precision ordinance onto a target as per national tasking. Without one department- without Religious Ministries without the Legal department without the Reactor Department without Supply Department without hot water without cold water and steam for the catapults - none of it works.'
- Officer on the nuclear powered aircraft carrier USS Nimitz
Few organisations have the Widget clarity of the literal or figurative precision of ordinance striking its target.
Yet the military camouflages its Widget - 'Applying the maximum amount of violence permitted by law onto the enemy' behind 'Defending Australia and its national interests'.
If that more palatable language promotes the people and the government to provide the defence force with resources and recruits to to inflict violence on the enemy - then its Widget is served.
If Religious Ministries helps launch weapons platforms into the skies to drop explosives that shred property and flesh - then praise the Lord and pass the ammunition!
If 'People are our most important resource' increases the share price, then preach!
Without one department - none of it works.
The bombs don't hit targets.
The share value doesn't rise.
The Widget doesn't get made.
Be honest with yourself about the Widget that you choose to give your time and attention.
Words matter.
We Are Wide Open to Criticisms.
The Blue Angels is the United States Navy's flight demonstration squadron.
Its Widget is 'to showcase the pride and professionalism of the United States Navy and Marine Corps by inspiring a culture of excellence and service to country through flight demonstrations and community outreach.'
After every flight the team goes through a critical debriefing process which they consider is as important as the actual flight itself. They talk about what worked, what didn't, and 'no punches are pulled'.
'We are as wide open as can possibly be to criticisms. We want to become our own worst critics.'
The debriefing process takes twice as long as the flight took. 'Rank doesn't come into play.'
'We have a term that we use: 'Glad to be here''. It's a way of reminding themselves of the privilege of flying with the Blue Angels while their fellow pilots are doing night carrier landings in the Mediterranean Sea.
'We have two 'critiquers' on the ground that look at the manoeuvres and tell us their impressions basically.'
'We make these mistakes and we 'fess up to them and we do it every time we fly. It's an extremely important aspect of what we do. What we do after we've said it is 'I've made this mistake. I'll fix it. You always say you're going to fix it It leaves the rest of us with the feeling that you've recognised your mistake and you're going to take corrective action not to let it happen again. So it doesn't drop our confidence level in another person in the formation.'
'You gotta be able to learn each and every time you go flying because there's never been the perfect flight demonstration yet.'