The Pretender.
There is a type of immature leader who plays at being what they think a leader does. It’s usually a mix of condescending authoritarianism with a benevolent bone thrown to the followers now and then.
They drape themselves in the uniform of some unearned virtue, and watch themselves mirrored in the wide eyes of the handful of sycophants. Their fawning is good enough for the pretender to conclude they are an effective leader.
And thus the pretender-leader plays the imitation of themselves in constant production. They recite their soliloquy on stage to the applause of the sycophants, lighting and sound kept in working order by the quiet, invisible competent few stagehands.
Meanwhile, the sycophants patiently wait as understudies - ready to be rewarded by their ‘leader’ and continue the incompetence for another generation.
The Problem With Being Good.
The problem with being good at your job that you identify and alert others to an issue long before it becomes - an issue.
Your boss is more likely to listen to you, look at the evidence, think of her list of priorities, and decide yours isn’t one of them.
Besides, the risk of addressing a potential issue is far outweighed by the glory of reacting to a crisis. People are far more forgiving of someone who is imperfect in an emergency than those who want resources to prevent one.
Big picture, strategic thinking bosses are rare. Most bosses reach their position by doing tactical jobs well. The day-to-day. Nobody teaches them the different skills, mindset, and steely nerve needed to think months, let alone years into the future. Plus, long term planning lacks the payoffs that come from the day-to-day, and the gratitude of another crisis ‘solved’.
Which may explain why we end up with bosses who prefer to shake hands and kiss babies, preside over meetings, and be hero leader when their failure to listen to you results in the crisis you predicted.
Because by then, if you’re smart, you’re long gone to work for someone with the self-confidence and wisdom to listen to you do what they pay you for.
Decision Making Lessons from a Dyson.
I was never a fan of vacuuming - until we bought a Dyson with a transparent bin.
Nothing as satisfying as seeing dust spinning around a previously empty canister as I pushed the vacuum around the house.
It’s been written that ‘When we compared people’s best days with their worst, the most important differentiator was being able to make progress in the work.”
We can make decisions based on gut feel, instinct or positional power. No progress. Just an action. Done. Next. Maybe we’re okay with that. We’re people of action. We’ve got other things on our To Do List. Fine.
But what about anyone else involved? What about their sense of progress? Do we deny them a ‘best day’?
Following a process - the Five Steps to a Good Decision is one - gives a sense of progress as we make our way through each stage.
Hopefully helping us make good decisions, and helping those affected by them as well.
The Power of One.
‘People respond well to stories,’ I offered.
‘I don’t,’ she said from her seat beside the boss.
So we didn’t use stories because they don’t work for her.
And there you have it.
The power of one.
At the Helm.
my eyes have seen what my hand did
- Robert Lowell, ‘Dolphin’
Good decision making is a deliberate process of inquiry that advances us towards where we want to be.
Good decision making gives us agency in our destiny where otherwise we may have little or none.
Good decision making makes us the Captain of our little lifeboat.
Standing upright at the helm, trimming the sails with the changing winds, smiling with a face covered in spray.
Energy Return System.
Modern sporting footwear includes an ‘energy return system’. The design and materials absorb the impact energy of the foot striking the ground, and then release some of this energy to aid in the next step, enhancing efficiency and reducing fatigue.
Good decision making has an energy return system.
Following a process improves feedback to inform the next decision - even if the result is not ideal.
A good decision making process can energise the decision maker in that it both cushions the impact of the decision outcome, conserving enthusiasm and motivation to apply the lessons to the next decision.
Every decision, no matter the outcome, contributes valuable insights that improve efficiency and effectiveness over time.
A good decision making process - like a good runner - has a rhythm.
Each decision propelling you to the next.
The One Thing Most Guaranteed.
The one thing most guaranteed to provoke a reaction from a bad boss is to threaten their right to define the workplace situation.
Hence why bad bosses hire and promote sycophants - and fire truth-tellers.
And why bad bosses who define their organisation as virtuous are accomplished assassins.
Cloaked in an elaborate tapestry of naked power.
Humbling.
To truly appreciate both the skill of teachers to keep students engaged, and the effort students expend to remain engaged:
Take lessons from a human in a musical instrument, or ballroom dancing, or a language, or any competency unknown to you.
Then multiply your half hour or hour lesson across a day, five days a week, forty weeks a year.
Then factor in sharing your tutor’s attention with 31 other humans learning alongside you.
Humbling.
Cue the Consultants.
The problem with many ‘strategic directions’ planning begins with the reality that we don’t know where we are - to begin planning where we want to be.
‘Planning’ and then 'selling the plan’ in ‘roadshows’ then ‘moving’ become busywork substitutes for doing the unsexy work of improving where we are. Those who have the time and resources to plan to plan, then to facilitate discussing the plan, then selling the plan to the punters, have the luxury not known to those trying to do today’s work.
It’s voodoo thinking that ‘somewhere else’ is bound to be better than ‘here’ - especially when we’re not sure where ‘here’ is. And that the time consuming and distracting activity of planning and ‘moving’ to that other place that is not here, is virtuous.
No sooner have we planned, sold, and commenced ‘moving’ - than someone says it’s time to plan, sell, and move again.
Cue the change management and leadership and wellness consultants hired to help us overcome our despair.
The Defining Tragedy.
This is the simple yet defining Greek tragedy of any organisation from three to thirty thousand.
The person running the show is human.
They screw up.
No conspiracies hatched in late night meetings in cigar smoke filled boardrooms.
The boss just screws up.
What happens next is the defining moment for the organisation, the boss, employees, suppliers, customers, clients, and anyone else with seats on their bus.
Leadership is hard.
Anteambulo.
In Ancient Rome, the Anteambulo was an artist or writer who, in return for support by their patron, walked ahead of them and cleared their boss’s way - either literally or by communicating their boss’s approach or intent.
There’s a lot written about the role of the leader - clearing the way for followers.
We should pay more attention to the valuable and under-appreciated work of the anteambulos in organisations.
It’s not easy paving a path for a boss without the boss’s positional power.
The anteambulos in organisations attract snipes from those who are either jealous of their relationship with the boss, or assume the anteambulo purports to assume the power and status of the boss - which some do. The anteambulo can unwittingly be like the boss’s body double: drawing fire from those too cowardly to take on the boss.
I for one appeal to the United Nations for an International Anteambulo Day.
7s Hire 6s
It’s said that if you grade workers with 10 being the highest competency, that 10s, 9s, and 8s are competent, while 5s and below are easy to identify and therefore to either develop to be 8s, or sack.
It’s the 6s and 7s who create all the problems in your organisation.
Worse: It’s said 7s hire 6s.
7s (who all think they’re 9s or 10s) hire 6s (who, being 6s also think they’re 9s or 10s).
In the first few weeks and months after new hire 6s join your organisation it’s harder to spot their underperformance because you give them the benefit of the doubt and attribute error to them finding their feet.
The 7 boss is also both not competent to identify the 6s’ incompetence, and unwilling to do so anyway because they hired the 6 and don’t want to admit their error of judgement.
If any 8s, 9s or 10s slip past the 7s’ hiring of 6s, they spend six months feeling confused before resigning.
If they’re 10s, their skills and leadership may start to rub off on the 6s, and develop them towards 7 and 8.
The 7s realise this, and feeling threatened, flex their positional power to make life difficult for the 8s and above, deterring the 6s not to get above themselves. Most 6s are happy to lazily comply and remain mediocre. The 7s then reward the fawning 6s with ‘promotions’ and other trinkets.
The aspiring 6s, and 8s and above, eventually resign in frustration and despair.
Any 8s and above gradually leave either through natural attrition or dissatisfaction with having to manage the growing numbers of 7s and the 6s they’ve hired.
Before long, 7 becomes the new 10 for the organisation.
It becomes an employer of choice for 6s and below who are attracted to work there and be remunerated with status and high pay for being mediocre. Eventually nobody knows what Excellence looks like - much less how to strive for it
In a small to medium business, the Market responds to the incompetence, and the organisation folds.
If market forces are not in play or muted by government funding, the demise takes years or decades.
Damaging clients, customers, workers, families, communities, and sometimes societies in the process.
Meetings are Like Uni Tutes.
Tutorials in first year university.
Three out of the ten students have done the reading.
Two who’ve prepared, and who have the most to offer, are lacking in confidence to speak.
One who has not done any of the reading holds forth on his personal opinions.
Another of the unprepared begins arguing against his opinions with her opinions.
The tutor attempts in vain to bring the conversation back to the sources of expert authority.
The remainder glance at their watches and occasionally pull out a device.
Opinions keep being kicked around the table.
Nothing of value is achieved.
Who says uni doesn’t make us work ready?
Our After Action Report.
In our After Action Report, we must tell ourselves a story that makes us the hero. If not the hero, then the victim of a freak series of unforeseen events or grave injustices.
The best way to make ourselves the hero is to follow a process.
A process makes it easier to recall the details that show us in the best light.
If we choose victimhood, then the process proves we did the best we could, before Fate intervened.
Even in our victimhood, we see we had hold of the control column and bravely fought in vain against the gods.
You Get Away With It.
Infant: You don’t get away with it.
Child: You get away with it. You don’t get away with it.
Adolescent: You get away with it. You got away with it. You don’t get away with it.
Bad Boss: You got away with it. You get away with it. You get away with it. You get away with it. You get away with it. You get away with it. You get away with it. You get away with it. You get away with it. You get away with it. You get away with it. You get away with it. You get away with it. You get away with it. You get away with it. You get away with it.You get away with it. You get away with it. You get away with it.You get away with it.
Frame. Claim. Explain.
Three steps to transform your organisation.
Frame.
Define what you do.
Claim.
Do what you do.
Explain.
Communicate what you do.
The World Keeps Turning.
When we Step 1: Step Back - the world keeps turning.
While we retreat into ourselves, wallowing in our feelings of self-pity, injustice, unfairness, frustration, disappointment, despair … Life goes on.
People move on. Reconsider. Recover. Forget.
When we emerge into Step 2: Assess the Situation, we often find it’s different to what it was when we retreated into ourselves. That’s partly because it is different. But also because we’re different. We’re looking at the circumstances that demanded a decision from us more objectively and calmly.
By tending to ourselves, we allowed the world to do some work without us.
Reminding us that we see more clearly outward if we take the time to look inward.
Not Just Yet.
Implicitly, only time will quiet the passions and allow the feelings of being overwhelmed to subside. This wait for quiet, however, must not be understood as thoughtlessness, which is for her willed nonthinking: it is, rather, not thinking just yet.
- Deborah Nelson on Hannah Arendt
Step 1: Step Back must not be confused with inaction. Indecisiveness. Hesitancy. Self-doubt.
Pausing to allow the passions stirred by the stimulus demanding a response to quiet before turning our mind to the content of the decision at hand is a deliberate act of courage and service of both self and other.