Your written word

Remember son, your words travel further than you…

This is the single best piece of advice I have been offered. The best from a long list of the good. Presented to me by my father, when I was still at school.

This was in the 1980s. Long before our written word became the default communication in everyday life. No social media. No email. The days of the telephone as a device intended for speaking, not committing text to the whole world. Your word was in letters, in memoranda, in essays, briefing notes, and reports. Handwritten. Maybe typed. Your words travel further than you – was advice reflecting the care needed in formatting, grammar, clarity, and impressions of professionalism in yourself. Now, it is advice to wear in all of life.

This evening I find myself looking in some wonderment – again – at comments on LinkedIn. Wonderment that my own views must age me, and perhaps define me. At least by the default position I take in communication. It reflects other discussions (mostly verbal) I have had with people seeking my advice. People I have mentored or managed. People I have coached, guided, or just advised via passing remark.

Here is the Linkedin post as to present full content and context. This is what had me a little baffled, tonight. It is written by one of the editors on LinkedIn news.

OMG, my boss follows me on Insta
It’s not uncommon to befriend your colleagues, and many workers follow each other on social media. But what happens when a follow request from the boss lands in your notifications? It turns out, workers are a little more nervous about opening that door into their personal lives, according to a recent study. But it’s “become increasingly unavoidable,” writes Insider’s Sawdah Bhaimiya, who shared these tips on keeping your feed appropriate:
– Know your company’s social media guidelines and culture.
– Consider cleaning up your social media history.
– “Moderate yourself.”
– Keep politics to a minimum.
– Ask yourself if you would say it to someone’s face before posting
Kelli Nguyen editor of LinkedIn News

All comment and advice I think valid and sensible. But for me this is part of wider lessons to learn. Whether on social media or otherwise, always have in mind, your words travel further than you. So now do your images.

Would you say it to someone’s face, is a good question. In the project world when negotiations or critical debates are on email – when temperatures raising and tempers short – I warn people to beware the email bravery. It amounts to the same thing. But also imagine your images or words being shown to your grandmother, or being read at an employment tribunal, or presented as the last thing you said – at your wake. Your words travel further than you, and by extension talk on your behalf when you are not there.

v | b | t

To expand the point, here is the one example I have been using for twenty years. My adaption of the best of advice given to me. In keeping with this blog series, I have found means to frame this example around the three categories of visibility | behaviour | trust

Visibility | b | t

Claire Swire. That is the name I always send people away to look up when I am needing to make this point. This was an unfortunate story from twenty years ago. It went viral as a story. Indeed that was the story. I need say no more. The story is still highly visible and easy to find. It is also debateable as to whether all accounts are true.

v | behaviour | t

The flip side of that same story is the alleged post event behaviours of the parties involved. But also the immediate aftermath and longer lasting impact of impressions social behaviours can leave. True or in jest, the exponential click bait this became was most certainly for real.

v | b | trust

Trust could be considered in many ways here. First, there is contemporary debate as to whether this story is just an early example of fake news. Fact or fiction, it serves to reflect wider issues of trust. Trust between friends breached. Trust in a safe environment misplaced. The trust between employee and employer via vicarious reputations. When name and disrepute can be used in the same sentence, other terms like appropriate conduct or wilful misconduct, may divide whatever trust employee and employer may have otherwise assumed.

The actor in the show

Across all three of these v | b | t metrics, it becomes less relevant whether you have given tickets to an audience, or whether a wider audience have somehow found their own way to your stage. The visibility of your behaviour is increased when freely offered in writing – or any media form you choose to symbolise and express your life – never truer now that our platforms of communication are public and multimodal and one influencer away from being viral. You have no control over where your word goes. The only control is the words that you print, and pictures you post.

The witness or the voyeur

From the other perspective, and still using v | b | t , what behaviours are reflected in trying to connect on social media like Instagram? Consider the trust and closed distance assumed when social lines blur too far. How do you appear to others, when looking? What is your behaviour saying of you? What trust are you naively building in friendships, and what could you be building as different trust, better trust, in its place?

Context is all of course, but maybe – as the boss – your staff deserve some privacy. Maybe so do you. Maybe as the boss you should be thinking of the appropriate boundaries to keep. Maybe let your team have time without you. Give them space to freely talk about you, not to you. Or for a few moments, not have to suffer you at all. And accept the discussion may not always be nice. Maybe come to terms with the occasional role you play as the unifying villain, that gets everyone through. They need a leader not a friend. That’s why it gets lonely at the top. And a little creepy to stare.

This balance is hard to manage. The tyrannical boss vs the weakling boss. Only one is likely to come knocking as a friend. But so too may the master manipulator. Either way, I would prefer to be managing father to son, than as the older brother trying to rein in a sibling, or cousin, or a more intimate one. I am struggling to think why Instagram would serve any appropriate boss to employee need.

Concluding advice

To the employee therefore, be mindful of your visibility. Your words travel further than you

To the over-friendly boss, rethink your behaviour. Your actions may one day speak louder than your words

To both employees and bosses on social media, consider v | b | t. If visibility and behaviours are unfiltered, your trust is misplaced. You take unnecessary risks and leave yourself exposed. The only control you have charge of out here, is self-control. Just as it is in any public space.

About Me

In psychology we are required to look beneath the mask. This blog series is attempting to unmask some hidden parts of projects to engender a more collaborative way.

Find my professional mask here:

communication, leadership, visibility

The accountability police

A cautionary note

I suppose we can all be forgiven for being human. It is less easy to be so forgiving of those who seem less.

Who can honestly say they wish a police officer well as he finds himself sentenced to life for having used his position of authority to commit crimes against the people he is trained to protect. Women living a little more in fear, men living a little more in shame.

Right now however I sit here appalled by the same shifting of blame we see every time the latest example makes for a momentary headline in the news. I will start with my own. Not an admission of a crime but certainly a contribution to the status quo. I am a part of the society that is emerging too slowly from the misogyny of our past. We are better than that now, apparently. I certainly like to think so. I am not sure the average WhatsApp account would concur.

My own blame probably sits here alive and well somewhere. But it is my shifting of blame that I found myself doing this evening. The very thing I am blogging about and observing in others. Demanding more action orientated being mode, less blame. I bit down hard on a senior representative of an institution I deem worthy of blame tonight. His venting of anger becoming my venting back. His post, ill-advised perhaps or even a little in poor taste, but I think there are plenty in senior places who wear these same shoes. I do not think this one man deserved quite the barricade of abuse I gladly became a part.

Here’s the post, and my reply:

“I have not commented during the judicial process but now Couzens has been sentenced I can. This predator is an absolute disgrace to the police service, and I am totally ashamed that he was ever a police officer.
I am proud to carry a warrant card, but this vile individual’s abuse of that authority has cast a shadow on all those who work within policing. He has brought disgrace to our uniform.
The way he took advantage of Sarah’s trust makes me feel sick to the stomach.
No sentence will ever ease the pain for the family and friends of Sarah or undo the terrible damage this disgusting man has done. He doesn’t deserve to have another single day of freedom and I hope every day he spends in prison is a long one.
My thoughts, and those of all my colleagues, remain entirely with Sarah’s family and friends.
John Apter, National Chairman of the Police Federation, LinkedIn 30th September 2021

I must admit even a few hours later I read John Apter’s words here and cringe. Each paragraph another example of having authority not being it. Having delegated someone a position of authority that was betrayed. Having a warrant card. Having disgust, anger, pain of breached trust. All seems a little too self-orientated by half. Lacking the action orientated, calm, vision of a plan, sentiments that would give confidence that things will now get better. However, this is not his burden alone, and I am not sure my reply will motivate the actions I think necessary beyond this single leader’s brief. Not that it is even his brief.

My reply

I think the family deserve more than your anger, or the wish to be distanced from the stain on a badge.
Like any workforce, it is to be assumed all psychological conditions in the community will to some extent sit within, or develop whilst within, any institutional subset of it. As the National Chairman of the Police Federation I’d be more interested in how closely you have revisited the manner of critical controls, both local and National, and by what metrics give you a confidence or trust to think it unlikely to happen on your watch again.
Is the right framework of control able to identify “predators” within the service. Curb such behaviour by the systems, skills, training, and independent assurance across line-management, inter-company overviews, performance metrics, incident management, early warning, and lessons learned across an adapting set of processes. Processes you are at the forefront of necessary interest and leadership in its updates, efficacy, and change.
Where’s the accountability here that compels you to post what is changing? What lessons are being actively engaged. Not the scale of shame, and the offload of the blame.
My response. Hardly the diplomat I normally try to be

Did one senior representative deserve all of this? I think probably not. Worse, it does nothing positive to encourage more senior people to step up. In any walk of life how many boardroom executives do we see posting content and thought leadership. Clarity of their vision. Being visible. Showing themselves capable to lead, and behave in ways that demonstrate the positive actions of change. Restoring a little of the trust. Why should I single out one of the few who at least volunteers to step up and speak out.

What then of the institution a little closer to these action orientated responses? What of the Metropolitan Police? What was their more stage-managed press-office prepared to say today? The most action orientated statement they made is here.

Here are the actions they listed as most pressing:

publish a new strategy for tackling violence against women and girls. This will outline how we will prioritise action against sexual and violent predatory offenders.   
A new established specialist Predatory Offender Units and since last November they have arrested more than 2,000 suspects for domestic abuse, sex offences and for child abuse.   
deploying 650 new officers into busy public places, including those where women and girls often lack confidence that they are safe.   
stepping up reassurance patrols and providing an increased police presence where it is most needed by identifying key “hotspot” locations for offences of violence and harassment. We are allocating officers solely for patrol in those areas.   
Understanding the concerns of women in London is really important to us and we are undertaking a range of activity so we can better listen and respond.
Metropolitan Police: our response to issues raised…(access here).

This is followed by an observation:

“We expect the best of our officers and when they fall below our standards they undermine the public’s trust in us“
ibid (access here).

Nothing in these actions is directed toward the revisiting of the internal control environment that intervenes when the individual fails. Am I alone in wondering what permits this simply to be a question of rebuilding trust at the front line? When clearly the trust in need of restoration is in the management and the how – not the who.

No, I think John Apter was deserving a little more latitude than I offered. The tragedy and grieving family left to be. But perhaps the visibility | behaviour | trust issues I found myself raising, and the charges I presented of lacking accountability in leadership, are probable cause for more direct questions to the wider institutions of law and order, still very much at large.

About Me

In psychology we are required to look beneath the mask. This blog series is attempting to unmask some hidden parts of projects to engender a more collaborative way.

Find my professional mask here:

having to being, leadership

Can we be risk savvy and reference class forecast cost?

Another reflection of what it is to be Risk Savvy, in the context of RCF

This blog is a first look at the psychological aspects of Reference Class Forecasting and how this relates to Project Management. I link this blog to several papers and contemporary academic debates that sit central to the direction project management betterment is being directed toward. These initial source flags simply highlight the contemporary nature of current debate which in some quarters may be represented as definitive truth.

This is prompted by a line in Gerd Gigerenzer’s 2014 book Risk Savvy, and a passing comment I am yet to better source. This suggestion that his perspectives differ significantly from Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky. Given the central theme Kahneman and Tversky play in the papers introducing Reference Class Forecasting to Project Management, these two perspectives may guide my own research better in whether one perspective can inform or must necessarily dispute the other.

Project Management and reference class forecasting – RCF

Whilst explaining some rudimentary mistakes in representing risk, Gigerenzer states the following, “left on their own people intuitively fill in a reference class to make sense for them” (pp3).

From a Project Management perspective the contemporary discussion on cost estimating is often framed around the concept of “reference class forecasting”. The Infrastructure and Projects Association (IPA) advocate this approach {click here and refer to slide 28}. Oxford Said have supported RCF and developed it into a meaningful betterment of government estimates of project cost, examples here are projects in Scotland and Hong Kong. RCF also has 21st Century and mainstream backing in psychology.

However, government advise has not been ubiquitous in its support. Note the reference here to a paper presented to a House of Commons select committee enquiry in 2019, sourced from the open records of an equivalent representative body in Newfoundland, Canada during the recent Muskrat Falls enquiry.

I remain undecided either way. I have had the privelege of attending several lectures by the Oxford Said Business School. One specifically outlined how RCF is being applied. The Gigerenzer perspective, and the RCF counter-narratives flagged here, present reason to keep asking what it is that drives our decisions. Is RCF sufficiently robust to enable defensive decision-making to be countered? Or are these two accounts compatible? Particularly if this reflects separate sets of variables and influences beyond optimism bias.

In this regard I see Gigerenzer presenting different dynamics to those of Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky, and the entire set of risks I believe RCF are intended to address. Both may therefore be correct, but neither complete. I will perhaps understand this better once a more complete review of the literature is undertaken.

v | b | t

Per my last blog, it is the Gigerenzer case that seems more compatible with what I am leading with, as possible root-cause. I am of the view that many of our project failings are not directly resulting from the estimates of cost, but more the divided motivations of employer and contractor that thereafter emerge. The human behaviour element, being the unaccounted for reality of colloquial decision-making motivations. This is my reason to think the Gigerenzer view to be at least as valid as the estimating bias being countered by RCF.

About Me

In psychology we are required to look beneath the mask. This blog series is attempting to unmask some hidden parts of projects to engender a more collaborative way.

Find my professional mask here:

gigerenzer, IPA, oxford said, project management, psychology, rcf, reference class forecasting, risk savvy

Defensive decision-making

Risk Savvy : how to make good decisions

by Gerd Gigerenzer (2014)

This blog introduces defensive decision-making and takes a look at a book that should be on everyone’s reading list. It presents a critical examination of our shared self-serving habits in decision-making. Our shared propensity to do what comes naturally to us all – be selfish – and ultimately be the cause of wider problems in the name of a common good. The blog ends with a question of how deeply embedded this concept may dwell.

Regardless of whether project, risk, or people management sits within the remit of your roles in life, we are all making daily decisions. As agents of time-bound intended change I would argue our decisions are tightly connected within the bounds of projects, risk, and people. Projects | within projects.

Gerd Gigerenzer is a Professor of Psychology. Formerly at the University of Chicago; formerly Director (and now Emeritus Professor) of Max Planck Institute of Human Development; and founder of Simple Rational : Decision Institute, a name that corresponds to his 2015 book “Simply Rational – Decision-making in the real world”.

Gerd Gigerenzer, if Wikipedia were to be your guide, is labelled as a critical opponent of the Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky world of decision bias. To my mind that is a little too polarising. I have found plenty of room to apply the work of both. I am however also minded to make more of this comparison at a future moment of blogging research interest.

Several key concepts within Risk Savvy are introduced in this blog. I recommend this book for its psychological intrigue, just as enthusiastically as the Professor of Project Management who first recommended it to me. All page references hereunder are from Gigerenzer (2014).

What is it to be “risk savvy”

Gigerenzer presents the term “risk savvy” to mean our ability to actively apply risk literacy coupled with a wider skill to bridge the inevitable gap between knowledge and the unknown. An inevitable unknown, and therefore incalculable (pp3). He contends that as a society we lack this literacy, and use a flawed logic and language to erroneously overcome the unknown.

…as a percentage of what?

Gigerenzer tells us that when we are told there is a percentage chance of an event, we will each artificially add the subject matter to which this event is referring – when it is not explicitly offered. Gigerenzer offers a weather forecast example “tomorrow there is a 30% chance of rain”. He argues that to some this will mean 30% of the region in question will have rain. Some that 30% of the day will be rain effected. How we define what rain is, may vary. Others may consider this percentage a confidence level of the certainty that it will or will not rain e.g. three forecasters have said it will, seven forecasters have said it will not.

To counter the reference class error, he advocates always asking for a clarification of the reference class being framed i.e., “as a percentage of what?” (pp7). He distinguishes “absolute” from “relative” comparisons, in the context of change from one state to another. Healthcare being particularly guilty in this regard. By example the emotive response to being told a the chance of side effects in a new drug is 100% greater than before vs 1 in 10,000 is now 1 in 5,000 people are reported to have side effects.

A helpful rule, ask “as a percentage of what?”. Gigerenzer offers many pithy questions to pose throughout the book. These become tools in the decision-makers tool box of heuristics or the “adaptive toolbox” pp115-117

A contemporary example from our Covid19 era

I offer another healthcare example (click here). In this example a risk of viral infection is presented a percentage but with not explanation as to reference class, “as a percentage of what?”. Our most contemporary science papers and government advice shown to be presenting percentage without clarity of to what these percentage refer.

The fallacy of the plan

Gigerenzer offers us a joke. On page 18, data driven certainty is presented as an illusion sold by readers of tarot cards disguised as algorithms. It is page 20 that he recites what he sources as an old Yiddish joke “do you know how to make God laugh, tell him your plans”. There are comparison I could make here to the difference between the High Reliability Organisation that is focused upon training and an informed, adaptive, and empowered work force, to the more typically hierarchical and business continuity planning approach to major event planning.

Instead, Gigerenzer spends thirty example rich pages presenting how decision-making by experienced people will out-perform decisions supported by the ill-defined parameters of detailed calculations. Rule of thumb intuitions (page 29) to which his adaptive tool box later becomes the store (page 115). The Turkey illusion of being more certain of safety the longer all is well (page 39) becomes the metaphorical explanation for why Value at Risk (VaR) becomes fallacious in the face of more significant events than the system within which it operates have defined.

Here are a selection of other helpful rules of thumb tools from pp116-121

“hire well, let them do their job”
“decentralised operation and strategy”
“promote from within”
“Listen, then speak”
“nothing else matters without honesty and trustworthiness.”
“Encourage risks, empower decisions and ownership”
“Innovate to succeed”
“Judge the people not just the plan”
“mirror pecking orders to sell based on past sales”
“it’s never revenge”
“the more precise, the less transferable the rule”
“Less is more”

Luck and guess work

He brings our attention to Gestalt Psychology which continues to reformulate problems until the solution becomes more easily found. This proceeds to the necessary guess-work and illusory clarity we use from a young age to short-cut or simply make possible the learning of language. Not by word by word memory but by rules we learn via mistakes and slowly bettering our application in everyday use. He presents our innate ability to make guesses in other areas too. This section points out (page 49) that without error we have no learning. Furthermore without the possibility of risk bringing unexpected cross-overs there is no serendipitous discovery.

Defensive Decision Making

These examples are the early introductory remarks to introduce the concept of the defensive decision maker.

if its life or death make sure it includes your own

He presents the comparable cases of doctors and pilots and the interest in the safety checks, lessons learnt culture, and scrutiny towards change driven by cost in two similarly professional, skilled, and high pressure jobs. Various examples demonstrate the priority and insistence, and resistance to compromise, toward controls and procedures in the pre-action and post-action stages. His point being that regardless of what we may think it is to be professional, decisions become more personal and effort more willingly expended when it is your welfare at risk too.

On page 50 we are introduced to blame culture and the premise of no errors flagged, no learning or early correction possible. This exemplified as the typical pilots vs doctors enthusiasm or not for checklists. This becomes a question of motivation born out of self-interest. By page 55 this has been expanded into a wider set of defensive decision-making principles which I think we can all know as true from our own experiences and those we witness. The “we need more data”, or “don’t decide and so don’t get blamed”; or “recognition heuristics” for example choosing the bigger name is easier to defend even if it is the lesser choice. The point is all of these self-serving decisions become the means to evade accountability. In leadership I think this is everywhere, and in the context of blame, we are all at fault every time we ignore the challenges faced and just demand the head of whoever was last to duck.

I have much to introduce on this concept. In Gigerenzer, the psychological reflections upon how this is inherently wound into risk and the self-serving behaviour we all find ourselves guilty, seems to me a powerful reflection of every headline in the news. That includes the motivations for those headline chasing interests themselves, and every blame transferring opportunity we each read them in hope to find.

How deep, or how low, can we go?

My questions are many. But one I am pondering right now is can this be a little closer to a universally applicable source of our failings as whole societies. In the project language I am attempting to introduce, it reflects our interfaces, our lack of being mode, the distant we try to create between ourselves and necessary action, and the separated motivations we then each stand behind. Every time we let our singular interest in visibility | behaviour | trust defend our own needs at the expense of others, we create a project of self-interest, with its own reasons to justify a truth. This project of self-interest sitting primary and priority to others we may subscribe. The more projects | within projects we permit by the self-serving interests of our controls, the more defensive decision-making we can permit to stand.

visibility | behaviour | trust

To my way of thinking, this is precisely why we have no trust in each other. Why visibility becomes centred upon ourselves. It becomes our justification for behaving badly towards others. We divide ourselves, by the singular interests of our individual projects. We selfishly allow controls to exist that support the same. We elect leaders who advocate more of the same or we ignore them completely and just do as we please.

Perhaps the following contemporary examples can be related to this propensity to make defensively minded decisions, or blame those who do when we would do the same? The current queues for petrol; the positions we take on whether wealth or health should be Covid19s first response; the blame we put upon impotent government; the despair at a headline chasing press; the divides in our society and across borders; the self-serving politics and back-biting distractions, the executive bonus’ that go unchecked or the trade union disruptions on spurious grounds of safety; the constant erosions of interest in our schools, our hospitals, and our distant kin; the loss of interest by those who can afford it, and collective despair by those that cannot.

We are all defensive decision-making machines and we are all playing the zero sum game. As I return to university with psychology at my fingertips, I am wondering how deep this may go. Are we each even fooling ourselves, with defensive decision-making within that goes largely unseen.

About Me

In psychology we are required to look beneath the mask. This blog series is attempting to unmask some hidden parts of projects to engender a more collaborative way.

Find my professional mask here:

decision-making, defensive decision-making, gigerenzer, psychology, risk savvy, trust

Secrets at work (happiness)

Tracy Brower PhD – a blogger of note

In this note, I present a body of blog materials that I have enjoyed reading immensely. I have summarised many of the blogs, and used my categorisations of v | b | t to create a reference note I can revisit and reuse. This note is wholly adapted from this blog series. I would recommend everyone visit the complete series at some length and at leisure. Links to both original author and all articles are embedded herein.

Tracy Brower is a PhD sociologist writing regular blogs on workplace related issues, and the relationship between employer, employee, and the effectiveness and well-being of both. Happiness is never far from subject matter, and I have had a happy 48 hours reviewing these blogs. The back catalogue of blogs is a treasure trove of clear concepts and ideas | great sharing of research and contemporary theory around behavioural science | and backed by trusted sources of research and enquiry.

Tracy Brower‘s Forbes blog begins in December 2018. I wanted to capture as much insight as I could from these blogs, and my Sunday became Monday and was in danger of becoming Tuesday, as I reviewed each blog and realised how much could better inform my research. My summarising was best served in the WordPress templates, so this has evolved into this blog.

From a research perspective this note is an example of how I summarise the more influential articles, journals, or books I read. It is rare to find so much goodness in one place. I anticipate any future generalising and theming or subcategorising I do here – specific to v | b | t – or its eventual betterment – will include a revisiting of these notes. It will also prompt further reading of wider cross-references made.

Presented in reverse chronology. Each article is presented as following the same subcategorising:

{title, date, link}; {context}; Visibility as…- Behaviour as….- Trust as…

Knowledge Is Power, But Not In The Way You Think, Dec 2018. Information Density as v | b | t – Visibility as “radical transparency” as the number of people who can actively engage with information – Behaviour as the number of people in real time able to base decisions upon it – Trust as the openness of Leadership to share, in near real time, with attention to ease of understanding, acuity, engagement, and transient ease of flow.

Don’t be a hero: a new take on teamwork, January 2019. Teamwork not heroes as v | b | t – Visibility of the whole endeavour by all involved and a shared success witnessed beyond the team – Behaviour as the means to ensure realised value and role importance to all – Trust in each other and of the team built upon prior achievements “even with team members who haven’t worked together before”.

Want More Innovative Solutions? Start With Empathy, January 2019. Creativity nurturing as v | b | t – Visibility of creativity in a way that results in innovations people will adopt – Behaviour reflecting upon the 2/3rds of people admitting to not living up to their creative potential; idea exchange being nurtured by frameworks and workspaces focused upon user experience and need – Trust as necessarily creating psychological safe space for community belonging, and thinking, to thrive.

Give To Get: Sensing, Tracking And Your Privacy, February 2019. Appropriate privacy as v | b | t – Visibility as the greater acuity offered by tech vs the hidden aggregations and uses of data behind the tech – Behaviour as the give to get equation or having mode relationship between the user and their tech – Trust as the same give to get decision of having mode upside vs the potential for implied trust that may be abused

Attract And Retain Talent In One Of The Tightest-Ever Labor Markets: Here’s How March 2019. Moral rules split between v | b | t – Visibility as witnessed fairness and equitable treatment of effort – Behaviour as creating the team environments, collaborations over corporate boundaries, enforcement of respectful cooperation, and an environment of mutual help – Trust as the strong relationships that then exist between parties, the safe space to take risks within capable range, the deference to experience not leadership when circumstance demands.

How Not To Get Stuck With All Your Team’s Work: When Less Is More, March 2019. Characteristics indicating a team is too big as v | b | t. Visibility as over-saturation, clarity of role and accountability, plus affirmed phenomena via overwhelmingly voluminous academic studies showing that innovation comes from smaller teams – Behaviour as too big a team enabling less ownership and presenting places to hide, remedied by less but more effective communication extended to outside the immediate team, skill adaptability to step in or diversify, enabling a team to evolve – Trust in each other as a shared and all inclusive evolving team ability, backed by training and wider support.

Four Ways Working With Others Can Help Bring Out Your Best, April 2019, Tapping into social instincts as v | b | t. Visibility as social facilitation as better performance from having to play to a crowd, and self-awareness by being witness to yourself – Behaviour as seeking to associate with colleagues who inspire you and get you to perform your best “go fast, go alone – go far, go together” – Trust as increased awareness of your reputation and acting toward accountability and contribution to the whole

Agile: Why Your Efforts Will Fail (And How To Make Them Succeed Instead), May 2019. Potential failing using Agile as v | b | t. Visibility as superficial understanding, and lack of attention to the collective effort required – Behaviour as failing to holistically apply Agile e.g., not committing to it fully; not orientated the whole organisation and internal parts to it; not training sufficiently to support the accountabilities involved – Trust as being misplaced if using Agile as a quick fix; expecting results too soon without supporting transitional need; thinking only in terms of sprints and not the marathon journey of change.

Why Your Intern Shouldn’t Make The Coffee: How To Create Meaningful Work, June 2019. Positive experiences with interns as v | b | t. Visibility as new perspective, contemporary knowledge, singular attention to a task; and offering a big picture view of the company they are interned to – Behaviour as being controlled via the boundaries set; empowered and task set that are able to be owned, shaped, influenced by them; challenging enough to be an accomplishment; necessarily relevant to require internal engagement with others – Trust as the clarity of the boundaries they are set, and the defined autonomy they therefore feel comfortable in.

New Requirements For Agile Leadership: How To Lead Differently For Agile Success, July 2019. Agile leadership as v | b | t. Visibility as valuing transparency of work, goals, and information; as measuring performance – Behaviour as being present but in a guidance not doing mode; retaining contact to clients; safely encourage risk taking; feedback, intervention, and celebration – Trust as an advocate for the team; ongoing interest in developing through increasing responsibility and accomplishment of each team member; and relevant challenge to the individuals whilst still accounting for the team.

Want Better Mental Health And Success At Work? Get A Goal, July 2019. Pursuing goals as v | b | t. Visibility as goal clarity via the focus on your why – Behaviour as incremental actions towards goals leading to increasing optimism – Trust as increased confidence that you are on the right path, and giving more grit and determination to maintain effort (even if progress is unexpectedly slow).

Want To Find Your Purpose At Work? Change Your Perceptions, August 2019. Changes to perception as v | b | t. Visibility as connecting to the bigger picture – Behaviour as reworking priorities and method of tasks; self-empowerment by being purposeful toward something bigger not simply having a role; finding the value and worth of the task, via its impact upon others; awareness of uniqueness you bring; being mindful of your value in all your capacities and contributions – Trust as a self respect and ownership of your dignity no matter the task at hand.

How To Thrive In A Job You Don’t Love: 7 Strategies, September 2019. Job satisfaction as v | b | t. Visibility as setting vision toward your next role – Behaviour as positive attitude and active patience; seek learning from adversity even if that is just a test of resolve; seek learning from the wider situation and setting of the company; channel extra energy toward a positive future goal – Trust as nurtured through support structures (i.e., friendships); as confidence in your ability to retain self-control.

Is Agile Really Worth It? Evidence Says Yes, If You Do These 4 Things. October 2019. Reasons for using Agile as v | b | t. Visibility as transparency of workload – Behaviour as people orientated; customer feedback driven; one sprint at a time, one project at a time; continuous learning – Trust as built within team continuity; familiarity of process by company-wide use.

How To Thrive At Work: 10 Strategies Based On Brain Science, November 2019. Brain science insights as v | b | t. Visibility as utilising natural light, to support melatonin suppressions post sleep – Behaviour as habits caused by screen time toward skimming or scanning text (because of internet usage) rewiring the brain (cf The Shallows, by Nicholas Carr); needing to actively seek distraction free places to relearn concentration and more considered empathy (cf Deep Work by Cal Newport); return to taking breaks, exercise and social interactions; find green spaces, light, ceiling height, views, and privacy – Trust as returning to more natural habits and less reliance upon artificial and technology solutions to problems technology creates.

Research Says People Can’t Change: How To Avoid Hiring Difficult People Through Successful Selection, November 2019. Recruitment efficacy as v | b | t. Visibility as a warning not to rely too heavily on our own perceptions; as a means to seek detailed responses, indicators, patterns, or demeanour; offering more information if settings can be varied to see socialised clues – Behaviour as habitually hard to change in some people; an inborn morally suspect pattern for some; – Trust as a lean towards the person, their enthusiasm, their future facing interest, and general fit toward a team; do not judge by qualifications.

Want To Be A Great Leader? How Cooperation, Sharing And Belonging Predict Success, November 2019. Cooperation in leadership as v | b | t. Visibility as being witnessed as a cooperative force; sharing information; sharing the authentic self; sharing the goal and long-term vision – Behaviour as cooperative default; sharing goals and spotlight; helping, belonging; – Trust as engendering a cooperative ethos with example being mimicked by the team; building understanding by being authentic

Getting What You Want At Work: 7 Strategies, December 2019. Ensuring personal needs are part of the plan as v | b | t. Visibility as clarity on what you want; clarity of priority of needs shared with the boss; awareness of alternative options – Behaviour as claiming back ownership for making your needs known; finding appropriate communication style; performing, seeking feedback and a mentor, patient but persistent – Trust as owned by you, demonstrated in your endeavours, and if necessary the resolve to exercise your own change.

Confidence Without Arrogance: Why You Should Stop Trying To Be The Smartest Person In The Room—6 Tips To Avoid The Arrogance Trap, January 2020. Confident not arrogant as v | b | t. Visibility as acuity toward signs of ill advised interference vs valued challenge – Behaviour as being not having; being present, receptive and actively seeking other ideas and understanding of other opinion and perspective; cooperative; challenging for sake of successful outcome not personal gratification; deference; respect; reciprocity; and equity – Trust as derived from ensuring psychological safety to be valued, respected and treated fairly.

Successful Change Management: 6 Surprising Reasons People Resist Change And How To Motivate Them To Embrace It Instead, February 2020. Managing Change as v | b | t. Visibility as clear future direction; clarity on impact to others; – Behaviour as addressing lost autonomy, saving face, security, competence and connections – Trust as understanding root-cause of resistance, openness to explain motivations; clarity of message and positive outcomes; enabling people to retain their dignity in the face of bad news.

When Fear Drives Us Apart: 6 Ways To Collaborate Rather Than Compete And Why It’s Important For Your Career, March 2020. Collaboration as v | b | t. Visibility as clear goals; feedback as a group not ranking against others; – Behaviour as actively avoiding making heroes; fostering team relationships; compete but beyond the team boundary; celebrate as a team; – Trust as building a collaboration (working together as a team), not just cooperative individuals (working with colleagues).

Communication Is More Important Now Than Ever Before: 9 Ways To Reassure And Re-Engage Your Team, March 2020. Leading in a crisis with reassuring communication as v | b | t. Visibility as clarity and factual focus; presenting the big picture – Behaviour as aiming to be relevant (succinct to the present need) and redundant (offering a message often enough to be certain it is understood); present means to be understanding, sensitive, and empathetic; pragmatic; seek to unify (always we) as a shared journey – Trust as the inspirational, engaged, and plan focused, voice of calm.

How To Thrive During The Pandemic: 10 Strategies For Resilience Based On Brain Science, April 2020. Resilience to adversity as v | b | t. Visibility as self-awareness to needs for connection, socialising, and perspectives that offer a positive long-term outcome – Behaviour as increased awareness and need for normalising habits (breaks, movement, natural light); acting with altruism and generosity for positive reactions in the brain – Trust as increased self-awareness and vigilance to your needs.

How To Sustain And Strengthen Company Culture Through The Coronavirus Pandemic, May 2020. Culture management as v | b | t. Visibility as leaders seen to be the single source of truth; articulating and validating culture; new challenges of managing behaviours at a distance you cannot see; visibly recognise actions of merit and hold accountable those that fail; open and transparent communication is culturally significant – Behaviour as defining culture; as managing behaviour shapes the culture, therefore values and norms come from reinforcing good, or tolerating bad; nurturing and investing in skills and training in ways that enable community, despite the distance; acknowledge natural leadership emerging and reinforce mentoring to foster new talents – Trust as the result of ensuring understanding by all, and minimising uncertainty or confusion; upholding values despite adversity.

HR’s Compelling New Role In Response To The Coronavirus, June 2020. Human Resources elevated role in times of adversity as v | b | t. Visibility as future of work vantage point and systemic viewpoint; source of people analytics, central repository of employee contracts and entitlements – Behaviour as impacting culture, guidance towards action decisions, and leadership support; talent strategy and implementations; engagement and inclusion; well-being assistance; governance and process support – Trust as supporting communication, policy development, empathy to needs and means to retain consistent responses to disciplinary process or intervention

Onboarding During The Pandemic: How To Give New Employees A Running Start, July 2020. Onboarding in a crisis as v | b | t. Visibility as access to people, information, tools and technology- Behaviour as enablers of social capital development and connectivity with colleagues, leaders, and mentors; be explicit with instructions and how critical controls apply, roles and responsibilities, swim lanes; ensure wider team awareness and need to include; training focus and regular enquiry; seeking new ways to ensure they can contribute; – Trust as presence, shared interest by wider team, explicit understandings, relationship building, and the immediate sense of team.

How To Manage The Work When You Can’t See People Working: 5 New Takes On Accountability, August 2020. Remote accountability as v | b | t. Visibility as recognition for reaching expectations or not; a means to reduce blind-spots via open sharing and wider impact awareness (cf. Johari Window) – Behaviour as a metric of feedback orientated towards success; – Trust as accountability serving fairness

When Bad News Is A Good Thing: 7 Reasons To Embrace Transparency, August 2020. Encourage Bad News as v | b | t. Visibility as demonstrating respect, and creating higher information density – Behaviour as empowering people to make informed choices or decisions; increasing productivity by reducing time needed to seek information or lose time or opportunity to act; greater adaptability and action orientated intervention- Trust as derived from enabling better understanding and psychological safety; enhanced commitment where both success and hard moments are shared.

How To Close The Distance On Remote Work: The Most Important Leadership Skill, August 2020. Being present at a distance as v | b | t. Visibility as a correlate to engagement with the team – Behaviour as responsiveness and accessibility in both mindset and means; acuity of capability and needs; finding means to engage with less set time via one-2-ones, calendar sharing, punctuality, set windows, immediate action focus, follow up emails to confirm – Trust as empowerment and increased responsibility within carefully set parameters and control

Everyday Kindness: How Small Acts Have Big Impact, September 2020. Kindness as v | b | t. Visibility as the witnessing of kindness being infectious; seeking perspectives of others; looking for and socialising examples of kindness – Behaviour as being present by tuning in and enabling spontaneity in gifting help; closing proximity by communicating and enquiring not just distantly observing and assuming; incremental steps of action, not significant steps as promises; be humble and vulnerable giving and accepting help without condition or expectation of return (cf. Rebecca Solnit “A paradise built in hell”); action orientated can mean not being afraid to lead or initiate action; build environments where the helpful is not just allowed by embraced – Trust as the collective sense of protection that results from a genuine shared concern for the collective wellbeing.

Working Remote: How To Build Trust From A Distance, September 2020. Modelling of the other from distance as v | b | t. Visibility as being open and transparent – Behaviour as means to build trust via open sharing, assume goodwill, remain present and available, be predictable and easy to read, be supportive, be selective, and hold people to account, acting with integrity – Trust as an instinctive tendency to believe, and a reciprocal tendency

Career Resilience: How Small Steps Can Lead To The Greatest Success, September 2020. Prospects management as v | b | t. Visibility as looking for ways to take initiative; be open and therefore visible in discipline to tasks; seek to grow network so this visibility is increased – Behaviour as being mode by focusing on current performance and avoiding too much time in owning past success; be present by aiming to be consistent, dependable, reliable; aiming for incremental betterment but emergent from, not instead of, current responsibilities; take initiative; manage your moments not other peoples expectations – Trust as the resultant authentic you, both the trust in yourself and the trust that others will come to portray in you.

Exhausted By Networking: 7 Ways To Keep Going In Your Job Search, September 2020. Consistent networking as v | b | t. Visibility as the reward to putting yourself out there; as the changing perspective it is affording you; and clarifying your aims and seeing clearer intent or goals – Behaviour as the changing mindset networking is instilling; adopting Robert Frost’s “the best way is always through” which is action orientated and therefore being mode; becoming not owning by being future focused not just having a past; learning new ways to be effective and achieving more impact by strategic engagement not just volume; self-management by time, planning, and giving account of realistic aims; owning your own psychological safety by the vigilance and relevance of meetings and avoiding too much acting or show; self-improvement by constantly reaching towards the edge of ability and the resulting incremental growth – Trust as the authenticity that comes from belonging and engaging in meaningful and wholesome ways

Study Shows People Prefer Robot Over Their Boss: 6 Ways To Be A Leader People Prefer, October 2020. Better leadership as v | b | t. Visibility as being seen as a supportive and unbiased lens; transparency in your own motives and wider overall goals; – Behaviour as being objective and less quick to pass judgment; efficient with follow-up action and prioritising, work-load management of self and others; actively identify, manage, and defend boundaries of work-life balance, people, process, roles, technology and systems; being the means to connect better solutions rather than trying to always be the problem solver – Trust as impartiality and bringing less personal bias and self-interest into discussion, behaviour, and thought

Bad Bosses: When Good Intentions Go Wrong And 5 Ways To Lead Well, October 2020. Better leadership as v | b | t. Visibility as observing the bad boss to better understand boundaries of good practices gone bad – Behaviour as selective and genuine encouragement; as giving controlled enthusiasm as consistently needed not as less unpredictably felt; gifting personal empowerments, flare and creativity, but with attention to boundaries and control; generous in other person, or team, recognitions – Trust as reflected in the present and accomplished leader, able to apply leadership learning, not simply demonstrate its good intent.

Virtual Communication: The One Thing You Can Do To Be More Effective, October 2020. Communicating at distance as v | b | t. Visibility as acknowledging less regular interactions means less visibility of what is really going on and therefore seeking out more information; – Behaviour as acknowledging new situations takes longer for everyone so create the time for communication; new needs more communication so encourage more of it and do more of it; curbing the attribution error of other owned blame, particularly the tendency to jump to conclusions when non-verbal clues are no longer available e.g., no camera may mean a rambunctious puppy in the background not a lazy start to their day; create environments fitting to the communications available e.g., more space complimented by set times for discussions that, in an office, would just happen naturally; be intentionally more empathetic to make up for the lesser time available to pick up on non-verbal clues; be more forgiving; find new ways to build relationships – Trust as a potentially stronger bond when forged in moments of shared hardship or endeavour.

How To Build Community And Why It Matters So Much, October 2020. Community building as v | b | t. Visibility as clarity and reminder of the shared purpose; the shared vision of the collaborative cathedral builders not the cooperating brick layers; shared business literacy and therefore broader context – Behaviour as playing to natural strengths and human social needs; encourage proactivity and impactful experience; actively maintaining a dialogue and contact, including regular one-2-ones, and seek dense interactions (cf. the economic journal); encourage others to build and bring their social capital with them; decision-making with empathy is best (cf. Journal of Neuroscience); seeking new learning and ability stretch both of yourself and encouraging others to do the same, if no-one is making mistakes then either a team is under-reaching or under-reporting; build the career space for others but also hold them accountable for their performance and how they contribute to that of others; – Trust as the shared purpose and contribution; kinship and psychological safety; and shared journey of evolution; not the personal gain towards revolution.

Is Your Workplace Toxic Or “Just” High Pressure? 10 Ways To Know, November 2020. Busy vs toxic as v | b | t. Visibility as clarity of a bigger picture and how you fit in or being in the dark on priorities or the bigger why; everyone can reveal their imperfections and ask for help vs everyone pretends to be perfect , hides deficiency, i.e., the fake it to make it is wall to wall – Behaviour as appreciative or forever demanding more; working in an arena of openness, sharing or secrecy, hidden agenda, and subterfuge; freedom to speak and be heard or required to silently comply; feedback is open and constructive or managed through back-channels or aimed at you and not with you at all; task delegations are on need and edges of capability, vs loaded to the willing with others allowed to do nothing at all; is there respectful humour or angst and tears in the air; is a heavy workload relieved with a break or it deemed to never end – Trust as fair and all together toward one goal or divisive, elitist, and hidden motive; is there enough balance and support to allow short periods of exhaustively busy or is it relentless and as if you’re on your own.

How To Focus On Your Work When There’s So Much Going On, November 2020. as v | b | t. Visibility as clarity of your own values, priorities, and roles; as seeking wider opinion – Behaviour as permission to start with you and acknowledging you must be operating effectively to be the positive influence others need; be mindful of your own contribution and its impact upon that of others; seek the learning experiences from adversity and use the openness in seeking wider points of view; be future focused and therefore contribution lead; apply these same empathies to colleagues and be present to the changing energies they may expend or consume – Trust as a confidence in the return to control, more certainty, and clarity, and the mutual strength of relationships new and old in these harder times.

How To Stay Connected When Everything Is Working Against You, November 2020. Connectivity through adversity as v | b | t. Visibility as identifying better with shared purpose – Behaviour as making decisions that equate to giving more (cf. Journal of Neuroscience) and greater generosity in general; sharing experience in groups; be a connector and creating groups to combine ideas; be tenacious and direct it towards retaining and growing your network; be connected to yourself using social activities to combine the two – Trust as a built community to which you contribute, foster, and belong.

How To Tell If The Company Culture Is Right For You, November 2020. Cultural fit as v | b | t. Visibility as awareness of the culture and your own needs; greater perspective by knowing the vision and direction of travel of both; clarity of success towards these goals is measured; gaining information of culture from those promoted in its image; seeking perspective by comparison to wider market and customer base – Behaviour as an indicator of culture: decision speed showing adaptability or lack of control; decision making empowered and overseen and near the action, or hierarchically made at distance; managing uncertainty with more enquiry or adaptive action; reliance upon policy and process in siloes or supported by process in the hands of capable and high performing teams; conflict management transparency and focus upon process, task, or issue vs supporting hidden agenda, positions, people, or traits; ideas generation origins are they everywhere or reliant upon the few; training and wider learning, is it structured, consistent, and relevant vs ad hoc, reactive, ticking a corporate box; learning, is it everywhere and by everyone vs private, secret, offline; network, is social capital acknowledged, nurtured, and encourage vs divisive and self-serving; diversity vs clones; fair delegations, accountabilities, flexibilities vs favouritism and an elite – Trust as the faith in the culture or the excuse

Want To Love Your Work? These Are The 6 Colleagues You Must Have In Your Network, December 2020. People to network with as v | b | t. Visibility as feedback as seen through the eyes of the critic; feedback and perspective from the lifer colleague who has seen all sides of you; perspective from the distant colleague who will have a less bias and a more objective point of view – Behaviour as encouraged by the cheerleader; betterment by learning from your opposite i.e., the behaviours of your foil; own your psychological safety by finding the safe-haven confidante; – Trust as the more rounded you emerging from this more diverse multi-points of view.

Leading Change: 10 Ways Great Leaders Make Change Happen, January 2021. Leading change as v | b | t. Visibility as presenting a compelling picture of what the future can be; as clarity of expectations; as being seen – Behaviour as authenticity; as a set of witnessed behaviours others can model themselves upon; as proactivity in support, personal investment in the success of the change, and being present to the evolving and future need; being an educator, mentor, and builder of environments to progress and share success; being accountable, measurable, predictable, and firm – Trust as built from inclusivity and personal empowerment

What People Want: What Leaders Get Wrong And How To Be More Right, January 2021. Leadership errors as v | b | t. Visibility as an awareness of the different motives of leaders and those they lead; being vigilant to surprises; posing more questions to inform decisions; different opinions; whilst keeping the big picture in the minds of all – Behaviour as a more other focused perspective of leaders – addressing cognitive bias – by prioritising the needs of those they depend; notably safe space to support collaborations and enable focus; being more prepared to enact change where employees needs are no longer addressed by the status quo – Trust as built through engagement, being given a voice and being heard.

Want To Grow Your Career? 6 Surprising Ways To Write Your Future, January 2021. Revisiting the handwritten word as v | b | t. Visibility as a more memorable experience for the reader; written thought requires more precision and therefore clarity; handwritten notes can also reflect deeper personality traits – Behaviour as a more active orientated learning and taking advantage of haptics (touch and motion perception) which increasing brain areas involved and therefore retention; regular writing improves the ability to communicate; – Trust as a personal clarity of analytical thought.

The Future Of Work Will Demand These 8 New Skills, February 2021. Future work needs as v | b | t. Visibility as increased range of information gather, keeping current, and making sense of it all – Behaviour as training the brain to be more comfortable with ambiguity; expanding range of interests and pattern recognition; increased empathy to support increased entrepreneurial need; resilience and means to reinvent based upon the increased visibility actively sought; greater creativity, optimism, and imagination, from the increased information and regularity of review; increasing relationship building and rapport from increased focus on social capital; action orientated, join in, participate, and get things done – Trust as derived from a constant preparation and readiness; the countermeasure to echo chamber information sources by engaging in discourse to learn better the validity of opinion opposing your own.

Leadership Mistakes Can Derail Innovation: Here’s How To Avoid Them, February 2021. Leadership for innovation as v | b | t. Visibility as being vigilant to the barriers and blockers in resource stretch and time constraint that stifle innovative process – Behaviour as rewarding the actions desired as reinforcing culture; being present to the needs of boundaries to inspire not the endless latitude to let people become lost; creating space that enables group effort but still ensuring plenty of room for personal incubations and nurturing of ideas; being empowering of everybody to be creative; enabling the time necessary to build the idea; permitting embryonic and incremental approaches to be aired; giving space to be heard, and finding the difficult balance of criticality and encouragement; acknowledge place matters and work space or home space need to be places people want to be – Trust as fostering positive team relationships, creative environments, controls and conditions that enable innovative processes to grow.

Why You Need Wisdom And How To Be (More) Wise—According To Science, March 2021. Seeking wisdom as v | b | t. Visibility as broad perspective; and as longer-term view – Behaviour as altruism and cooperative interests, particularly in decision-making; self-management and emotional stability e.g., the authentic and calm faces on social media; diversity of network and associated tolerance and interest in values, and learnings, different from your own; finding ways to embrace uncertainty – Trust as earned through the breadth of perspective across a whole community, akin to but not necessarily age related senior or elders in a group.

Hard Times Make For Stronger Bonds And Greater Happiness: Here’s Why That Matters, April 2021. Bonds in adversity as v | b | t. Visibility as first hand experience of seeing someone in a crisis situation and the motivations of action when it counts; memorable and more vivid in recall; – Behaviour as empathy and solidarity with a chemically – oxytocin – or brain altered group association response (cf. Norwegian University of Science and Technology); reciprocal openness and vulnerability; post-trauma shared growth, shared prioritising, shared adversity and realisation post survival – Trust as “affinity proof” from a shared experience and a shared pain or positive end, a physiological bond of “social glue” (cf. University of New South Wales)

How To Build Relationships And Enhance Happiness: 4 Insights From Neuroscience, April 2021. Relationship building as v | b | t. Visibility as the direct relationship between seeing less people and increases in mental health issues; depth of relationships is associated with the breadth of their life we engage with; brain size is shown to be smaller in those with less meaningful relationships and that our brain capacity has influence on our close connection maximum being around 150 – Behaviour as necessarily time consuming to establish connections c.60 hours of regular engagement to cement friendships; generally one friend at a time beyond group settings; relationships (the 150) require a level of intimacy, shared experience including doing no activity at all but in each others company; connection beyond the context of first acquaintance such as dinner, drinks, walking; quality engagement and questions of substance in context; availing yourself in tough moments or being vulnerable enough to be helped; gratitude; respect; right fit for right friendship roles – Trust as a built relationship over time and a mutual investment towards mutually benefits with mutually respected boundaries and roles.

Gratitude Is A Key To Happiness: 4 Reasons Why, April 2021. Factoring in gratitude as v | b | t. Visibility as greater understanding of the neurological preconditioning gratitude involves – Behaviour as the being mode of gratitude vs the having mode of pursuing more; experiences positively convert to happiness more than materialism – this is based on gratitude; better relationships involve mutual expressions of gratitude; voicing gratitude magnifies its impacts – Trust as the aggregation of cultivated gratitude, as the resultant altruistic intentions it inspires into a wider community.

The Happiness Paradox: 5 New Perspectives On How To Be Happy, May 2021. Not coveting happiness as v | b | t. Visibility as not seeing what you do not have but instead a better perspective on what is or could be – Behaviour as a less direct aim to achieve happiness or retain it or hoard and inflate it (cf. Journal of Experimental Psychology); taking lessons for the downtimes; accepting the varied states of being that can become possessive and have us gripped; aim for choices that improve yourself, not aim to correct others; happiness can be borne of overcoming hardship, but rarely sits for long with too little stress; breaking with community or going too far alone can become an increasingly unhappy time – Trust as the fostering of shared experience, not the singular pursuit of more.

Why Now Is The Time To Question Everything—And Refresh Your Career And Your Future, June 2021. Career planning as v | b | t. Visibility as greater clarity on what is important and the right priority as change; question orientated planning; belief challenging searches; source challenging analytics – Behaviour as the continual questioning of everything (cf. Euripides); knowing that you do not know; adopting a curiosity in diversity, empathy, epistemology; decisions based upon direction of change; relationships built around widening perspectives and deeper understandings; seeking to be in awe more; humility not arrogance – Trust as in the strength of the questioning not conviction of the answers.

Build Your Career: 5 Ways To Have More Joy In Your Job, July 2021. Job satisfaction as v | b | t. Visibility as seeking more perspectives in the role; more clarity on priority and need – Behaviour as the positive product of better perspective, more meaningful endeavour, more enquiring interest, and more empathy; more variety; more empowerment and control; “better physical health, perform better, make better decisions, set bigger goals, seek greater learning and pursue growth and development more enthusiastically. In addition, you tend to be more likeable”; – Trust as a pursuit of contribution and an expectation of fair reward

The Power Of Purpose And Why It Matters Now, August 2021. The need for Purpose as v | b | t. Visibility as greater clarity of purpose, vision, commitment and moral to more engagement and productivity (cf. University of Sussex); increased clarity so individual contribution desire aligns to companies with same vision or presents a vision people are inspired to be part of; clarity and articulation of purpose, informing choice, acuity of perspective to retain adaptability and pre-empting change – Behaviour as more directed endeavour leading to better growth (cf. Harvard Business Review); necessarily clearer purpose required to retain transient workforce; – Trust as increased alignment of people to a shared goal.

You Probably Need More Friends—Here’s How To Make Them, September 2021. Friendships as v | b | t. Visibility as some shared perspective be that proximity, life stage, transition – Behaviour as a continuity and long-term stability of relationships in wider change; communication efficiency through prior understanding of each other; information exchange efficiency where friendships sit across weaker bonds (cf. UCL); adaptable as friendship groups change with time (cf. Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research) – Trust as a reciprocal pre-requisite for lasting friendships, needing time.

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About Me

In psychology we are required to look beneath the mask. This blog series is attempting to unmask some hidden parts of projects to engender a more collaborative way.

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behaviour, forbes, happiness, sociology, tracy brower, trust, work-life

The road ahead

Let’s hope for driverless cars, if these are our choices

A critique of Keir Starmer’s vision of where Labour is headed under his leadership.

I love a good essay. Once the most eloquent way to present an account. A reasoned version of a truth. Some of the most captivating narratives of the English speaking world took the form of the essay.

Today however, I am going to join the evening traffic report. Reflecting upon the road works and pot holed carriageways holding the narratives of the day. Boris Johnson offered us an essay of sorts a while back on his vision of Brexit. I was surprised and disappointed at its flippant account of what had been, and a flaccid and uncommitted account of what was hoped to come. For a man of words, with journalistic training, this was very much not worth the 18 month gestation it took him to write. I was therefore curious to see how Keir Starmer would fair, with his legal training, and similar time to prepare. His own essay offering, was this week made accessible ahead of conference season. I spent a few hours of Thursday evening in similar despair. It prompted a change of direction of my own, by way of this evening blog.

Congestion warning

I will confess to being somewhat torn between these two essays by two head boys. Star pupils that are Boris and Keir. Not by the politics, although neither camp convinces me enough. I am torn between the lasting impression I suspect I will now hold long of both political figureheads. Torn as to which one presented the least convincing case. The least accomplished representation of the essay form, each has claimed to write.

These were two opportunities to present a version of truth. A perspective of intended change. In my project language, each reflects a project of political means to direct us all with clarity of purpose and outcomes of intended change. As projects I will therefore attempt to use my metrics of visibility | behaviour | trust to consider the truth this latest outline of a project represents. This essay entitled “The Road Ahead”, by Keir Starmer MP. Originally accessed via BBC website.

Regardless of political leanings therefore, lets take a look at 11,500 words of missed chances to present a plan of time-bound intended change. Using v | b | t to guide another critique.

I conclude a draw. This offering to be on par, and to be as accomplished a vacuum packed political vernacular of fluff, as Boris could have ever have hoped to hide behind.

Visibility | b | t

This was an opportunity to present a vision of what could be. In the being mode of reflecting upon what is here now, and what is intended to be changed at project end. The being and the becoming. The clarity of how all project actors involved are to be accounted for, and the priorities of stakeholder interests, and metrics of success. A positive to start with therefore, it is quite clear which actors are most of interest. I am just not sure which families are to be categorised as not being the hard-working ones addressed here.

As a project, my question is what is intended by this proposed change? If we press deeper into the questions of why. Beyond the first why of the politics, the second of why and where the balance of distribution of wealth for future engagement of the labour force should sit. Thereafter I struggled to find any answers of note. This essay offers no vision of what we can as a country become. Our place and our role in the global village. It is an outline of the ambitions of process, of the priority of what we have (as potential, opportunity, and what is owned), and a vague inference of readdressing the owned by whom.

It is not until page 21 that the future focus is introduced. The Future. The visibility of what we can become. “A future in which we ensure everyone who wants to contribute can fulfil their potential” Starmer argues is only feasible if Labour have ownership of the reins.

A new deal for business and working people. A government backing both business and the working conditions of all. Long-term planning to the benefit of both (page 22), setting high standards and favouring British firms for contracts with public sector (page 23); increasing the minimum wage, sick pay, parental leave and flexible working and removing fire and rehire practices; replacing universal credit; making low paid better off with better work-life balance. Investing heavily in green recovery, with more homegrown electric car production, wind turbine, clean steel for schools, hospitals, and railways (page 23 and 24).

It then outlines how more resource is to be moved towards physical and mental health (page 25); better starts to life for all with better access to modern schools, soft-skill development, and with it a greater sense of self-worth. Safer streets with more Police and stricter laws against antisocial behaviour (page 28-29). All admirable sentiments, but toward what end? What national self-worth?

The road ahead from page 30, begins with Tory, Liberal Democrats and SNP failings of the past. Starmer stands us at the cross-roads again, presenting the better path by further pointing to the vulnerability and failings of others who have sat in the driving seat. The better path of government is outlined as a focus on security of, and opportunity for, the people. A government able to face up to tough decisions, prioritising the hard-working family, we are told. The final page then presents the ten principles of a contributing society, finally outlined as a coherent whole (page 31). My best attempt at a more pithy summary is this:-

Hard working families first
Fair reward for the fair minded
Contribution based society
Equal opportunity
Community before individual
Interventionist economics
Partnering with private enterprise
Responsible spending
Return to honesty, decency, transparency
Patriotism without nationalism

In terms of visibility therefore, I found nothing but disappointment at the sheer lack of detail. There are some significant socio-political concepts summarised here, but what does our country look like on this path?

I was left with a reasonable idea of what it would be like if Keir Starmer were our King-Pin. This is how I would rule you. This is how I would waft my wand. This is what power would be to me. But little real vision of what that would all be for. Accordingly, let me now consider what behaviour this leadership message reflects, at least to me.

v | behaviour | t

“People in this country are crying out for change” says Starmer in the front facing part of his Foreword. This is an encouraging sentence given my project theory is suggesting that all we are is vehicles of intended change. But the paragraph then evades what destination is in mind. Offering instead the change of principles and redistribution of power and decisions to localised autonomy and the labour force. We are thereafter presented a detail of sorts to this vision, but framed as the how he would have power assigned. This is the behaviour of the having mode. How power would be held in leadership. Little to offer in terms of what this would all transform us into being. How we would be served.

The psychological tone of the whole essay is one of focus upon what is being owned. Mostly, it is allocation of blame. Pointing out others failings, as a reflection of their selfish overtones. I estimate this is 75% of the entire account. Imagine putting a tender together or applying for a job, and filling all the spaces availed to allow you to shine, and just presenting the case for how bad the other candidates may be. Who is not able to make these judgements themselves? I understand the sentiment but to me this takes up far too much of the word count, and denies the opportunity to show a better behaviour, one capable and willing to mend broken bridges with the electorate. A surprisingly shallow argument is presented as a result.

One example that stood out for me was after the most extended volley of assaults was concluded. Page 21, even having acknowledged past criticism for Labour spending too long looking in the rear view mirror, almost the next sentence is revisiting the inspirational days of 1945. Then countered by “but forward focused on new settlement between government, business, and working people” (page 21). This then returns another attack on where we are, but little of what we change to, other than pithy sentiment of “a contribution society” (page 22).

Past reflections, starting at page 8, are unfettered in their focus on political team colours. The good deeds of Labour, the self-serving nature of Conservatives. Lessons held up as his team’s mistakes of old in being retrospectively focused, but still reflecting upon the good of these retrospective days. Presenting the ideology of the right as having failed in recent past, and addressed in three periods as follows (all page 10). I outline these for selfish reasons. They happen to list as a v | b | t in their own categorisations:

The era of the Global Financial Crisis, depicted as a period of poor visibility “a smokescreen for rolling back the state”;
The era of patriotic nationalism, depicted as complacent behaviour “a lazy, complacent veer from patriotism to nationalism” which covered a period from Brexit to the current Afghanistan.
A trend towards emboldening a division of interests. This I read as intended divided trust, “import of American-style divisions on social, cultural, and sometimes national lines”

With no intended irony, Starmer then proceeds to present the divide across this same social landscape (pages10-13), citing David Cameron’s “We’re all in this together”, to then highlight subsequent regional disparity of wealth and health, age related stereotypes, and a country held back by a lack of ambition. Nearly five pages of these sentiments that are taken deep into page 15.

As a considered position on behaviour therefore, this seemed unnecessarily focused on the other. Just as I despaired at Boris Johnson’s lack of clear ability to stand tall, stand accountable, and stand for us all. So I find this focus by Keir Starmer as reflecting a blame ready tool box of excuses in waiting, and a weakness to commit to anything at all. I was hoping for a little more spirited and applied daring-do. There seems little to choose between Boris Johnson’s demonstrating a lack of service, and Keir Starmer offering much of what is wrong but little of how to put it right.

What then, is this offering as a better form of trust?

v | b | trust

Starmer’s reflections are empathetic. Perhaps intended to demonstrate being in touch with the reality of difficult times. The working class divide, and the hardship and unfairness. There is a reflection upon humble beginnings. Prior experience of Public Service, Director of Public Prosecutions in 2008, represented as leadership acknowledged with knighthood in 2014 (page 7). From my earlier blogs on leadership, this equates to the titles held, and the medals won. Like any CV, this would read much better as a means to reflect upon how these experiences can deliver what is intended to be. How to serve us better.

What of trust in finding a way forward? It is not going to come from demonstrating who has caused what in the here and now. The significant detail of past discretions in this essay is not reflected in the same detail of what is to come. There is a lack of meaningful data in all future examples offered. Leadership is not about spreadsheets, but the quality of case study here seemed rather lacking in the authority of equivalent board level understanding. By example, page 16 offers a glimpse of private sector collaboration. A single case study of a manufacturing opportunity for wind-turbines in Glasgow. A case study that quickly becomes a swipe at the lack of strategic planning by the other side. Page 17 “Fixing the fundamentals” presents insecurity and inequality central to a fix. A hypothetical case-study of two students and the vastly different opportunities presented due to societal difference. Security and lack of housing and employment opportunity reflected through page 18, introducing a link to liberal democracy, reintroduction of society over individualism, and landing back onto the safe labour platform of card-carrying membership before returning to what Conservatives have failed to do. This makes room for extending the criticisms towards the SNP under the shared Nationalistic intentions, albeit separate flags in mind (page 19-20). I struggle to find much encouragement or clarity towards a better way with the lack of depth here.

The detail of priorities is similarly vague. A new deal for business and working people. A government backing both business and the working conditions of all. Long term planning to the benefit of both (page 22), setting high standards and favouring British firms for contracts with public sector (page 23); increasing the minimum wage, sick pay, parental leave and flexible working and removing fire and rehire practices; replacing universal credit; making low paid better off with better work-life balance. Investing heavily in green recovery, with more homegrown electric car production, wind turbine, clean steel for schools, hospitals, and railways (page 23 and 24). The essay then moves back to pre-existing inequality and the need for more localised decision autonomy, and more transparency on freedom of government spending by department. It then outlines how more resource is to be moved towards physical and mental health (page 25); better starts to life for all with better access to modern schools, soft-skill development, and with greater sense of self-worth. Safer streets with more Police and stricter laws against antisocial behaviour (page 28-29). Notwithstanding the headline nature of each aim here, how can all these promises be priority number one? This comes back to my project analogy. What is to be prioritised, what is sacrificial, what is ambition number one? What is supporting the target of all these mandates? And why?

What truth do we learn, here?

It is perhaps self-evident that I struggled to contain my irritations here. The essay form I truly wish to become more adept at writing, is in my opinion not reflected here. In masterful hands it is a form of elegance and clarity, that can hold truth for all time. One that in days past, and I believe days to come, can and will hold timeless visions of a way to be. The great and the good of history can still be engaged by their past words. In contemporary context perhaps that is as much truth as we need. A vision, a set of behaviours, and reflection of what change could be, is almost never offered by those who wish to serve us all. What confidence, what trust, should we feel obliged to therefore afford?

I found the v | b | t and project language I am developing of some use in framing this critique. Even if it was simply to conclude that I find myself no closer to a holder of better truth.

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In psychology we are required to look beneath the mask. This blog series is attempting to unmask some hidden parts of projects to engender a more collaborative way.

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having to being, leadership, Truth

Rolling with the waves

Working with the tide, not against it

Not every day has to be the same. Mindsets and moods are like tides of inspiration. Some days the ideas flood in.

Other days they lurk in what is left behind.

Yesterday was a good morning of open slot consulting time with a client. Individuals freely popping on-line for a chat, a coffee, a means to float ideas. A few hours around lunch for me – with the philosophy of Richard Rorty – contingency, irony, and solidarity – his arguments on truth seemingly undermining mine. Then an hour’s chatting to an old mate, before my battery went flat. As did my ‘phone. Then some essay writing for real, reworked, new text to find in some quiet time.

My honesty with me reveals so much more this way. No building pressures to feel compelled to fight against a tide. Able to predict and understand. Waiting, and choosing my wave.

v | b | t

Which all presents room for needs felt, even if not said. More visibility, making room for behaviours and needs. A trust built back by understanding and responding. Actively permitting and adapting.

Here now free to write uncompromising, unapologetic. Knowing what I feel. Another day with my truth.

Tomorrow is another day…another tide.

Leading is control

Being a leader, not having the badge

Who else needs to know?

Leadership is made, not purchased, not born. Yesterday I posted a challenge as to why we only look at the leader and not the controls. Today, I wear the other shoe, and seek to show them as a pair. I happened upon a book someone else was reading last weekend. I made a comment on LinkedIn, and I was soon in discussion directly with its author. Surprised as I was with the one to one access, it is completely in keeping with the man. Communication is all, he says. Oak McCulloch, a military leader, living up to both title and first name.

His book “Your Leadership Legacy : becoming the leader you were meant to be”, was, courtesy of very polite prompt, ordered on the Tuesday – Oak’s influence and follow up both said and seen here too. The book arrived on the Thursday afternoon. It was read in a few hours there and then. Another brief discussion accommodated as I concluded this learning project. His words and influence are now sitting between my last blog and this.

Understanding the concepts of what it takes to be a leader is not that difficult. Actually doing the things required of leaders, day in and day out, is another story. Thus, the dichotomy … It’s Not About You; It’s All About You
Oakland McCulloch, in summarising the key sentiment of his book

Leadership or controls?

His view is that leadership is all. I have just blogged that we need to take a closer look at the controls, and not just the leadership. Yet, I think we both agree.

Outcomes are steered home or put to the rocks by the clarity of vision, purpose, and execution. The first thing this leader did in each assignment he was set, was check what this vision was intending to be. Next was to check that the control framework was fit for the changes required. The control framework that enables the visibility, the behaviours, and the trust to be aligned. All this within the wider framework of the wider control environment within which he served.

Without a leadership interest in the controls, I conclude we are being presented with neither.

Objectives and Guideposts – building trust

There is reference to Oak’s constant journaling of what leadership is. Journaling that he began from his first cadet days. I really like that. It immediately adds an authenticity to the read. There are quotes from other leaders throughout this book, as a positive reinforcement. They fit perfectly to the first-hand experience and anecdotes. Each seems to have been a message lived by, not retrospectively sought. The book therefore reads as by someone who has lived a life in leadership, reflecting upon its duty, but also diligently seeking more knowledge from others. The mentors. The experiences. The sage words written and passed on. But also recording the pithy sentiments, learned meaning that transformed something more within. Kept accessible to reflect upon and re-apply. That is the dedication to becoming the bastion of the role, not just the title it bestows.

This is the essence of the being mode. Aiming to be more, and not just owning knowledge but seeking it out to apply it. The being leader, leading by example.

v | b | t

He further enshrines the necessity of teaching and being taught. The terms used here I equate to the visibility | behaviour | trust categories I am advocating elsewhere. To delegate by increments of trust, that are backed up by the clarity of what is expected and enabling the recipient to feel empowered to do so with their own flare. Compare that to how we in construction delegate in contract. Low trust, defensive scopes of service intended to have ambiguity to wiggle around our own lack of clarity of prioritised goal, and a tendency to over burden method and dictate behaviours via reporting but ignore the necessary checking and presence to help or intervene. What lessons does each attitude reflect and teach here?

The relevance to projects, and of psychology

I am reminded of the work of Jungian psychologists like Robert Moore or Jean Bolen, in explaining the necessary maturity required to be the balanced leader. Frameworks of personal development can be built from these theories. In Jungian Archetype language leadership is the King or Queen archetype. Moore argues this inner part is in everyone, but that it is the last to develop fully, and only if other key parts have matured first. Only then can the tyrannical petulance and demands of the spoilt child be avoided, or the weakling child be countered along with its passive aggressive apathy.

Moore suggests many never advance beyond this stage because to advance means to find balance to many conflicting but necessary needs. Our instincts and need to train, the warrior preparedness for fight or flight. Our caring and nurturing side, as reflecting our ability to love. Our need to develop ideas and tools to explain and do more, and be less beholden to chance, as our means to teach, mentor, study, discover, and learn anew.

It is this hard-won inner balance within each of these archetypes; the balance between each of their competing desires; that we then take all our delicately balanced parts into the outer world. It is here we attempt to keep our own balance, and account for the imbalance of others toward shared objectives, shared obstacles, as intended changes to what is otherwise just chance. These are all projects | within projects. But they all start with you.

Father figures

I will admit a bias in my enjoyment of this book. One known to any who know me at all. My father was a military leader. The Royal Navy has a history of its own heroes to boast, as do I. He had to learn all these lessons of leadership from a standing start. Both through experience and later found academics. From his first CSEs at 30 years old, to an MA in Military Strategy in his mid-forties. Working his way up from the most junior rating at 16, to then retire a Commander. A rare story indeed.

There is much in this book I no doubt reflect upon as strengths acknowledged in my own first leader. A tall shadow from which to emerge without some reflective doubt. It is only later in life that I was able to acknowledge my unfinished business with developing my inner King.

From mind to management

With that in mind I will conclude with a final psychological observation. It is with an open mind we should look to understand what leadership is intending each of us to be. Personality and trait theory would argue there is no single flavour of a better way to be. It is therefore our first duty to know ourselves. Our weakness’, our strengths, and our blind spots to both. As with all learning it is then the application that counts. Reading of how others did something well is not a text book to learn by heart. It is a glimpse at what it meant to them, to be. Blindly following another’s formulae is, by its very nature, not to understand what it is to lead. To be, is to apply ourselves to better ends.

Be your own mind

I recommend this read. It is a perspective worth seeing. Reflecting upon behaviours worth applying. Presented from an authority and institution of some trust. It has the clarity of word Oak tells us Napoleon always sought. At around 50,000 words it is a decent single sitting meal. One of those I think Francis Bacon would have offered to be slowly chewed and digested.

“Your Leadership Legacy : becoming the leader you were meant to be” by Oakland McCulloch.

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In psychology we are required to look beneath the mask. This blog series is attempting to unmask some hidden parts of projects to engender a more collaborative way.

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book review, control, jung, leadership, psychology, trust

Reshuffling our thinking

Ignore the cards, let’s revisit the games we play

Reshuffling the deck

How influential should a leader wish to be? And how influential should we want them to be? In positions of administration and mandated service, how much latitude should they even expect to have?

For those of us reliant upon the BBC for our daily news feed, we are being treated to a moment to consider this again. Boris Johnson moving a few chairs around at the top table of government. The media offering us plenty of opinion on character, and on motivations. A little less light on intended change to direction of travel, and how this impacts the affairs of state.

Link here to the BBC report I read as I write this. Opening line reads

“this is a mad way to run the country”
quotes Laura Kuenssberg of an unnamed member of government.

I am unclear whether this is directed at this reshuffle, this government, or our political system per se. Hats to fit all heads, I think.

We all deal these cards

Not that these hats are worn any differently beyond our political leaders. This reflects the reality of daily life for us all. There is truth revealed here as to each of us in our basic having mode of possession, not the being mode of active participation. Being present in authority would be to have only the service of those you lead in mind – rather than to covet the trappings of power as to reflect a more personal criteria of having gained a symbol of success.

No one suit makes a deck

My despair at the political class has no ideology attached. I’ll happily call foul on either side when the rhetoric is louder than the dialogue. I have been unconvinced of the absolute truth of the individual vs the collective, or the size and role of state, or if meritocracy, utilitarianism, capitalism, or socialism divides our ownerships best. All reflect boundaries, winners and losers, belief not fact, incomplete judgement, false promises, and a necessary subterfuge of one flavour of human project of ownership against another. I turned to philosophy only to find it presenting bigger words for the same opinions. My despair is at the predictability of it all. The lessons we simply have no way to learn. That the politics of nation simply reflect the culture of the people, or that the people have simply become immune to the politics that have long since forgotten who they are meant to serve.

But we should be slower to tut and roll our eyes. Or nail our colours to a mast. I see nothing here beyond what we each do; in every decision we make. This is self-interest doing what it does best, taking care of the first conscious being that counts.

We are all Jokers and Knaves

Laura Kuennssberg may delight in that opening quote from the nameless source. Personally, I think it could be reframed to any company, any family, any industry, political movement, sports team, charity, or international agency you would wish to frame. We serve ourselves. Then we see what we can do for the rest. It is no way to run anything, but it is a way to personally survive.

Aces high and low

Here is the project connection. We make much of the necessary leadership to ensure a project is organised into the right framework of delivery. Why is it only ever the leadership that is our focus, and not the infrastructure of the project as a whole? What is it about our projects that demands so much of the leader and so little of ourselves? Or more correctly, why is it that I hear so often of the disconnect between the two? Secretly, we all know why. But no one dares say it out loud. We all know how low we can go. That we are fallible. That we are capable of great harm in our selfish moments of greatest charm. Being seen to do the right thing. Being focused upon the very exacting standards of behaviour society demands, or our authority have sought fit to define. We all tick that box when it’s a question of blame.

Avoiding the 52 card pick-up

Let me cut to the solution, rather than add to the rolled eyes. The solution begins at home. Each of us can revert to this notion of being mode, not simply having. We can then look around and ask if others are doing the same. From daily life, this becomes more informed. It provides a little more influence. Generates societal reframing and better questions to ask. It also directs those who ask questions on our behalf. The likes of Laura Kuenssberg to ask the questions of others that she is asking of herself, that we are all asking of ourselves. The better questions become more enlightening because we are more enlightened to our own fallibility. It prompts more fundamental questions. What is motivating this change? Is this action enabling a bigger change to become real or is it enacting something we simply wish to have, or that we wish to keep.

This becomes a way to ask these more fundamental questions at all scales. It is addressing different levels of decision-making against the same basic metrics of motivation. It includes the leaders we have chosen to be our servants. Or selecting from those volunteering themselves to take up such an unenviable role. We get to see if they are simply seeking to have. Or is this selfless service of us all, and the shared intended change toward what we all wish to become. This is a line of questioning that can be put to any scale of authority. But it is necessarily uncomfortable. Which is why it is the line of questioning that must start with your authority over yourself. Are you becoming more, and adding value? Or just seeking to have more, own more, and add value only to yourself?

Cards on the table

I am not offering opinion on the politics. But I will present an observation of the motivations I see. This reshuffle seems clearly motivated by a desire to have something self-serving. A more amenable cabinet. A distraction of attention towards less difficult media questions. But deeper than that is an equally cynical having mode to flag. That could be said of any reshuffle. What is it about any reshuffle that leaves each head on a block so “nauseous and clammy” as the BBC report here? Why was each and every position under threat, each so unclear of their own safety, to be denied opportunity to be more tomorrow than they were yesterday? Why is this discomfort even news?

The nausea begins with a lack of transparency by the decision-making. The clammy hands coming from the lack of clear method of selection criteria and impetus for each change. The hand holding the axe could have been asked directly, what is intended by the change? What is this intended to facilitate, to become? Asking that why more than once cuts a little closer to deeper truth.

Of those with the clammy hands, looking up fearfully upon the axe, the same can then be asked of them. What intended change did you have in mind that is now denied? What does your fear reveal of underlying having or being modes?

Watch the dealer, be aware the potential slight of hand, based upon the trust

In both cases, is this just raw and naked ambition to progress? Not because of desire or interest in a specific area of government, or leading a cabinet of the best able to perform the roles – but just having a senior role at all or having a cabinet that is less of a threat to the power that is had. Or, in my v | b | t language. Little is visible, behaviour is necessarily self-serving, and trust is a flavouring to be applied sparingly by all.

Anyone know a project like that…? We all do it, or at least see it and do nothing to intervene.

Control the game, not the cards

Accordingly, the critical control framework is where I look to first. To support such a precarious environment, we need a robustness. A 21st Century robustness that befits the holding of such precious a cargo as the affairs of state should demand. Who in government ever knows how central government or local government frameworks of control work before their appointed role? How long does that take to learn each time we have a major change? How overwhelmed must each willing volunteer be when that first red box is opened upon a new desk? How isolated from the daily lives of all those public servants they oversee must that necessarily reflect?

But why is it always such a surprise? Why is this infrastructure of administration not known by people before they know they need to know? Or have any clarity on the control framework that is also suppose to support them to do a most difficult task. What support do they have that offers them a means to make the right decisions, not just the safe ones. As they begin their temporary time at the wheel, how do they know when to stick or twist?

Learning the game, before playing the game

How much has any of this really changed in the modern era of government? Beyond the axes of austerity aimed at Excel spreadsheets in secret darkened rooms. Where is the control framework that these leaders become accountable for whilst in position, but also dependent upon and able to be assessed against as the process of intended changes they and their government are overseeing. The framework to hold the processes, that become action towards the promises made. Their five years of intended change.

Playing the cards you are dealt

There is much to be critical of here. But if we are to move past defensive decision-making behaviours by those at the top, we need to afford them the same protections to do their job, as the protection we demand they give to us. It is not charisma and charm but ability in clearly defined parameters of administration we should want to see. My view therefore is let’s not just replace one career politician with another and hope for a different result. Let’s revisit the framework of the departments each leader temporarily sits and determine if they are protecting the processes they are designed to house. Present a clarity of assurance of decision-making that this framework then supports. Consider the capability of the people against the same framework of control, with a clarity of role and responsibility. Claim back the clarity of accountability of these leadership roles. Hold them responsible to this performance and give them the power to make necessary changes to the frameworks that better make this so. And let’s require all politicians to have demonstrable knowledge of how these processes apply. So that we can be the first to vote in those already trained in the most rudimentary tasks that are the being mode of the titles they all covet and wish to have.

Card games to play at home

These are no different a set of parameters I am presenting in projects of any scale. Understanding the intended change. Operating this change by the best framework it requires. Assessed across visibility | behaviour | trust. Starting with the projects of mind. Equally applicable to projects of state.

I therefore repeat the first challenge. This is firstly to be aimed at ourselves. Psychological safety cuts both ways. As does the assessment of visibility | behaviour | trust we demand. Start with these questions of ourselves, and those we and our press then choose to ask.

About Me

In psychology we are required to look beneath the mask. This blog series is attempting to unmask some hidden parts of projects to engender a more collaborative way.

Find my professional mask here:

being present, having to being, leadership, psychology

Trust in philosophy

What do Stanford say about trust?

These are summary notes and observations from reviewing the philosophical considerations of what trust is, in one of the best free resources of academic thought I have found. In summarising this encyclopaedia entry (link here and below), there is positive confirmation that visibility | behaviour | trust (v | b | t) reflects other conclusions of interactions between these three variables I am attempting to integrate into project assessment. However, it also presents some rather tricky obstacles if trust is to be a meaningful assessment criteria aimed toward measuring likelihood of project success.

This single entry in the Stanford Encyclopaedia of Philosophy (SEP) is around 15,000 words. It comes immediately to the point by presenting trust in terms of risk. Next is an exploration of what conditions are required to enable trust. Comparison is also made to trustworthiness, which is reflected upon as a property, not an attitude as is required to have trust. For a trusted relationship to exist, both parties are required to have the property of trustworthiness.

One ongoing challenge I have set myself is testing through examples that visibility, behaviour and trust are functional parts of a whole. This encyclopaedia entry presents a connection to all three…

“The trustor might try to reduce this risk by monitoring or imposing certain constraints on the behaviour of the trustee; but after a certain threshold perhaps, the more monitoring and constraining they do, the less they trust this person. Trust is relevant “before one can monitor the actions of … others” (Dasgupta 1988: 51) or when out of respect for others one refuses to monitor them. One must be content with them having some discretionary power or freedom, and as a result, with being somewhat vulnerable to them (Baier 1986; Dasgupta 1988).”
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/trust/

The highlights and underlining in this quoted extract are my additions. The key observation here being that in my own enquiry to seek evidence of a v | b | t relationship, this acknowledged encyclopaedic resource offers a unifying link more succinctly than I could otherwise have hoped.

This therefore appears a satisfactory venture into the philosophical discussion. However, further observations are reflected upon below. These are useful additional details but each presents new challenges to my ongoing enquiry.

Reliance vs Trust

A further subtlety offered is to distinguish mere reliance, from a breach of trust. The SEP presents this via Annette Baier (1986: 235) “although people who monitor and constrain others’ behaviour may rely on them, they do not trust them if their reliance can only be disappointed rather than betrayed.” This presents a challenge to my own thinking on what behaviour is to trust therefore, and in the context of project relationships requires me to consider again my v | b | t core. My only counter to this observation is the additional factoring of the control framework to necessarily consider reliance or trust by all project parties and whether adequate levels of interaction have been permitted to enable a shared interest in outputs the project itself can rely. This passage revisits the vulnerability of the one party. I pose this as a vulnerability to the project itself. With less trust, there becomes a greater reliance upon this control framework. I flag this here as an open question to resolve. (cf. Goldberg 2020 via SEP).

Developmental trust

“therapeutic trust” (Nickel 2007: 318; Hinchman 2017 via SEP) which is highlighted as a dynamic attitude toward another – with hope of eliciting an improving trustworthy nature in time. In a project setting I would equate this to the many leadership and management challenges of coaching and development of skills, and the delicate balance of offering increasing responsibility and the controlled hope for a responsive (i.e., changing) trustworthy behaviour. (cf McGeer 2008: 241; Horsburgh 1960 and Pettit 1995 via SEP). As with reliance vs trust in a project context, this is a two way interaction with an appropriate control environment providing backup to this trust gap.

Competence plus motivation

“When we trust people, we rely on them not only to be competent to do what we trust them to do, but also to be willing or motivated to do it.” This too draws upon an external evaluation, albeit deficient, with the SEP referencing Jones criticisms of risk-assessment theories making no attempt to distinguish between trust and mere reliance and therefore criticized for this reason (cf. Jones 1999 via SEP). Other accounts of motivation deemed to require distinctions be made of motives being a determinant of whether trustworthiness is availed (cf. Katherine Hawley “motives-based” theories (2014) via SEP). A third category is also presented; “non-motives-based theories”, which are also not risk-assessment theories (Hawley 2014, SEP). Each strive to distinguish between trust and mere reliance, though not by associating a particular kind of motive with trustworthiness.

Acknowledging a potential boundary case

Perhaps the crucial reflections upon this philosophical summary is to acknowledge the difficulty arising if attempting a singular understanding of what trust and trustworthiness are – whether or not this is beyond mere reliance and reliability. The SEP entry presents the complexity of determining if trust is warranted, and whether such determinants are internal to the trustor or able to be externally accounted for.

Significant problems to my enquiry can now be flagged by virtue of this one summary of the philosophical framework of trust. Trust’s value and therefore its measurement is problematic. Accounts disagree on its rational justification (or even if rationality has different qualities in consideration of trust) or the potential for its illusory properties, or their misrepresentation. The SEP entry gives reason to think trust and distrust have great value when deemed very high and become integral to moral and societal norms and social contracts. Trust is also deemed essential in the exchange of knowledge and therefore wider truth. It argues that it is trust that enables human cooperation, and commitments to future return.

Some hard truth

But I have to therefore ponder upon whether trust can become a tangible measure at all. This SEP entry presents a difference between truth and end-directed rationality. Questions are posed on what trust is – is it an emotion, or a belief, or something else building up to a mental attitude? Various theories are offered across each. It poses questions as to how can trust be developed, and from what to what?

Upon my first reading of this account therefore, I conclude any modelling involving trust as a variable is unlikely to reach quantitative precision given the abstract and diverse parameters it could entail. This is useful. It informs and better frames my ongoing research. Flagging an upcoming obstacle of some size. The very real constraints to which this whole enquiry could ultimately be bound.

I trust you agree with my caution…

Stanford EP / trust

About Me

In psychology we are required to look beneath the mask. This blog series is attempting to unmask some hidden parts of projects to engender a more collaborative way.

Find my professional mask here:

philosophy, trust