Cascading Priorities

Clinging to an overturned boat, surrounded by sharks, drifting along a remote piece of coast with 60 minutes to sunset. The timing was fortuitous. If we weren't at that spot and at that time, there's a high probability that the 3 people clinging to the boat would have perished overnight. The only reason we heard their broken mayday call was the radio antenna at the top of our yacht's mast gave better range and clarity. Several other boats nearby could not hear them at all. 

We were not able to rescue them directly, our boat was too slow and constrained by depth. For the next hour we relayed messages between the vessel in distress, rescue services and other boats. In the end it was a successful outcome with all 3 picked up safely. 

But we almost added ourselves to the problem. While I was distracted on the radio, I stopped relaying navigation info to my crew. They took a wrong turn into one of two channels available. Only one was deep and wide enough for our yacht to safely pass. Fortunately we sorted it out before we ran out of room to manoeuvre. 

There's a clear set of priorities in such a situation. 

1. Control the boat

2. Know where you are (navigate)

3. Communicate

They are in that order for a reason. Emergency communications are useless, if while making them you lose control or get lost. Both make the problem worse. I had put communication at the top of the list for a while and it almost led us into danger.

The priorities are there to aid decision making when there's a high workload and high consequence. If you follow them you remain aware of the full picture rather than getting fixated on one part.

The best leaders are able to describe a clear set of priorities for their team regardless of the context. Ideally, they’ll ensure people stay focussed on what's important regardless of circumstances. It's a great way to increase capacity under pressure.

What are your highest priorities? Is there a logical order? What's at risk if you lose sight of them?

Bringing your best self

Bringing your 'best self' to situations is not always easy. When I'm tired, wired or uninspired, my best self sometimes takes a hike. But practice under pressure improves our ability to show up well

I was recently on The Real Biz Life Chronicles  podcast with Tracy Fryer. This is what she said about our conversation, “How do you become your best self in a world that won’t stop shifting?

Mike House has spent over two decades pushing high-powered leaders beyond their perceived limits, guiding them through discomfort, uncertainty, and pressure until they reach the most elevated version of themselves.

His secret? Teaching people to face hardship with a clear mind and to find the silver lining in any situation, not by accident, but by design.

This episode teaches you how to lead through the chaos with clarity.”

Watch full episode on You Tube

Or listen on Spotify

Low Tech Large Language Models (LLM’s)

Image Credit: WIll MCTighe

The working world is abuzz at the moment with discussion about LLM’s like ChatGPT. What are they good for? How should we use them? What about job security? Etc.

Long before LLM’s became high tech, they were low tech. Low tech but immensely powerful. And they are still at our disposal.

In simple terms, an LLM is a computer program that has been fed enough examples to be able to recognize and interpret human language or other types of complex data.

The low tech version is culture. Culture is built via language, images and symbology. Now more than ever, what we say and how we say it has a direct impact on our experience together. The reference from Will McTighe has great examples of why to choose some words over others.

The low tech LLM of a work culture is just this - what we say to each other. It sets the tone for future interactions and allows people to make decisions and form responses in new situations. What Will doesn't mention is that how we say it is just as important. The green ticked words are great choices, but if they are not backed with genuine intent to listen they’ll be less than useless. The combination of actual words, plus intent creates the message.

What does your cultural LLM look and feel like? What are you doing as a leader to enhance it?

Trust - Stopping Erosion

I love visiting gorges. The carvings made by water, etched into the landscape over millions of years, are breathtaking. Water doesn’t seem significant enough to work its way through hundreds of metres of solid rock, but over time it has its way. Observing a given moment, the erosion is imperceptible. Once you understand the mechanism, it’s obvious.

There’s a similar pattern with trust in workplaces. Like water, there are forces that erode trust. Viewed in a moment, they seem insignificant. Over time they wear trust down. They multiply and the erosion gets deeper and harder to fix.

Here are three and what to do about them:

1. Open loops. When people make suggestions, ask about progress or for a decision, they often don’t hear anything back. Even if they ask many times, there's still no reply. It doesn’t mean nothing is happening. I talk to many busy leaders who are working hard, with good intent to make stuff happen. But in the busyness, it’s easy to forget to update people. It erodes trust, because it seems like there's neither care nor action. Close those loops.

2. Talking behind people’s backs. Even if we don’t consciously notice it, someone bad-mouths someone else, we wonder what they are saying about us when we are not around. We become more guarded. Address issues early and often.

3. Agreement without agreement. In a meeting everyone agrees, but then agreement is undermined in practice. Have robust conversations to reach agreement, and then back the agreement. Sometimes this means living with something that is different from the choice I personally would have made. That's OK.

In places where there are already deep gorges worn into the landscape of trust, it takes time and intentional effort to rebuild. It is possible, and can be surprisingly rapid if there’s willingness to do the work.

What does the trust landscape look like where you work? Is it effective or ineffective?

Making the Shift

A few people asked how to make the shift from a policing mentality to a mentoring one. One of the main reasons people have for ‘policing’ something is that they care about the outcome. We have different reasons for caring. Some of us care because we are deeply passionate about the work. Others because it’s part of a bigger vision. Perhaps for work ethic, or a future dream. There are as many motivations as there are people.

To shift from policing to mentoring, you’ve got to find out why others care, and make that connection stronger. If they don’t care, help them discover why that works for them. 

Do you ever lament the gap?

You know the one... it exists in many  “betweens”:

Decision - Action

Learning - Wisdom

Problem - Solution

Seeking - Answers

Plan - Outcome

People - Team

Idea - Product

Head - Heart - Hands

When I decided to do my solo survival walk, the gap before I could start seemed unreasonable. There was no short cut. There were skills to learn, planning to do and logistics to organise. 

The gap was filled with mundane work less appealing than the challenge. Part of me wanted to rush to the start line.

I was coaching a leader this week who was lamenting the gap between her heart knowing it was time to move on from her role and how long it took for her head and hands to catch up. There was pain in the gap, but also growth and value. 

Our world of instant everything downplays and devalues the gap. The gap is precious. Lean in.

Where are you finding a gap? What value is it creating?

Skippering a Yacht - 5 Lessons from the Water

Last week, I refrained from drawing leadership parallels from my week long yacht skippers course over the summer, but several of you asked me to share them.

• Solo is challenging. While possible, single-handedly managing a yacht requires exceptional preparation and places the entire burden on one person. Fatigue and workload become critical factors, as does the need to oversee every system onboard. There's immense value in having a skilled crew.

• Clarity is Key. Success hinges on a well-defined plan, along with clear communication of roles and expectations. Ambiguity breeds errors which bend boats and people.

• Preparation Prevents Panic. When things happen on a yacht, they need fast, precise and coordinated action, often on several parts of the boat simultaneously. Preparing people and equipment ahead of time reduces pressure in the moment. Checking that the team is ready to go before a manoeuvre is executed makes it more likely to go smoothly.

• Trust Your Team. During critical moments, the skipper's job is to drive the boat smoothly and accurately. Focus on that. Let the crew do their work. Most of the time you are too far away and too occupied to physically help. Often you can’t even see clearly what they are doing. Second guessing their actions or making suggestions rarely helps at that point. Trust the crew and keep communication short, minimal and clear until the pressure has passed.

• Reflect and Improve. Once the action is complete, there's a period of relative calm to tidy up and discuss how things went. Reviewing the action, reflecting on effectiveness and extracting lessons for next time is a great way to build experience and confidence. Ask for feedback too.

These lessons are universally applicable to leadership, regardless of the context. The beauty of learning in a physical environment like a boat is that everything can be seen, cycles are short and there are clear start and end points. For most of our leadership work it's more opaque and ambiguous. The time frames can be epic. That makes it harder. Throughout my mentoring experience, these five themes consistently emerge as pivotal factors in team dynamics, cohesion, and overall effectiveness. Which of them could you work on with your team? How will you do that?

Learning Outside the Box

Each year I deliberately seek an opportunity to learn with 2 criteria. 

1. It will be new.

2. It will be challenging.

This year I did a yachting skippers ticket. I could write a post about what sailing taught me about business and leadership, but I can already imagine your eyes rolling! Sure there are some parallels, and mostly they would be either naff, obvious, or wonky long shots.

The most useful part of deliberately challenging ourselves outside our comfort zone and usual area of operation are:

• It helps us stay adaptable and fresh

• It provides a platform for looking at transferability - What do we already know/do that serves us well in a different environment? What can we learn from that environment that translates back to our ‘real world’? What assumptions do we usually make that either serve or hinder us?

One of the biggest confirmations for me on the course was to make objectives and communication as clear as possible. Hunt down ambiguity and break things down as much as needed. Oh, and when things go well, say so, it really lifts team focus/morale and sets the bar for what comes next.

Where and how can you test yourself in 2025?

Thank You, NFP Leaders,

NFP Leaders, especially those in NDIS or aged care have had a tough year. Sending them some encouragement and support as the year closes out. If you know someone in this sector, send them a message of support. They do critically important work in our community.

The People Around Us

She greeted us in the hotel lobby and enthusiastically told us about shopping tours, great places to eat, and sights to see. Two days later, in conversation, we found out that she had a PhD in Nuclear Physics and a number of years working in that field. Why are you working in a hotel after so much time studying and working we asked. Turns out that the career opportunities available locally involved working with higher risk radioactivity. Safer opportunities meant reestablishing in Europe. She wanted to be closer to home and family. Over our time in the hotel, I saw some other guests speaking to her as if she was stupid, and being disrespectful and demanding - a classic case of book and cover!

Over many years of working in and around for purpose organisations, I’m often amazed at the backgrounds of people who come to for purpose work. Some have long careers in the sector, but many come with a diverse range of skills, qualifications and backgrounds.

I’ve always found it fascinating and worthwhile to explore beyond people’s surface story (when they are happy to do so). Often we find interesting connections and motivations for being where they are now. Sometimes we find ways to work with people that go beyond the basic assumptions of the role, and make the most of their experience.

How well do you know and engage with the people in your team/organisation?

P.S. I have no idea if the equations in the image are representative of physics - someone out there will know!

Movement Matters

We’ve all been there. Standing. Waiting. Wondering. It sucks, doesn’t it!

In this bus queue we were wondering why the full bus wasn’t leaving and why four more buses were standing empty.

In traffic and supermarkets we change to the lanes that seem to be moving quickest.

Psychologists call it Progress Theory - If we are not making progress, we feel frustrated. If we are making progress, we feel better.

It matters in organisations too. In their 2011 book “The Progress Principle” Kramer and Amabile said, “Of all the things that can boost emotions, motivation, and perceptions during a workday, the single most important is making progress in meaningful work. And the more frequently people experience that sense of progress, the more likely they are to be creatively productive in the long run.”

Leaders have an important role to play in this sense of progress. If you are stuck on the hamster wheel of an ever growing to-do list, there’s a good chance you are missing a deep well of engagement and motivation for your team (and yourself).

If you lead in a ‘For Purpose” organisation, the progress principle is an even more powerful lever.

How are you using it?

Epiphany

I love a good Aha moment. I had one last week when I was preparing to talk to a group of leaders. I was angry and ruminating on an interaction where the outcome had put me under unexpected pressure. I had to pick up more of a job than I was supposed to because the other person didn’t follow through at their end. It left me scrambling to keep the balls in the air.

So there I am, preparing to talk to leaders about dealing with pressure. Under pressure myself, and not dealing with it particularly well. I was playing the interactions with the other person over and over in my head, doing the things we humans do when we feel slighted. Pointing the finger of blame. Stewing rather than acting. Feeling wronged. Enrolling others in the drama. Burning precious time and emotional energy. Going nowhere.

The epiphany came as I thought about my session with leaders. I was talking about “Grinding the Gorge” where survival groups walk up and down trying to establish exactly where they are, rather than making forward progress. I’d never thought about rumination as an example of Grinding the Gorge but it is. AHA! I used the story in my presentation. My advice in situations like that is to value Direction over Detail. The details feel important, don’t they? We want to be right. We want acknowledgement of the slight and the impact. Usually there's a lot more going on and it’s less intentional than we think it is.

For me Valuing Direction took a mental shift from the detail (he said, she said) to the short term action needed and the bigger picture of what I wanted the relationship with the other person to be. I focussed my time, effort and communication there. Progress is being made. Next time I find myself grinding the gorge called rumination, I reckon I’ll exit much more quickly.

Where could your leadership benefit from a shift to Direction over Detail?

Bush to Boardroom, does it translate?

At a breakfast presentation this week for Quorum I was asked two great questions:

First Question - In survival scenarios, is there a group attribute that makes you smile, because you know the group will succeed?

Groups who take the time to discuss and make explicit their expectations of each other and the situation always outperform. It’s counter intuitive. It feels too slow, and not sufficiently focussed on the outcome. It can be frustrating, because alignment doesn’t happen immediately - things that seemed clearly agreed may need further discussion and exploration. However, the larger the shared narrative and understanding a group has the faster they can act, decide, resolve conflict, distribute tasks. Everything becomes faster and more efficient.

Second Question - Does that observation translate from the Bush to the Boardroom?

Yes! And to every ‘room’ where 2 or more people are attempting to work together for a shared purpose/result. In the boardroom it might mean unpacking what we mean by strategy, or clearly understanding where the division of board guidance and executive function lies. It might mean discussing where our focus should lie. It might mean clearly articulating contrary views and genuinely exploring the nuance of perspective and opinion.

In any situation, the clearer we can be about what is important to us, how we will conduct ourselves as we pursue it, and what success looks like, the faster we can implement.

A lack of alignment usually shows up as either conflict or disengagement. Observe those, lean in, and add clarity.

Top 4 Mistakes when Preparing for Challenging Situations

Challenging situations come in many shapes and sizes. At work or time might be disrupted by something urgent. It could be a complaint, an equipment failure, someone being off sick, or an unexpected critical deadline. It might be relational like giving difficult feedback or correcting an error. It might be in your personal life like a family member getting sick, a contentious parent teacher interview, or a conversation with a difficult ex over the kids.

Bottom line is there are some situations we find more challenging than others. Last week, I highlighted visualisation as a great way to prepare. Here are the top 4 mistakes that people make when doing that:

1. Wishin’ and Hopin’ - even when you are pretty sure it won’t go smoothly, you just launch in and hope it will be OK, then feel surprised when it goes badly. The investment of a bit of time visualising your options in response to likely variables is well spent.

2. One Shot - only visualising one possible version of events. If any other version happens, you’ll be unprepared and surprised again. Pick 4 possible ways the situation could go on a continuum of “smoothly and well” to “terrible”.Visualise a version of each. How will you be feeling? What will you be doing or saying? What words or actions are coming from the other person/s?

3. Horror Movie - replaying past situations that didn’t go well and you wish you had showed up differently. Often we increase the impact of these negative images of ourselves and our capability with highly critical self talk. Act like a director. Say ‘CUT’ when you notice yourself negatively rehearsing and then replay the scene with you acting as you would have liked to have done.

4. Weird Energy - we can easily come in too hyped or too chilled. Each situation will have an ideal energy. Will you be calm, assertive, conciliatory, loud, quiet, listening, speaking? What is the ideal energy for the situation, and your preferred version of how it plays out.

Watch how these play out before your next moment of pressure. Rehearse well, Act well!

Right to disconnect

I keep running into leaders who say “I choose to do a lot of my work after hours and send lots of emails at night or the weekend. I don’t expect my staff to respond, but they do.”

If you do this it will set the expectation for many of your staff to respond, even if you explicitly state that you don’t expect them too. Expectations come from many sources:

• Notifications - if someone has their phone around them all the time, and notifications on, at the very least, they’ll see the message come in. Even if they choose not to respond, it will be on their mind.

• Standards - You are working after hours which sets an expectation that others should too, especially if you hold a senior position.

• Boundaries -  Some people and cultures have difficulty saying no to others. If you breach their boundaries, they’ll respond. 

• Old ways - It used to be said ‘never leave the office before the boss’. It’s changing, but it’s an enduring idea. If you are working any hours, it easily morphs to ‘don’t knock off before the boss’.

• Behaviour - You may not expect a response, but if you get one, do you respond again? This draws staff into an after hours discussion that your behaviour reinforces, even if you say you don’t expect it.

The new legislation is likely to get some leaders in strife for after hours emails like this, regardless of what they say about expectations. There’s a dead easy solution. All email platforms have a timed or delayed send feature. Learn to use it! Write your emails whenever it suits you, then set it to send during working hours. Simple, cleaner, better.

Compliance is not enough

Monday’s ABC Four Corners program "Don't Speak" has cast a spotlight on the critical issue of workplace bullying and the harmful culture of silence that persists in many organisations. People sometimes ask for clear examples of the kind of behaviour that the Psychosocial Hazards updates to Work Health and Safety legislation cover. The 4 Corners “Don’t Speak” program gives many clear examples across the full spectrum. It serves as a stark reminder of the devastating consequences when these risks are ignored, including severe mental health impacts and, in the worst cases, loss of life. We need to do better!

Organisations are already starting to see action based on the new laws. But guess what - changing legislation on its own, won't change behaviour. 

As in physical safety, exemplar organisations have already embedded culture which supports speaking up, asking questions, encouraging diversity, respect, and valuing contribution. They go way beyond compliance, embedding psychological safety and responsibility as key ingredients of high performance.

There’s many practical ways to do exactly that. What does your organisation do about it?

If you’d like a hand with it in your teams, let me know I’d be delighted to assist.

Running Light

If you are a runner (or train any other sport) you will know how tantalising and difficult it is to achieve a Personal Best (PB). Sometimes months go by and it seems impossible to get even close to your previous PB. I was talking to my good friend Lisa Dobrin recently about her running. Lisa runs regularly, is a yoga practitioner and has done several marathons in. She knows how to train, but for a long while PB’s were unobtainable. 

Recently she’s switched her focus from effort or technique and started focusing on running light. She’s been ignoring pace and other measures of effort, and focussing on light footfalls, feeling light, buoyant posture and mental lightness. Lisa said it’s been a fun experiment and out of the blue she’s hit several  significant PB’s like stripping 19 seconds off her best ever 1km pace. If you are a runner, you’ll know how epic that is. 

Most interesting to me, Lisa described it as almost effortless. It got me thinking about what results we might achieve in any area of life by focusing on ‘running light’, shedding unnecessary load or effort. How could you apply that concept to your life, relationships, leadership and work? And if you are a runner looking for a different way to train for a while, it could be worth a dabble.

Minor Changes?

Three stories from real people in real businesses this week:

• An engineer was plagued with constant ‘minor changes’ requested by a client. The engineering needs to be precise because of the loads on the structure. Relatively minor changes equal a full redo of the calculations and drawings.

• A highly customised vehicle had to be upgraded. The old model was no longer available. When the new one finally arrived, it didn’t fit in the shed.

• During an approval process a commitment was made to do things a certain way. When regulators made their inspection something completely different was happening. The original commitment had not been passed on to the operational team. The project may be suspended.

• A piece of public paving near my place was completed and dug up 6 times in one year because roads were changed, trees were planted, cables were shifted, water pipes were replaced etc.

We’ve all had experiences like these where one part of an organisation seems really badly informed about decisions others are making. At worst this leads to massive do-overs and significant frustration. I reckon it’s a compounding situation right now.

People’s to - do lists are so hectic, that they are focussed on what is right in front of them. Taking the time to ask for input from others and/or keep them informed can easily feel like a distraction from our primary focus. It’s false economy. I wonder what percentage of work across the planet is caused by a lack of cohesion, collaboration and communication. It must amount to a massive cost in time, dollars, resources and energy.

If you lead, take the time to slow down and facilitate the connections with people. Everything will go faster.

Is it contradictory?

Psychological Safety is a slightly misleading term. Many people think it's about being nice for the sake of avoiding conflict - that to be psychologically safe, we should avoid holding ourselves and others to a higher standard of performance. We’ll also avoid difficult conversations and feedback, so people feel safe. A psychologically safe environment is often uncomfortable, precisely because it is safe to do all these things. As a result individuals and teams will push into greater performance.

High psychological safety without a correspondingly high performance standard creates a comfort zone. Comfortable, but highly unlikely to yield high performance, learning or innovation. Over time, those comfort zones crumble into complacency and eventually apathy.

So what can our business owner of last week do to raise both psychological safety and performance:

• Aim for 5x as much affirming feedback as corrective. Tell people when they are doing a great job and why. This is significantly more effective in setting a high performance standard than critical or corrective feedback. And corrective feedback will be more willingly accepted when it is needed. People will want to know how to improve.

• Ask for feedback yourself. Listen and act on it. By doing so you set the standard that feedback is part of how we work.

• Give yourself feedback by reflecting on your work, what went well and what could be improved. Show the way on this and set up opportunities for others to do the same regularly. Many micro versions trump occasional large ones like performance reviews once a year.

• Be specific and clear when giving feedback. Many of us shy away from this in an attempt to be ‘nice’. It misses the mark.

• Get to know your team and what motivates them. When people feel you care about them as people, as well as the results, the results will benefit.

PS if you’d like some great questions to ask for reflection and feedback, send me a message and we’ll send them through.

Force won’t fix it

A while ago, I was doing a maintenance job on my motorbike. When trying to re-fit the front axle it wouldn’t slide through without a bit of force. As the saying goes, ”If at first it doesn’t fit, get a bigger hammer.” I got one and in return I got some damaged parts. My bigger hammer made a bigger problem.

The situation came to mind when I was talking to a leader about the performance of his team. According to him, they are not bad, but the general standard of their work is a bit lackadaisical. In attempting to lift the standard, all his tactics are about more force. Some of what he told me:

• He expresses anger and/or disappointment at the current standard of work (Understandable by the way, it costs him $$ when work is not on point)

• He plays people off against each other

• He makes thinly veiled threats about people losing their job

• He demands longer work hours to make up for the perceived shortcomings

• He constantly reminds people of policies and procedures

• He is looking over people’s shoulders all the time

• He never thanks people for anything (Why should I thank them for doing the job they are paid to do, especially if they are not doing it well? he asked)

I asked him how that approach was working for him.

“I think it’s getting worse,: he said. People don’t take responsibility and blame others/circumstances for their results. Like me with my axle bolt, I understand his frustration, but I’m not surprised.

In an environment where high results/standards are expected, but people don’t feel psychologically safe, the dominant feeling is anxiety. People will do almost anything to avoid attention and cover their butts. More force adds to the problem, making it harder and longer to fix.

Next time we’ll look at some of what he can do to reverse the current situation and build

Psychological safety as well as the performance standard.