Thank you for sharing 2022 with us.

Thank you for sharing 2022 with us. It’s been another epic year of fast paced change and uncertainty. Many of you have shared appreciation for these messages, and have told us how you are putting them into action. Others have asked questions or challenged some of the assumptions behind my thinking, and I love that too. The combination of appreciation and robust feedback has me always looking for new edges and tools that genuinely help to create capacity when we are under the pump.

Next year, it seems the uncertainty will continue. Geopolitical challenges, shortages of staff, higher interest rates, and high levels of fatigue continue to be themes. Be kind to yourself, the people around you, especially people in service roles. We all need it.

In 2022 we've road tested tools to measure psychological safety and trust in teams. The results have been great, with teams significantly shifting the dial on these measures and developing awareness of specific behaviour that makes it possible to do so. We’d love to get that work out to more organisations in 2023. If it’s of interest to you, or someone you know, click here for a coffee or a call to find out more about it.

Thank you once again. Raising the capacity of leaders like you to handle uncertainty and duress is what lights me up. It’s been a pleasure to share the road with you. As 2022 draws to a close, I wish you and the people close to you a peaceful and joy filled holiday season.

We look forward to sharing 2023 with you.

Cheers

Mike House and Team

Notable in 2022

I often get asked about resources and books I would recommend. Here are a few of my personal favourites from 2022. Each of these has some great content.

Podcasts

My most memorable guest appearance on a podcast this year was Sonia Nolan’s ‘My Warm Table’. Sonia has a wonderful, warm way of diving into a conversation. She asks unusual questions exploring people’s backgrounds , influences and food. The result is a different conversation than what is typical. I had a heap of fun on the podcast and it’s become a regular on my listening list. My conversation with Sonia is here.

Episodes that stood out:

Becoming Famous Sharron with comedian Bonnie Davies. Bonnie is a good friend. We mentor each other in many ways. This conversation gave some delightful insights into Bonnie’s thinking and evolution as an entrepreneur and character.

Ripples of Kindness and Compassion with Catherine Kolomyjec. Catherine gives some deep and applicable insight into compassion and kindness. She also discusses evidence and research about how good it is for our wellbeing.

The High Performance Podcast with Jake and Damian. Based in the UK, these two interview some of the most highly successful people on the planet, and mine their experience for insights you can apply. There’s best selling authors, international sport stars, performers, successful business people, researchers and more. It's refreshing in that it is not US centric.

Stand out episode was Owen O’Kane talking about self-care. Powerful tools in there!

The Hubermann Lab. Deep dives into research related to health, wellbeing, fitness and performance. I won’t recommend any particular episodes - they are up to 2 hr rich explorations. If you find the topics that interest you, you won’t be disappointed. Lot’s of cutting edge actionable insights from actual research.

Books

Brené Brown “Atlas of the Heart”. Many of us have a pretty limited vocabulary to describe and understand emotional states. In my book “Thrive and Adapt” I give several reasons why this is a useful skill to have and to build. Brené’s book is one of the most comprehensive resources I’ve seen for understanding and developing emotional literacy.

David Spiegelhalter “The Art of Statistics - Learning from Data”. At face value this sounds like a dry and boring book. It’s certainly not a topic I'm immediately drawn to. I read an interview with David on the topic of Uncertainty. It was fascinating and insightful. The book is warm and easy to read (understanding it is another challenge!). David gives some great insights into making sense of information, including false information. Lots of applicable insight and tools for dealing with Uncertain environments where it’s unlikely that you will get the complete picture.

On the fiction front, “I am Pilgrim” by Terry Hayes is a stunning novel. One of my top five of all time. Epic in scale, fast moving, constantly evolving and edge-of-your-seat stuff. I was late to this party, so you may have already read it. If not, check it out. I’d love to hear what you think.

Is there anything that has come across your desk in 2022, that had a significant impact on you? I’d love to hear about it.

To be Avoided

Imagine waking from surgery to find that the wrong leg had been amputated. That would leave you without a leg to stand on. An Austrian surgeon that made the error last May is in a similar position. The surgeon claimed human error which wasn’t well viewed by the court awarding damages.

Medicine, emergency response and aviation, are all fields who have widely adopted checklists as a way of reducing (preferably eliminating) errors like these. 

Checklists make a massive difference where there are one or more of these factors at play:

• High consequences for a mistake, like marking the wrong leg, forgetting the fire hose, or not closing the aircraft door.

• Reliable repeatability, like having everything you need in the operating theatre, on the fire truck, or in the cockpit.

• Mundane tasks, like double checking patient details, fire truck maintenance, and pre take off checks.

• Rapid response required, like a patient going into cardiac arrest, someone trapped in a burning building, or an engine failure over the Hudson River.

• Lengthy time intervals between occurrences, like any of the above professions doing annual compliance checks.

A checklist removes mental load from some activities, increasing the Capacity for responding to others. While the Austrian Surgeon’s claim that the ‘wrong leg’ was human error is probably true, the negligence comes from overlooking one or more critical checklists specifically designed to avoid such mistakes.

Where could you benefit from a good checklist?

Some examples might be:

• Reporting

• Recruitment

• Preparing to present

• Responding to complaints

• Customer service

• Making products

• Frontloading your week

• Holidays

Decision-Making Capacity

Have you ever reached a point where you can’t even make a simple decision? End of a long day, fatigued and asked to choose between 2 simple food options. It’s a strange feeling not being able to bring your decision making ability to bear, even though it's not a difficult decision and consequences are low. It’s called decision fatigue. And while there’s still debate about whether it comes from making too many decisions and running out of capacity, or from mental exhaustion and stress is unclear. Either way, it seems we have our limits. Like the VO2 max we looked at here, we need to either increase our capacity via skills, tools and exposure, or clear capacity somehow.

Some examples of clearing capacity…

Former US President Barack Obama was said to have a whole wardrobe of identical suits in blue or black. It meant there was no need to decide what to wear each day. It was going to be a suit, and the occasion dictated or blue or black.

A speaking colleague, Shil Shanghavi, pre-decides and prepares most of his food for the week, eliminating food decisions during the week.

One of my mentors, Peter Cook, has a pre-decided work routine when he flies. Rather than trying to decide what movie to watch, he meditates until the seatbelt light goes off and then gets into some writing. He describes it as a decision he made once and then sticks too, so he doesn't have to make it every time.

Are there decisions you could unload by making them in advance or once rather than often?

Frontloading for Capacity

I’ve had a small store and ready room added to my office. My business had outgrown my office space. Even when I was relatively ordered and organised, it was cluttered. The store means I have spaces designed for frontloading.

Front loading = Removing future controllable stress.

An example is a shelf dedicated to the equipment I need for live, face to face experiences. There are 3 shelves. One holds equipment that I often use but not every time. One is essential equipment. One holds consumables I use in my presentations.

I recently flew to Sydney at short notice for a conference keynote. The shelf eliminated packing stress. I could quickly and easily see everything I needed, and load it into the carry on bag that is now stored under the shelf. Along with a refined checklist (more on this later), packing was quick and stress free.

When I’m done, I replace items on the shelf and restock what I used. This takes discipline. I’m not always great at that part, but it’s an easy investment now, for a future benefit. The better I frontload, the more Capacity I have to deal with high cadence periods of work.

What/how could you front load to increase your capacity?

Taking Responsibility

What’s the biggest mistake you’ve ever seen at work? What about the biggest version of someone acting against the interests of the business or their team?

I once joined a team replacing someone who had been instantly dismissed. For almost a year, he had used company money and vehicles to run his own business. It was made worse because the company was a not-for-profit, and much of the misappropriated money was government funding and charitable donations.

The place was in disarray. Trust was low in the team and we were rightly subject to rigorous scrutiny from government and charitable trusts. This is an extreme situation, but we face micro versions of it, sometimes daily. Something happens, it’s not your fault, often it’s not fair either. We have two choices in moments like these. We can find fault, or assume responsibility. Finding fault usually ends up in endless finger pointing, and defensive action. It rarely sorts out the problem. Assuming responsibility creates forward momentum and solutions. Even when it’s not your fault, and it’s not your actual responsibility, I reckon it's a high value mindset to hold. We are more likely to find a way to deliver good value to our customers, team and organisation.

It wasn’t my fault that the previous person had acted fraudulently. It wasn’t my fault that we were under scrutiny. It wasn’t fair that I (and others) had to clean up the mess he left. While that was all true, the only way forward is to take responsibility.

In a situation like the one I’ve described, ‘fault’ has to be addressed. I’m not suggesting we cover for poor performance or fraud, just that we get on with high value work, bringing our best contribution even when it’s not fair and it’s not our fault.

Capacity for Empathy

People close to me have gone through some challenging stuff in the last while. Some of it has been personal, some professional. In every case it’s been caused or exacerbated by a lack of empathy.

We have no idea what is happening in the whole of someone’s life. We usually just see the parts we are directly involved in or that they choose to share. Firing harsh shots at people has impacts, often far beyond what you see, and certainly beyond what you intend. Growing our capacity for empathy is part of the success recipe.

Many people at the moment are tired and maxed out in all kinds of ways. If you are also at or past your maximum it can be challenging to find empathy. Here are some mindsets I find helpful:

• Assume people are acting with good intent, and to the best of their ability. What they are doing may not be ideal, but chances are they are doing the best they can with what they have.

• Be Kind. Don’t fire harsh/cruel/provocative shots. There’s a saying that is attributed to many people, who knows where it actually came from - It suggests “Before you speak ask yourself if what you are going to say is true, is kind, is necessary, is helpful.” It’s great advice. Ideally tick all 4, but I reckon at least 3 of 4 is the threshold. Be especially mindful of this if you are feeling hurt or unjustly treated. Start with yourself - sometimes we can be our own harshest critic - My inner voice can say unkind things to me I would never say to someone else.

• Focus on issues, not people. Help the people around you to do the same. A sub standard piece of work needs to be sorted, but don’t use it to attack the individual. Even if there are serious performance issues, deal with issues, don’t attack the person.

• If you do stuff this up (and all of us have moments where we are more reactive than we wanted to be) genuinely apologise and do your best to repair the damage. Extend grace to others when they are trying to fix things with you.

When we are overloaded, tired, sick, hurting, grieving or struggling in other ways, none of this is easy. But it always gets us further and faster than the alternatives.

Slow Death of an Option

Our leader from last week had decided to ‘kill off an option’. It turned out the decision was quickly and easily made when examined in the light of Capacity and her intended direction.

Implementing the decision will take longer. It’s tempting once a decision has been made, to rush toward the end state. Sometimes we can and it’s the best thing to do. Sometimes we have to move slower.

Her decision executed well will require some planning time, pitching her most preferred alternative to her current boss, plus recruitment and training time in a tight market. All up, that may take 8-12 weeks.

She’d love to rush forward, but the higher value comes now from doing it well. That will set her up for longer term success.

Do the options you need to kill need a quick death or a slow one?

Decide - Choosing Leadership Capacity

I was coaching a dynamic younger leader who has some ambitious goals for herself and business. The biggest barrier she faces is Capacity. Her week is filled to bursting point with highly focussed activity. We mapped the week, and there is very little space. She is very efficient as well, so the gains from doing things better are small and far between.

What really stood out was one massive commitment she has. It’s important, but not aligned with where she is heading. I asked what is stopping her from moving on from it. It is a potential opportunity. It’s aligned with her values and she feels she could make a difference by following it. I was reminded of advice from one of my mentors Matt Church. Matt, unpacked the meaning of the word decide for me - it literally means “To kill off options”. For me, that insight was liberating.

Every day as leaders and in life, we are faced with more options than we have capacity to deal with. Many of them are exciting, interesting and valid.

The young leader said, “I’m just spreading myself too thin”.

Can you relate to that? I know I can from time to time, although I’m getting better at it.

“Killing an option” is a useful frame. It doesn’t mean that it’s a bad option, in fact it’s only a challenge if it’s a great option. If it’s not 100% aligned with our primary direction and highest order priorities then kill it off (at least for now). Doing so liberates time, energy and headspace which all = Capacity.

Are there options you need to kill?

Increasing Capacity

I recently did a VO2 Max test. It’s a measure of aerobic fitness - The higher your score the higher your capacity for physical work. It’s a measure of my current ‘set point’ for aerobic Capability. It wasn’t great. Above average, but only just.

Any aspect of our leadership also has a ‘set point’ for capacity. It’s the limit we can currently hold.

There are 2 ways to increase Capacity

1. Make more space by removing other loads. For leaders examples might be outsourcing low value tasks, focussing on highest order priorities, removing distractions (eg turning off message notifications). In my VO2 Max example this would be like accepting my current time to walk 5km, and making the time by prioritising it over, say Netflix. Making space is about priority and choices. Removing or reducing something to make more space for something else.

2. Increase Capability. For leaders examples might be increasing skills in delegation, decision making, critical thinking, direction setting, team leadership or technical abilities related to role. For my VO2 Max, I could build up to running 5km. Now I can cover the same distance in less time. Capability is about learning, stress testing and developing either skill or resilience for a level of work. BTW that usually requires making some space for it, at least in the short term.

What could you let go of to create greater Capacity?

What could you focus on to create greater Capacity?

What areas could you develop greater Capacity in?

Now… I’m off for a run.

That's Encouraging

Encouragement is twice as likely as criticism to create improvement, said Col Fink on Linked In. I asked Col if he had any data to back it up. ‘It feels intuitively right’ said Col. I agree. And there are some numbers too.

Losada and Heaphy did research looking at this in 2004. They don't quantify what "high" vs "medium" performance actually looks like. There has been significant criticism of their methodology since. I reckon as leaders, there are several actionable observations, regardless of validity of the numbers.

1. There is a disproportionate effect of positive reflection vs criticism - this spans territory like saying thanks and well done, gratitude practices, feedback and more.

2. 'Room for improvement' observations have greater traction in an environment biased toward the positive. Maybe that's because it feels like the person making the observations actually cares about us and notices the good stuff too.

3. We are biased to notice problems. I reckon that's the engine room of human success. We notice stuff and forget after improving it. This bias also reduces the likelihood that we'll repeat mistakes. That's the upside. The downside is we feel as if we are not getting anywhere especially in situations when the work is not physically visible or tangible. Positive reflection creates a sense of progress - It's a modern leadership imperative!

4. Whether praising or criticising (self or others) the good stuff happens when we are as clear and specific as possible. "Good Job" is less useful than "The simple layout of that project plan really helped me get my head around it. Thanks for the effort you put into that."

It's counterintuitive to pause and reflect positively on what’s been achieved. You'll be more likely to focus on the intense transactional cadence of getting the next thing done - but it has massive ROI. I reckon Col Fink's intuitive 2:1 is somewhere near the mark and it may even be higher.

How can you encourage someone right now?

Great Questions

I’ve been a fan of great questions my whole life. They have a way, when asked well, of opening and deepening really interesting conversations. Over the years I have kept notebooks filled with great questions I have heard. I was recently interviewed on Sonia Nolan’s “My Warm Table” podcast. Sonia combines questions about food, family and expertise that result in a dramatically different type of conversation. I’ve loved listening to Sonia and some of her other guests, and hope you enjoy the conversation we recently shared.

By the way, I’m keen to keep adding to worthwhile podcasts out there. People like Sonia put a lot of work into great content. If you know anyone looking for guests, let me know.

Delegation for Capacity

Imagine a high performance foiling Yacht sailing the Americas Cup. They have 11 crew, all with highly specific roles on board. When they are working well, the boats are poised on a knife edge of F1 like performance. It’s a great example of effective delegation for capacity.

The skipper may well have the skill to fill all the roles on board, but if they tried to sail the boat single handed it would never reach anywhere near its full potential. To make the most of the boat and the team, the skipper has to delegate.

Workplaces are like that too. Without effective delegation Capacity is severely compromised at every level:

Overall Performance - Capacity is reduced because of do-overs, lack of clarity, inappropriate workloads, ineffective use of the total capability of the team.

Leaders Performance - Capacity is reduced as leaders are likely overloaded with micromanagement, having to solve all the problems/provide all the answers, frustration that the team is not working as it should (BTW this is often a leadership problem, rather than a team member problem)

Team Member Performance - Capacity is reduced due to overlapping roles, lack of clarity, waiting for ‘permission’ and missed opportunities to develop greater capability.

As a leader, one of the highest return on investment skills you can develop is Delegation. How do you shape up?

Capacity Building

Bonita Nuttall makes a really important distinction between Capability and Capacity.

They are clearly related. If we have a higher level of Capability, we are more likely to be efficient and effective, which positively impacts Capacity. But if we are already filled to Capacity, there’s no room to exercise capability.

Finding Unusual Links

What have financial forecasting, survival and leadership capacity got to do with each other? This Friday I’m joining Michael Ford, CEO of Castaway Forecasting on Nick Samios’ Lunch Money podcast.

We’ll be exploring what leaders can do in messy, unpredictable and uncertain times. Among other mindsets, we’ll be talking about the value of forecasting possible outcomes to the situation you are in. This isn’t about predicting the future. It’s about maintaining mental flexibility to deal with a range of possibilities. Let’s take a doomsday prepper and an athlete who is sure they will win. Both are forecasting.

The pessimistic prepper invests time and resources to be ready for a bleak future. If their scenario comes true, it’s the best ‘I told you so’ story in history (assuming there’s anyone left to tell). Any other scenario will likely see them completely unprepared.

The athlete’s envisaged win is way more positive than the prepper, but if reality strays from their perfect outcome, they may be just as stuck.

Leadership includes the capacity to imagine many different outcomes, play them through and anticipate what you might do differently. The key is not to buy into them. Winning forecasts add pressure if you are losing. Doomsday forecasts add pressure if something unanticipated comes along. Consider many possibilities. Hold them lightly and accept whatever reality throws at you.

If you’d like to listen to the Lunch Money podcast episode here’s the link.

Influence

Influence was the only tool I had. To get anywhere, the hearts and minds of the people around me had to be engaged. My last role before I started my business was a stroke of leadership genius. The Executive team recognised my willingness to “play” in spaces of deep change that others found uncomfortable. They created a position unlike any I have seen before or since. My role was to advise/recommend changes and then create the momentum to make it happen. I had no staff. I had no budget.

Nothing in my space got off the ground unless there was broad alignment. People had to be willing to invest time, energy and resources for anything to advance. I was often called on when a change project was not going well, so the starting point was often scepticism about the project.

The Big 5 I focussed on were: 

• Genuine Care – I was deeply interested in what the impacts and benefits of the change were for the individuals and groups involved. 

• Deep Listening - Getting a full understanding of what the change involved for everyone, including the potential risks and downsides for them was a critical ingredient. When I was listening to understand, I didn’t try to influence their position. 

• Benefit - We collaborated on making the greatest benefit for as many people as possible. If there was less in it for some, we focussed on how the change would deliver value at an organisational level.

• Transparency - When there were inevitable compromises to be made, I made sure everyone knew what they were and why. I doubled down on this if the compromise had a disproportionate impact on someone.

• Deliver or Discuss - If I said something was going to happen, I worked hard to deliver. If it wasn’t possible, I always renegotiated expectations before they were due.

Often change processes are framed in adversarial terms. “On the bus or not”. People view expressed fear, additional load, or highlighted problems as resistance. More often than not, this is evidence of people caring about the result. If you can develop a shared picture of the end point, it's much more likely that people will pull together toward it. And it will build strength and connection across the team for the future.

Create Certainty in an Uncertain World

So uncertainty is still a thing. The frequency the phrase “these uncertain times” is used has been on a steep upward trajectory since the mid 60’s. Things keep happening where the final outcomes are unknown. Some have global impact like COVID or Russia invading Ukraine. Others are deeply personal like a loss or dire diagnosis. As leaders, one of our mission critical roles is to create a sense of certainty in an uncertain world. But how the hell do you do that, especially if you are currently facing unknown (and perhaps unknowable) factors and end points?

The key is to focus on what we can control. Build clarity about:

• Overall purpose, mission, or direction. Where are you headed and why?

• How you will act with each other internally, especially in the face of pressure. How will you respond to conflict, constructive suggestions, identified problems or barriers, achievements, setbacks? The more certain you can make how you “Be” together, the more effective what you “Do” about uncertainty becomes.

• Remain open and curious. An explorer's mindset is better than having all the answers.

All this takes time and focus. Sometimes it feels unproductive. When you nail it, you can travel faster because you can boldly rely on each other, regardless of the current circumstances.

It's their job!

RANT ALERT!!!

I can't believe I'm still hearing some leaders say, “They are just doing what’s required of them in their job. Why should I thank them?” Really? How’s that working out for you?

Some leaders seem to believe that employees should be grateful that they have a job, and just get on with it. And while you’ll never hear me say a bad word about gratitude, (It’s a powerful way to shift mindset and even body chemistry for the better) this just doesn’t cut it.

Employees are the absolute engine room for success in business at any scale beyond sole practitioner. When they have clarity about what they are doing and why, and feel it’s genuinely appreciated, it makes a world of difference.

If you even remotely think “Why should I thank them?”, run an experiment. For a month, just try it. Go out of your way to catch people doing good work, showing good intent, contributing ideas, effort or leverage to your enterprise. Notice them doing it and thank them for it. See what a difference it makes. If you can’t find anything, thank them for showing up. See the differences in happiness,

CAUTION: Don’t even bother trying this if your thanks are not genuine. People can spot that BS from over the horizon.

For the rest of you leaders who genuinely get this and already make a habit of it - Thank you! Keep up the great work. How you make your employees feel contributes to my community!

OK. RANT over. Soap box returned to storage.

Clarity has a reciprocal relationship with Psychological Safety. Build one, you build the other. Damage one, damage the other. I facilitated a discussion between a team of six, where sadly they were directly experiencing the personal and business impacts of avoiding clarifying discussions. The team worked in a small open plan office. They relied on each other for information, and to ensure timely outcomes.

A minor issue had escalated to an investigation into bullying. Resulting tension was causing significant performance issues, both individually and across the whole business. Balls were being dropped, and financial penalties were being applied due to non- delivery. The business was not dealing well with the issue.

Two minor issues had escalated until they threatened work effectiveness, performance, health, and the company itself. The first was a personality clash exaggerated by the open plan office, sloppy personal conduct and mis-management. Two people spent large amounts of work time talking about their personal lives. Social conversations we all have over coffee, a meal or after work. Another colleague was attempting to join the conversation. The others excluded her. So far this is minor.

Over time she felt increasingly excluded and marginalised. She tried harder to join. The other two increasingly shunned her and eventually escalated their behaviour to the point that a bullying complaint was made which found their behaviour inappropriate. Repairing the fractured relationships to the point that they could work effectively together again would require significant commitment and effort from all parties.

The person who made the complaint was also underperforming. Her manager had not dealt with it and her performance had deteriorated over two years to the point of considering termination.

The manager could no longer deal with the performance issues, without them being seen as an extension of the bullying.

Simple solutions could have been found early. Like many in the face of conflict, the manager and others avoided the issue until it became largely unsalvageable.

The manager (and others) could have:

• Addressed the issue of excessive social chat in the open plan office, especially when the conversations were not intended to be shared with everyone. Simply leaving these conversations for a morning coffee break or lunch would have made the issue disappear before it got traction.

• Addressed the performance issues as soon as they were noticed – initially by asking if the person needed support or clarification of their role, and ultimately through formal performance management if needed.

• Had a whole team conversation about expectations and behaviour in the open plan environment which would have enabled the team to set and monitor their own benchmarks for healthy ways of working together and getting the job done, as in the next case study.

They would have built Psychological Safety and Clarity!

Clarity

Brené Brown is well known for her assertion that “Clear is Kind”.

In Psychological Safety research people give many reasons for avoiding clarity. The top ones are:

• It will result in some form of retaliation

• It will damage the working relationship

I see myself and others do this all the time. I have something to tell you but I’m not sure hope you’ll react - so I beat around the bush using vague statements, or avoid the topic entirely.

Psychological Safety and clarity are reciprocal. Build one you build the other. Damage one you damage the other. Usually our own intention and meaning is 100% clear (and obvious) to us. For clarity to be shared, we have to get past filters, assumptions and experience.

Make it a personal and team standard to be more clear as a result of any interaction with others. Some places this applies:

• Vision, mission or purpose

• Expectations about behaviour or standards

• What success looks like

• How problems get solved

• Who is responsible for an action, and by when

• Targets and time frames

• Boundaries of delegated authority

• What you are asking for

• Your ‘Yes’ or ‘No’

What is one thing you could do immediately to be more clear? What about this week? Are there any longer term projects that could benefit from greater clarity? How could you contribute to clarity? Is there anyone you need to seek greater clarity from?