Living on an island in Alaska can be challenging, especially in the winter when the ice is not fully formed.  I wait for at least eleven inches of ice before driving a vehicle across the frozen lake, but I’ll walk over with as little as three or four inches of thickness.  Last year, my wife and I were walking the one-mile distance over the ice to the house, and we were alarmed (frightened more like it) by the sound of “popping” all around us, including the sound that seemed to be coming from hundreds of yards ahead of us.  Once safely in the house, my curiosity led to some Google searches; I was intrigued by what I learned.  When ice forms, it creates a perfect equilibrium of tension, meaning the tension is what keeps the ice in a steady state.  Any external influence (e.g., my wife and I walking on it) will disturb the equilibrium and cause a break in the tension.  Depending on the thickness, we might see a fracture in the ice.  These fractures could go through the entire depth of the ice and appear great distances from where the external influence occurred.  So, my 208 pounds could fracture the ice not only around me but on the other side of the lake!  When a fracture refreezes, it’s actually stronger than the original ice.  This means the more that ice is fractured in a consistently low-temperature environment, the stronger and more viable it becomes to withstand even greater external influences.

I’ve saved this rather amazing insight in the background of my mind knowing that it could have an implication for another context.  Fast forward to today when I just finished reading Annie Duke’s book, Thinking in Bets, and “Fracturing the ice” came back into my consciousness.  (I recommend the book, especially the first three chapters.)

Annie asserts that real life is very similar to a poker hand in that it involves seeing possible choices, decision-making skill, luck, and uncertainty.   She goes on to say that creating a successful outcome in any situation requires three things:

1. Quality Decisions – the ability to consider facts, knowledge, and what we believe, as well as having a mechanism to constantly challenge each.
2. Luck – acknowledging the randomness of factors and influences in our world and being free of what she calls a “self-serving bias” whereby we blame bad outcomes on luck and good outcomes on skillful decision making. Without this acknowledgment, she argues that we will never examine our decision-making process, which will cause us to miss future opportunities.  Stated alternatively, acknowledging the randomness in life allows us to constantly refine our decision-making process.
3. Hidden Information – anticipating that there is always “unawareness” at the time of decision-making, and further complication emerges from unknown future information and factors. She states that the world does not easily reveal the objective truth in anything.  Moreover, “… the influence of hidden information on top of luck makes happiness (successful outcomes) difficult to achieve.”

Annie goes on to say that in order to master the integration of quality decisions, luck, and hidden information, a person needs to have the following:

1. An open mind towards information that disagrees with what they know and believe.
2. A trigger mechanism that causes them to take inventory of the evidence that informed their facts, knowledge, or beliefs. The act of “taking inventory” could be as simple as asking, “How do I know this?” or as challenging as assessing the credibility of the source that gave you the information.
3. Lastly, a person needs a willingness to communicate uncertainty to others in a way that invites them to collaborate in the decision-making process. For example, when a person declares something as 100% factual, it makes others reluctant to challenge them.  On the other hand, when they communicate uncertainty (e.g., “I’m not sure”) as they share beliefs, they are implicitly inviting others to help them refine their beliefs.  She says, “We are inviting the people in our lives to act like scientists with us.”

So, you might be wondering why I took you on a journey over the ice? It is because I believe that people who do allow their “ice to be fractured” occasionally have a higher occurrence of successful outcomes in their life.  Annie’s insights reinforce this conclusion.  Such people use others as collaborators in a way that fractures the equilibrium that they have created for themselves in their state of knowledge, facts, and beliefs.  And the more often they do this the better will be the outcome from their decision making.

For those readers who have attended an Applied Leadership training program, the metaphor of “fracturing the ice” as well as Annie’s arguments will sound familiar.  We learned that great leaders do not fall prey to their own mental models – they intentionally nurture challenge for themselves and others by creating “violations” that break mindsets and awaken an awareness of constantly changing realities.  This awakening creates openness to possibilities that otherwise would not be observed.

To create these violations, which I’m now going to call “fractures,” we use a technique borrowed from conversations guru Susan Scott called “Interrogating Reality.”  It’s a style of interaction with people that involves the following:

1. Make a Proposal. Leaders do not declare their version of truth.  Instead, they fashion their interventions with people as proposals that could be right or wrong.  A simple sentence structure is a follows:  This is the issue and this is what I’m thinking about it.  By adding uncertainty to a statement we invite others to challenges us.  By merely saying, “This is what I believe, but I’m not sure” encourages others to share their version of truth with us.  The more fractures that occur in our state of knowledge and beliefs system, the more often they “refreeze,” and the stronger our decision-making quality becomes.
2. Check for Understanding. Leaders intentionally invite people to share their views about a proposal and they make sure that everyone involved gets a chance to speak.  It’s critical for the leader to resist the tendency to defend his or her ideas.  That would shut down the very openness to possibilities that a proposal encourages.
3. Check for Agreement. Once the understanding of a proposal has been established, a leader then brings closure to the interrogation by summarizing the various options and sharing his or her view of what has been learned.  If the right people are involved, the decision typically falls out from the conversation.  If a decision does not occur, then the leader will make it, but still invite others into the process by stating something like, “I believe this is the right way to go, but I suspect some of you might see it differently, so please speak up.”

This simple conversational style is a basic building block of great leadership.  When reality is interrogated in this fashion, shared values and purpose emerge in an organization.  The commitment will be high in an organization because the perspectives of people were sought and they understand how a decision was made. This learning does not mean that all decisions should start with a proposal.  Certainly, most strategic decisions should be participative, but leaders need to appraise each situation carefully prior to deciding how much and what type of participation is best.

In closing, a leader spends his or her life on the ice, often thin ice, and it’s scary.  Not only do they have the courage to invite the challenge of their reality, but the weight of their presence creates fractures in an organization that refreeze and make it stronger and more viable.  Success and happiness are about quality decisions, acknowledging the presence of hidden information, and anticipating the randomness of influences in the world.  Life’s journey is not about achieving equilibrium – that’s an illusion.  The job of a leader is to manage tension by inviting and encouraging “fractures.”