Carla Miller [00:00:02]:
Many leaders struggle not only with making tough decisions, but dealing with the aftermath of tough decisions. In this episode, Sarah Miller, CEO at leading global ethics consultancy, Principia, shares how ethics can provide a set of resources and tools to use within decision making, guiding how we lead as individuals from our own place of values, but probably more critically, how we engage with others who bring their own sets of values. So we talk about when you're making decisions, how to weigh different perspectives, and how to do what she and philosophy refer to as effectively deliberate. She talks about the transparency and fairness tests that you can apply to decisions. We talk about creating safe spaces for difficult discussions after hard decisions, and this concept of the moral remainder. So the unresolved or the unwanted outcome of a decision, and how making sure that you build that into the decision making process and how you're gonna communicate with it afterwards will help you to navigate those hard decisions and their aftermath. And she also talks about, a role that you can bring in to help make your leadership team's decisions better. Now I'll be honest.

Carla Miller [00:01:28]:
When I first got an email through suggesting Sarah as a speaker and saw the word ethics, I was like, that sounds really quite dry and dull. And, actually, this conversation is the opposite of that. I found it absolutely fascinating. Sarah is very smart, very cool, and interesting, and I learned a lot from this discussion that I wish I had known much earlier on in my leadership journey. So don't let the idea of ethics turn you off because it's really about how we practically apply that to get better as leaders. My name is Carla Miller, leadership coach, author, and trainer, and this is the influence and impact podcast for women leaders, helping you confidently navigate the ups and downs of leadership and feel less alone on your journey as a leader. Now I have some news about the podcast, which is this is going to be the final episode for a while. So I am taking a three month pause from the podcast from the March onwards.

Carla Miller [00:02:32]:
So there will be no podcast episodes in March, April, and May, and the plan is to be back in June. Now we are on episode oh, I think this is episode a 81. Pretty much every week or fortnight for the past five years, I have produced an episode, and it has been a massive amount of work. I'm really proud. We've got this huge body, this huge back catalog of a 80 episodes covering pretty much any topic you can think of when it comes to women in leadership and, in fact, leadership in general. And so I need a little bit of a break from the constant producing it and marketing it and the newsletters, etcetera, And also to reflect on where does the podcast go next. Are there new things to say? Do I need to look at things through a different lens? So we might mix up a bit when it comes back, though. You may well see some changes.

Carla Miller [00:03:33]:
But I suspect you haven't listened to all of the previous episodes. Although I did have a call with someone recently who had actually listened to all the previous episodes. So if you're missing me on Monday mornings every fortnight, go back and have a look for an episode that looks interesting. Now do make sure that you've signed up to my newsletter so that you're notified when the podcast starts again. You can head over to carlamiller.co.uk/newsletter, or the link is in the show notes. And a reminder before we sign off for the from the podcast, I'm still running influence and impact in May. It will be the only cohort we're running of that this year. That's for women leaders who want to tackle self doubt, increase their impact, and become brilliant at influencing.

Carla Miller [00:04:20]:
And it's six brilliant workshops to help you do that and peer two peer coaching sessions, where you will be getting to know and supporting, each other within the group. Okay. So a little bit more about my guest, Sarah Miller, before I roll the episode for you. Sarah Miller is the chief executive at Principia, the leading global ethics consultancy. She is a senior client partner and advisor with leading global companies on values based leadership, culture, and decision making, primarily working across technology, financial services, energy, construction, professional services, and nonprofit sectors. Now Sarah has a really interesting background. She's got twenty years experience in global leadership roles in complex international settings, including significant strategy, governance, multicultural team management, and operational oversight responsibilities. She's an organizational development expert, and much of her career has involved designing and facilitating change processes, focusing on the intersection of culture and conduct with systems and structures.

Carla Miller [00:05:27]:
Her areas of expertise include good governance, ethical decision making, diversity and inclusion, and speak up. And she has led socially and environmentally responsible initiatives in more than 30 countries. Now we're gonna hear all about Sarah's background, so I won't go into that now, but she made a really interesting shift into this sector and brings a real depth of background to the work she does with global companies now and to the insights that she shares in this interview today. So I hope you find it super interesting. I hope it really gives you some principles and ideas to think about when you're making those tough decisions and dealing with the aftermath of them. Enjoy the episode, and I really hope to be back in your ears again in June. Take care. So welcome to the show, Sarah.

Carla Miller [00:06:25]:
Great to have you here all the way from Edinburgh today.

Sarah Miller [00:06:28]:
It's great. Thanks, Carla. Thanks for having me. I'm delighted to be here.

Carla Miller [00:06:33]:
Well, it's a topic I know lots of people struggle with in leadership. It's something I really struggled with when I was in a chief chief exec role is being in a position where I was having to make decisions, and I didn't actually know what the right thing to do was, or I was having to make really hard decisions. So I think lots of us struggle with this, and there's some great lessons that you can share with us from your experience. But let's hear a bit about your background first, and how did you come to be an expert on this area of ethics and decision making?

Sarah Miller [00:07:03]:
Sure. No. That's great. Well, thanks. So my background, I think I I was brought to the field of ethics about five or six years ago after really working in a lot of conflict affected contacts. So I worked in in countries around the world that were in humanitarian crisis or were in, kind of long term conflict situations. Worked in Israel Palestine for a number of years, worked in parts of South America that was really affected by by conflict as well as Southeast Asia. And I think for me, in leadership roles in those spaces, working on kind of rights and sustainability programs, A lot of what me and my team were facing were just incredibly hard decisions that, didn't have an easy meets kind of right to answer.

Sarah Miller [00:07:50]:
There were, different perspectives always at play. There were impacts and trade offs on people, on on the kind of decisions that you were making, and and some of them real, you know, life and death types of decisions and trade offs. You know, how to respond to a certain emergency, you know, in in in one community versus another, where to divert resources, that are kind of best preventative, versus responding to the immediate aftermaths of of of situations. So they're really complex decisions. And I think for me, thinking through, you know, how you make those decisions from a place of values, how you bring in all the different perspectives and and and trade offs that you need to be weighing, in any given decision. And then how you take that decision forward in, you know, the best possible way recognizing, you know, that it's never going to be fully satisfactory. And so those were all questions I was wrestling with, And that really brought me to ethics as a as a field, as a set of resources and tools to bring to bear on on decision making, on how we lead, how we lead, you know, as individuals from our own place of values, but probably more critically, how we engage with others who bring their sets of values. And when we have people leadership responsibilities, that that's that can be challenging.

Sarah Miller [00:09:14]:
You're holding a lot of different perspectives, usually in a team, much less, you know, customers or clients or, you know, take take it on out, right, to different stakeholder groups. So, for me, that's that's what brought me to it kind of directly. And I think, you know, really happy to to share some of the resources that we use, in our work with leaders. So I work at Principia Advisory, which is a, global ethics consulting firm. And so we really bring ethics to bear on the work of leaders in taking forward their decisions and in the cultures that they're shaping in their organizations.

Carla Miller [00:09:51]:
And there's an interesting shift to make as well, isn't it, from the INGO sector into consultancy, primarily probably in the corporate world. How did you find making that transition?

Sarah Miller [00:10:03]:
I mean, it was intentional. So I I kind of, you know, very was was very clear about wanting to make

Carla Miller [00:10:07]:
that

Sarah Miller [00:10:07]:
decision primarily because I had worked with so many corporates in the work I was doing around the world. So a lot of companies that I was working with from, you know, I don't know, Coca Cola to Unilever to, Barclays. I mean, you know, these big global companies with huge influence and impact. I really wanted to engage with them on their own kind of values, commitments, and ethical commitments that they were bringing to bear on on the societies they were engaging with. And I think as the conversation was shifting about responsible business, about sustainability, you know, it really, was an opportunity that I saw to to kind of help bring my perspective, my experience, and engage with that space. So, yes, I've I've loved it. I've loved the shift. And really, you know, in in many ways, ethics and values language is very, you know, it's very sector agnostic.

Sarah Miller [00:11:00]:
Right? So every organization has a different kind of way of shaping that and engaging with it. Whether you're an NGO or a, you know, big global globally, you know, publicly listed company, you're gonna have your own some sort of internal language that tries to set the parameters for how your people understand kind of who you are and how you're expected to behave. So in many ways, it's it's the same, you know, it's it's a variation on the same conversation everywhere. And I love understanding the kind of nuances and differences in different cultures in the way that's approached. So I think for me, you know, bringing the learning from one sector to another, one industry from another, one organization to another is is, yeah, why I love why I love what I do.

Carla Miller [00:11:48]:
Fantastic. And personally, as someone who comes from the not profit world, it's really fantastic to see that there's someone with your experience and perspective working alongside companies to help them on this issue. Now we are gonna dive into ethical leadership a little bit later, but our starting point for this discussion is making hard decisions. And one of the things, we have briefly chatted about at the start of our conversation was philosophy and what leaders can take from philosophers to help them make these impossible decisions. So I'm curious about this. I didn't get any clues as to what this insight was. So could you speak to that a bit for us?

Sarah Miller [00:12:30]:
Sure. So I think, you know, ethics is a a a discipline that often that emerges from, a lot of moral philosophy. And we we bring together at Principia, you know, people who have studied and who are experts on moral philosophy. It was founded by a moral philosopher, our company. And we bring that together with people who approach ethics from other disciplines like, you know, behavioral science, for example. And so I think that that kind of approach from different disciplines to ethics is really critical because it gives that holistic look at both the kind of resources from moral philosophy, but then how to actually practically apply it and take it forward into kind of culture and behaviors and decisions. But some of the resources that we most often draw on are, you know, probably things that you would be fairly familiar with. And some of them are just kind of moral tests that we all can naturally apply when we are thinking through a decision or we're considering or weighing something.

Sarah Miller [00:13:34]:
So think about the kind of test of, you know, would you want this decision or would you want this action to be on the front page of the newspaper tomorrow morning? You know, that's a pretty tried and true test, right, for for okay. Maybe maybe I need to maybe slightly caveat this differently or think this through differently or at least be able to explain it in a way that could withstand, you know, public scrutiny. So there's that's kind of a transparency test. There's often, you know, fairness tests. If I was in the shoes of somebody else who was experiencing the effects of this decision, would it be fair for me in that in those shoes? Right. The kind of put yourself in different people's shoes test, something I tell my children to do. You know, we'll think about it from their perspective. Put yourself in their shoes.

Sarah Miller [00:14:26]:
The legacy test. So, you know, is this a decision that future generations of x company, x organization, x family, you know, whatever it is, would be proud of? So I think a lot of these resources come, and and they're they're things that we we often draw on and use without thinking through, oh, those are resources from philosophy. But they are from this kind of, you know, centuries old tradition of trying to think critically through what is right and good and true and fitting for this particular decision in this situation. And how do I, and this is kind of a term from philosophy, effectively deliberate that deliberation process of weighing these different factors to then arrive at a path that I can kind of stand behind that's that's in line with whatever it is that I've committed to, to to take it forward? And how do I make sure I mitigate the unintended consequences or the the moral remainder, the kind of leftover effects of my decision? So a lot of those tools and resources are what we draw on from moral philosophy, but then take forward and kind of application into like, how would you build that into, you know, the way that we make decisions as a team or how we how we make the investment decisions, for example. How do we bring those tools and resources together to bear on that decision?

Carla Miller [00:16:01]:
Interesting. And this idea of effective deliberation, is that the phrase?

Sarah Miller [00:16:06]:
Mhmm. Deliberation. Yep. Yep.

Carla Miller [00:16:08]:
Is that better done is it easier to do that collectively, like, with a group of people than to do it individually, or is it actually more challenging to do it collectively?

Sarah Miller [00:16:18]:
So I think a lot of it probably depends on the scale of the decision. Right? So, you know, we all make decisions. We do things every single day with just kind of a quick you know, without having to kind of step back and really reflect on it and really weigh all the different perspectives. So I think there's there's kind of the, you know, small decisions and then the big the big ones. Right? The big strategic ones or the ones that we know will have a significant ripple effect on some particular group or some particular stakeholder, or we're we'll we'll make a significant change to something that we've done in the past. So, you know, when we make these these smaller decisions, of course not. It's just your own you know, let me think through. Is there anybody who, I should kind of sense check this with? I mean, we do this all the time in our personal lives.

Sarah Miller [00:17:07]:
Right? Like, I'm just gonna call a friend up and say, like, does this sound okay to you? Does this sound reasonable? And it's that sense checking that we do all the time that's really part of the deliberative process. In an organization, when it comes to kind of significant decisions, a group process is absolutely preferable because that's the only way that we can check against the blind spots that we all have and effectively weigh different perspectives in in you know, there's so much that organizations have done to try to create diverse teams, different, you know, generational perspectives or, you know, perspectives from different countries and geographies around the world, whatever it is. And bringing those together will just make the deliberation richer and more effective because you're bringing more more factors to bear, more considerations to really, you know, have to weigh and navigate through. And if we find ourselves having heard these different perspectives and

Carla Miller [00:18:09]:
there's all these interesting angles, and where they're going, I still do not know the right thing

Sarah Miller [00:18:14]:
Right.

Carla Miller [00:18:15]:
To do. Any advice on on how we might approach that?

Sarah Miller [00:18:20]:
I think what's really hard right now about decision team is that they are becoming more complex for organizations and therefore, I mean, for the people who are making them. So for for people in leadership roles who are having to make decisions, they're becoming more complex because, one, people are paying more attention to them. So just the level of scrutiny, the kind of instantaneous, like, anybody could know what's been talked about in a room at any point in time, just the visibility of it. And I think that puts a lot of pressure on leaders to be able to kind of explain things better, to really justify them. And the second is just the complexity. So you are making decisions in a world with lots of stakeholder groups with lots of very different perspectives. And so that brings complexity. So knowing the right thing to do is hard because there isn't really often one right thing to do.

Sarah Miller [00:19:17]:
It's who's right thing, you know? So so my right thing may be very different from, you know, the perspective of one of our clients. And so I think that's where it is challenging. And I don't work with any leadership teams who say that a decision that's they've really needed to take seriously and weigh a kind of ethical bring ethical resources to bear on it. They're not in that room because the decision has an obvious answer. Right? They're they're there because it's a hard it's a hard issue. And so there isn't just going to be one thing that is right. And I think what that's where we say, you know, how do you have the kind of guides, the tools, and the guides for what's right for, you know, in line with what your company is known for, what you stand for, other ethical commitments that you've put out there so that you're not seen as kind of being duplicitous. Think of all the green greenwashing or whatnot.

Sarah Miller [00:20:15]:
Right? For what where you want to go. So what you wanna be be known for in the future for the potential impacts on your different stakeholder groups. Like, how well have you really thought through what this means for your customer, for this particular employee group, for this investor? And then how do you take that decision in a way that best holds those things together and can be explained? And then how do you handle the leftover issues? So what we often talk about leadership teams that I think is very helpful is what's the moral remainder? There will always be a remainder, something that isn't fully satisfactory to some group or, you know, to resolve some issue. So how are you then going to handle that? So if you are going to you know, I can use a number of different examples. If you were going to go forward and build the juvenile justice center facilities in public contract with the government, how are you going to then handle the fact that those disproportionately affect Aboriginal youths and those are people that you are currently trying to, you know, create fair employment schemes for. Is that going to there's a tension there. This is a real example, right? That's a that's a tension. So how does a company reconcile that tension and how are they going to explain that and what are they going to do to handle the fact, you know, the the remainder issue that they know this disproportionately affects this particular group of people, who they have made a separate commitment to at the same time? How do you resolve that? Do you just not take the contract Oh, wait.

Sarah Miller [00:21:54]:
It's part of a broader government contract that we've already, you know, taken. Do you then back out? What is the impact of that then on your relationship with the government, on your employability to employ keep the employment for x number of people? Okay. Well, then how do we handle, you know, the the kind of way we're gonna take forward our commitment to this people group and what are we gonna be doing kind of longer term to mitigate the effects of this? So I think it's it's how you handle kind of recognize those tensions. You're never gonna resolve them. That's not resolvable. But how do you recognize them and be really open about them, put your finger on them, and then say, here's what I'm going to do to at least mitigate, you know, the effects of them in this in this way. And often that can spark a lot of creativity. It kind of opens your mind to different paths that you wouldn't have otherwise thought of if you would just done the normal kind of, oh, take the contract and go.

Sarah Miller [00:22:53]:
You know, you wouldn't have thought through the kind of range of opportunities and options that that you that you have.

Carla Miller [00:23:00]:
That's really interesting. And this this concept of there not necessarily being one right choice or one right thing to do is really helpful because it takes some of that that pressure off. But recognizing and like you say, putting not just putting all the effort into making the decision and then defending the decision, which and communicating it, which I think happens a lot, but putting thought and effort into that moral remainder as well, like the the unwanted consequences of that Totally. Decision, not just sweeping those under the carpet. So I think that's really interesting. Yeah. And I

Sarah Miller [00:23:41]:
think the other thing that comes with that also is, like, you're building trust. I mean, people may not agree with your decision. I'm thinking decisions I make, you know, for for my team. Like, they may they're not gonna agree with everything. But if I'm able to explain, you're the factors we've weighed, let's be open that it was hard. Here's why we decided to do what we're doing, and here's how we're going to handle this outstanding issue. Even if people don't agree with your decision, of which, of course, not everybody will agree with every decision, they can at least there's there's trust in in the kind of thoughtfulness of leaders and the way that they are making that decision in in line with kind of commitments and values that, you know, we we hold true about our organization. Right? And I think that is so compelling for employees that, you know, as long as they they kind of can see that even if they don't agree with the decision, there is still a kind of respect and a trust for the legitimacy of the process.

Carla Miller [00:24:44]:
And it means organizations need to get very clear on on their values and priorities, doesn't it?

Sarah Miller [00:24:50]:
Yes. So this is often the most challenging thing because if you don't I mean and you think about values Think of any company and their values. Often, they're boilerplate. Right? I mean, it's it's, you know, you hear the kind of it's the values on the wall. It's the poster. So if you and I think where we look at is, you know, there's often, though, a kind of innate sense of who the organization is and what they stand for and what they're known for. And I think that's often it's not just like your four organizational values that you have to weigh. It's kind of what are the ethical commitments you're putting out there? What are the things you're committing to around inclusion, equity, and diversity? What are the things you're committing to around ESG and sustainability and climate? What are the things you're committing to around, you know, supply chain and and kind of human rights practices? What you know? So those are all that's not like my value is kindness.

Sarah Miller [00:25:42]:
You know, those are broader ethical commitments that every company, you know, to varying extents has some form of. And if there isn't kind of an integrity with those, it it can really quickly create that kind of cognitive dissonance, for people who are either, you know, buying your product or your service or who are you're employing because you're saying, wait a minute. That doesn't seem that's not what I was told or that's not what I know of the company. How come this? And I think that's where a lot of companies really get into trouble.

Carla Miller [00:26:19]:
And it's it's not just companies as well. I think within the charity sector, there's a real tension at the moment. I mean, there are so many different tensions, but one I'm seeing a lot is the tension between there is a growing demand for our service or the change we're trying to make in the world and employee well-being and making it sustainable. And, traditionally, it has always been that the cause comes first, but I think people are more vocal. Management and leadership has changed. Society has changed. Expectations of the younger people coming into the workplace is is certainly very different than they were ten, twenty, thirty years ago. And there's there's a huge amount of tension there.

Carla Miller [00:26:59]:
And I think the sector has sustained itself on people providing a lot of goodwill in terms of their extra time because they're passionate about the cause, but people are broken now. And that that came through from your, your ethics study as well. People are are exhausted, aren't they? People are overstretched. Absolutely. Talk to us a little more about what came through from your ethics study.

Sarah Miller [00:27:17]:
Yes. No. And I thank you. And I think that is it's so true that this isn't really kind of companies not good. You know, it's just organizations in general, workplace cultures in general, I think, are really affected right now by just general societal fatigue and anger. So I think those are the two things that, like, you know, when we step back and reflected on kind of reviewed all the analyzed all the data and then reflected on all the kind of interviews and conversations we had leading up to the the the kind of publication of the ethics study. Those were the two things that really our team all, you know, was was struck by was, like, the fatigue and the anger. And then that makes everything more complicated.

Sarah Miller [00:27:59]:
You know, if if you're if you're going into a situation where you're trying to kind of adjudicate, you know, different values, commitments, and and make a make a good decision, you know, that that that weighs the kind of business need and the the kind of commitments to different stakeholder groups. If you're doing that in a context where people are just too tired to take the time to step back and reflect, overworked, mentally, kind of emotionally, psychologically fraught and kind of just things are heavy. And there's a level of kind of anger and distrust that is kind of permeating spaces that people are interacting with each other, workplace or not. That is that is, you know, gonna gonna significantly mark our ability to really listen well to each other, you know, take seriously perspectives that are different from mine, take the time to kind of try to understand them, take the time to say what will the impact of this be of somebody else and, you know, in in another, you know, somebody else in somebody else's shoes or whatever. And so I think those that really struck us. The other thing that really came through was the kind of I think it was kind of 85% of leaders who were saying that the complexity of their decisions has kind of grown significantly over the past year and their level of confidence in their ability to kind of navigate those decisions effectively from an ethical perspective was shrinking. So the kind of complexities rising, the confidence and the ability to navigate them are shrinking. And I think that is just also a recognition of how polarizing environments are at the moment.

Sarah Miller [00:29:44]:
And so, you know, you're you're really having to be tread carefully, which is is hard for leaders to hold. Right? They feel that that weightiness. And I think a lot of them talked about geopolitical issues, you know, I more so than anything else. I mean, I think when we did the epic study two years ago, everybody was talking about the challenge of winning sustainability commitments, which is still there, and that's still a real, you know, real factor for people. But but this time, it was, I mean, no surprise. Ukraine, you know, Gaza. I mean, there's so much that's top of mind for leaders, but it was really, you know, the spillover of that into both workplace culture, but also strategic business decisions. You know? And so I think that's something that, is is is, you know, coming through loud and clear with leaders across across industries, across sectors.

Sarah Miller [00:30:33]:
That's that's for sure.

Carla Miller [00:30:36]:
I have to say I don't envy leaders at this specific point in time and the stresses and responsibilities they have. And it seems to me like that ability to see things from other perspectives has got to be really key, hasn't it, in this increasingly polarized world that we live in that's fueled by social media or in the media. So what are some of the the skills or things we can work on as leaders to allow us to be able to deal with these growing challenges?

Sarah Miller [00:31:07]:
You know, there's there's a couple of really good practices that that I've seen, you know, organizations put into place. So one is very simple, and it's it's not rocket science at all, but I think it can have a significant effect. Kind of having a, a challenger role. You know, having a role where if if there's a decision that we know is weighing, you know, we're weighing different tensions, there will be trade offs, there are values at play that are are colliding or conflicting. How do we make sure that they're we're being kind of challenged, that that decision that I, you know, as a leader making that decision and being challenged and that the the kind of range of considerations that we're bringing into the room is is broad enough. And so organizations do this in a lot of different ways. Some of them actually role play. So some of these really big strategic decisions like, you know, one company had a had a, you know, big decision about whether or not to continue their work in Saudi after a lot of their, employee rights groups, were were protesting and were basically kind of, you know, sending letters and cards and whatnot to the board members and to the leadership team and and kind of objecting to the continuation of that work because they felt like it was their violation of their their rights as LGBTQ plus, affinity group.

Sarah Miller [00:32:29]:
And that's a hard, you know, decision for a leadership team to be to be faced with. You know, you're basically it's kind of a very clear direct trade off between this particular employee group and what they want and, you know, the the commitments to clients and communities we're working with on health issues in Saudi. Right? So that that tension was was very strong. And I think what they did was basically bring in, you know, people from those different perspectives to make sure that they had them and not just their own understanding of them, but the kind of embodiment of those to really challenge the different paths they could take. So they kind of laid out three or four different paths and then had the challenge space to talk about the kind of setting this up in a really structured deliberation way. And, you know, what that did is, a, that's just good inclusive decision making. Making, right? You're actually included people who are affected. B, you're really giving them the chance to voice things that you probably aren't.

Sarah Miller [00:33:28]:
You know, you kind of know their perspective, but you don't know the depth of it. You don't know the rationale necessarily behind it. You're not going to fully embody it. So you've you've got that embodiment in the room, if you will. And then what they did is they did kind of like in political processes, like a shadow decision making body. So you've got the kind of leadership team who makes these decisions usually in their case, the executive committee. They set up a a kind of mock, additional leadership group mixed up of those different challengers and different employees and had them go through the same process, look at the same information, reflect on the same papers, and then they brought the two decisions together. So you've got the challengers and you've got a kind of alternative decision making to then weigh against.

Sarah Miller [00:34:14]:
And it was interesting because they would say, well, what we ended up doing wasn't one of the four paths. It was a combination of path, you know, two and four. Right? So they ended up kind of a hybrid way, which is usually the way that these things work. Right? Some form of compromise has to be reached, and then there's a way that kind of brings a better decision forward because of all the factors that were brought to bear in the room. And I think that was a really good model, and they're gonna set this up now. I mean, not often, but kind of whenever they have these significant decisions, you know, once every three years or so, they are gonna follow the same process because they thought it was so effective. And so I think that's a really helpful tool. How do you put in place in the process kind of structured ways of really weighing these, like, big decisions?

Carla Miller [00:35:02]:
Interesting. And how would you how would you then approach that as an individual? So let's say you're an individual making a a decision on behalf of your that affects your directorate, your team of people. What would be a a a smaller version of that, do you think?

Sarah Miller [00:35:20]:
So I think, you know, there's three steps that that that we talk to to any, you know, leader at any level about. Right? One is, like, perception. Can you see the values issues at play? Can you spot it? Right? So and that, you know, we all have to have that kind of moral perception lens to some extent. But, you know, can you really see them in light of both the kind of values and identity commitments of your organization? Right? Not just your own personal ones because sometimes, you know, ideally you're working with somewhere where that overlaps, but not always perfectly or neatly. So in line with kind of your own personal moral compass, but, you know, probably more in terms of your responsibility for the company and your people leadership role with the kind of company's identity and values and emerging kind of norms, whether they're social norms or sectoral norms, regulatory norms. You know, there's a kind of an evolving external landscape that we're more or less aware of. Right? So can you spot that there might be an issue at play, you know, in this decision? So that kind of moral perception. And the second and if you can't, do you have somebody who you can sense check with? And I think that's where, you know, I know I've I've talked to leadership teams about saying, like, have one person who you know will usually have a different perspective than you.

Sarah Miller [00:36:51]:
Like somebody who you know will pretty much always arrive at a different answer. That's who you should call. You shouldn't call somebody who's in your echo chamber, you know? So can you spot the issues at play? So that moral perception. The second is can you weigh those different factors? So the perception and I'm sorry, the deliberation part, can you actually hold those different tensions together and bring those different tests that we talked about to bear on it? How would I feel if somebody else, you know, front page of newspaper? How would members of my team feel about this? How would my customer, my client, you know, receive this information? You know, I I mean, a lot of people I know do the, like, could I explain this to my kid? You know, and and legacy tests. So those kind of different tests, those little, you know, questions, test questions we can just ask ourselves. Are we weighing those things? And then three is the action step. And that's really how do I take this forward in a way where I can communicate the why and kind of justify it and handle any of those leftover, those kind of remainder issues. And so if we've got those kind of simple, just quick three steps and it's never so neatly, it's like one, I will step back.

Sarah Miller [00:38:05]:
Can I spot the issues? You know, two, I will bring these tests. Three, I will make sure I've got a clear action plan. I'm communicating it well. I'm handling the remainders. But I think that structure is helpful because it starts building behavior. Right? So I do try to be fairly structured, you know, myself and thinking those steps through even if I'm not kind of very neatly and kind of setting it out every single time I make a decision. I you know, we all have to make decisions fairly quickly. But I think having having some sort of framing or structure, you know, what are the one or two test questions I always wanna ask myself? Who's the the kind of when is there a decision that I wanna make sure I call somebody who would have a different point of view? You know, what type of decision? I think that helps us then start to make it more natural in kind of how we think and how we make decisions, because it it rewires our behavior, right, when we set up that that structure.

Sarah Miller [00:39:03]:
By the time you've done it the tenth time, it's just natural. You're not having to think it through in such a structured way. But the first few times, it's helpful.

Carla Miller [00:39:12]:
I think that's a super useful model or structure that we can use to make sure we thought of all the right things, because I wouldn't have thought of all of those if I was making a decision.

Sarah Miller [00:39:21]:
No. Sure. I mean, yeah. Of course not. Right? Yeah. We we often make decisions by our own, you know, instincts, yeah, and intuition, which we need to trust. I mean, there's there's something to that that is about our own moral compass and our own kind of values framework. But in this growing complexity, our own moral compass and values framework may not, you know, be the same well, will not be the same as others and certainly won't take into a fact the range of things that that we likely need to be taking into account.

Carla Miller [00:39:52]:
Definitely. Yeah. I'm gonna be more robust and disciplined about my decision making from now on even though it's just me and my little business.

Sarah Miller [00:39:59]:
Great. Great. Mission accomplished.

Carla Miller [00:40:02]:
And then just one final question. You you've talked about from your ethics study, there's a lot of anger out there and and in our organizations, and people are tired as well. As leaders, how do you think we can best lead a a collective of collective of people with these big emotional things going on for them.

Sarah Miller [00:40:25]:
That's interesting. I was just talking to the chief people officer of of one of our clients, who who literally said exactly that was we were talking about exactly exactly this. And she said what what she's seeing, this is a global firm. So they've got, you know, executive teams in in, I think, six you know, fifty, sixty different countries. She said, you know, the overarching trend is avoid. Like, leaders are just avoiding those conversations. They're shutting them down. They're either shutting them down or they're avoiding them entirely.

Sarah Miller [00:41:01]:
And she's like, this is not that's it's not good for our culture, and it's not sustainable. And in many ways, it will create more anger, you know, over time, and it will certainly create kind of a sense of we can't talk about these things in our organization, which we know has significant ripple effects on things we care about, like speak up or reporting misconduct or harassment or, you know, all these things that we know we need people to feel safe to speak up and to kind of speak openly about. We know it links to being able to create the space in in our teams and and in a kind of overarching culture of an organization to touch on hard issues and issues. Hard issues are issues where people have different perspectives on those issues. Right? They're not hard if everybody, you know, doesn't you know, has the exact same opinion or or belief or perspective about them. And so I think that's that is it's it's live and real in in every organization I'm working with right now. And I think that one thing that we often talk about is it, you know, creating a space for people to reflect on the facts and the impacts of these issues on key business priorities is a you know, what which takes some level of kind of thought and structure, but it creates a space to have those conversations in a way that is less personal. Right? It's less about me and my thoughts and my political beliefs and my own, you know, position on x, y, or z issue.

Sarah Miller [00:42:43]:
It is about it's the conversation that's actually appropriate and responsible for a company to be having or an organization to be having, which is, you know, how does this link to our service in this country, our customer base in this country, the product that we're designing. You know, AI is a huge ethical, you know, minefields at the moment. You know, the product we're designing that that has this, you know, particular technology embedded in it and the potential impacts of it. You know, decision we're making about this. It's those things make you know, they give a structure. They give parameters to the conversations that aren't just like, so how are we feeling about, you know, Gaza today? We need in a way that that's never gonna be healthy in a workplace. And and and, you know, so I think giving that structure to it is is useful. I think the second thing is leaders with the skill to hold the space where there are different perspectives.

Sarah Miller [00:43:42]:
And, you know, that's not it's not an easy skill. I think it's a skill that needs to be learned. It needs to be practiced. It means being uncomfortable. Right? It's not comfortable to hold a space where people are raising highly emotionally charged issues, bringing in different perspectives. It is not easy to hold that space. It's uncomfortable. And I think that building those leadership skills to kind of hold that uncomfortable space well, and in a way that really sets the expectations of, like, respectful, discourse.

Sarah Miller [00:44:17]:
And respectful disagreement is something that I think a lot of companies are recognizing. That's a muscle they're gonna have to build in their people, in their culture, and in their leaders for, you know, decade you know, at least the next decade. I think we'll we'll be seeing that as a as a real priority in area focus.

Carla Miller [00:44:34]:
And, yeah, I can see that being built into leadership programs in the future as one

Sarah Miller [00:44:39]:
of those

Carla Miller [00:44:40]:
skills that people need to have because leaders feel ill equipped. Well, they are ill equipped

Sarah Miller [00:44:46]:
to deal

Carla Miller [00:44:46]:
with it. And some of them might naturally be very wise people who are able to do that, but that's a small percentage of people that have that that presence and that cognitive flexibility to be able to do that, and and we all need to be able to to do it.

Sarah Miller [00:45:03]:
Absolutely. And I think especially, actually, and and I think it's interesting for people who are starting to take on people leadership roles. So usually, you know, often you're promoted because you've been kind of really technically good at something or, like, a great kind of, you know, contributor to something individually, then you take on people management responsibilities and increasing people management responsibilities. And, you know, the management trainings and whatnot don't really account for this effectively anymore. Right? And and I I mean, at this point and so I think when when people are kind of, you know, in the first five years of holding significant kind of team leadership responsibilities, it's a huge learning curve. And it and it will you know, you will make mistakes. I mean, we all do. But how do we have at least some of the kind of understanding of what that looks, what good looks like, you know, to actually just create that space, hold that space and, you know, handle conflict in the workplace, which will continue, you know, is going to continue.

Sarah Miller [00:46:05]:
And in many ways is is is healthy. Right? That means you've got teams of people who come with different perspectives and are gonna come with different ideas. And, you know, conflict isn't something to just be shut down and shy away from. And I think that's the instinct. So how do you recognize, actually, no, conflict is often productive. Right? It's there's how ideas are generated. It's how innovation happens. These are things we know to enable effective collaboration.

Sarah Miller [00:46:27]:
Like, we know these spaces need to be held well. And so really starting to get leaders kind of aware of that and then start practicing it. It's it's the only way that people will learn.

Carla Miller [00:46:39]:
I can see so many different applications for this and really open my eyes this conversation until I sat down for to prep for this conversation. It's not something I would have particularly thought about. I would have thought about my values and fairness and, oh, it's tough making decisions. But there there is just so much complexity and so many interesting things. But I've come away from this conversation really convinced that this is absolutely a skill that needs to be prioritized in managers and leaders from the new people managers right through to the people at the top making these decisions. So it's great to know you are out there doing that. If people want to get in touch or to access any resources that you offer, how can they do that?

Sarah Miller [00:47:21]:
Yes. So our website's got a lot of good resources, you know, case studies, podcast, things like that, and and our ethics study, which you referenced, which has a lot of of good kind of data and examples, and that's at, Principia-advisory.com. So anybody can go go there and take a look. And our contact information's on there, so feel free to to reach out and somebody on the team will be happy to have a chat. But, yeah, I think the resources on there can be can be helpful, as well to start thinking a bit a bit deeper about about these issues and and thinking through, you know, ways to take them forward.

Carla Miller [00:47:58]:
Brilliant. Well, thank you so much. I've really enjoyed this conversation. I know you will have got lots of us thinking, and that's what it's about, isn't it? Learning, growing, thinking differently. So thank you so much, Sarah.

Sarah Miller [00:48:09]:
Thank you, Carla. I appreciate it.