The Three Degree Shift: How leaders see what others miss in complex decisions (Ep. 191)

The biggest challenges you face aren’t solved by working harder. They’re solved by seeing the situation more clearly.

In this final episode of the series, Juliet Corbett reflects on the patterns that emerged across 13 conversations with school leaders around the world - and introduces a new framework: the Three Degree Shift™.

At its core, the Three Degree Shift is about seeing what others miss - shifting perspective just enough to reveal what was previously hidden. Viewing a challenge from just three degrees to the left can surface assumptions, uncover hidden dynamics and open up a clearer path forward.

In this episode, Juliet explores how leaders can apply this thinking to navigate complexity and take more decisive action under pressure.

She explores:

• Why staying strategic day to day is often a matter of protecting time and attention
• How high-stakes decisions are shaped through learning, not certainty
• What it takes to lead high-performing teams without becoming the bottleneck
• The Three Degree Shift - a practical way to see what others miss in complex decisions
• How small shifts in perspective can unlock better decisions and more courageous action

This episode is for you if you’re navigating a complex, high-stakes decision and want to elevate the quality of your thinking by seeing what others don’t.

Episode links:

Leading through complexity: Conversations to spark your best thinking (Ep. 177)

Thank you so much for listening to The Independent School Podcast. I would be grateful if you could spare a couple of minutes to send me some feedback here. This helps me make the podcast as helpful as possible to listeners. Thank you!

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:05

Welcome to the Independent School Podcast with me, Juliette Corbett. I'm a trusted advisor, executive coach, and strategist, working with accomplished leaders who are navigating complex challenges. The kind that can feel like a tangled ball of string. Confusing, frustrating, and hard to unpick. This is the final episode in the series of interviews that I've been publishing for the last 14 weeks. We've had 13 guests, so thank you very much to all of those from all over the world, school leaders who have been sharing a whole variety of different perspectives on leadership through complexity, uncertainty, and also the original solo episode that I published back in episode 177. Now, in this final episode, what I'm going to be doing is recapping some of the themes that emerged through these 13 interviews around staying strategic in the daily bustle of leadership, navigating how to make highly complex and high-pressure decisions, and also navigating how to lead a highly performing team. And then I want to share something new with you. I want to share the framework that I've been developing behind the scenes as I've been doing these interviews, which really creates a way that we can approach some of these complex decisions in a way that feels simple and yet doesn't undermine the complexity of the thinking or the kind of quality of the thinking that we want to be doing as we're making high-stakes decisions. So, first of all, I was really, really interested to see the themes that emerged. When we were talking to when I was talking to leaders about how they stay strategic amidst the bustle of daily leadership, there were some really good stories that came out. And I think the one thing that that's really important is nobody finds this easy. And it isn't that the people can't do strategy. It's not that they don't care about strategy. It's simply about protecting the time to be strategic. So it's not about elevating the quality of the thinking necessarily. It's about carving out the time to do the thinking in the first place. And of course, it's not just about thinking, it's about taking those really courageous actions that are going to make sure that you're strategically heading in the right direction rather than just dealing with the firefighting deity elements of all the things that can go wrong in a school day. What was really interesting was that different leaders in the interviews offered different advice on this. So I remember Alex Hems talking about how she benefited from taking a walk. Actually, there were quite a few people that talked about moving, being physically active or travelling from one place to another. And Philip Britton picked up on a similar element of this, which is around the importance of realizing that as a leader, some of it's about being, not just doing. So it's not just about doing lots of things. It's about being a steady presence in the school. And again, actually that kind of echoes the idea of walking, walking around the school, being in the corridors, being in the common room, the staff rooms, helping people to understand that actually the leaders really understand how the day-to-day school operates. And just a presence, a calm presence in those situations where sometimes people are having tricky days. It's a really important thing to remember. Charles Bailey talked about having a rhythm towards the end of the week, reviewing some of the meetings that he'd been having during the week. And that was helping him to see patterns. So a lot of this is about carving out the time, but then what do you do in that time? What you're looking for is patterns. And that's when you can start to be working as a fire marshal, not a firefighter. The fire marshal is the one that works out this keeps happening, there's a pattern here. What can we do to stop it from repeating? Rather than just being the one that fights the fires each time they they occur. Really interesting conversation with Judy Robinson as well. She was talking about reviewing her diary based on the why, not just the what. So looking at her week and making sure that each meeting that's in that diary has a really good strategic purpose, not just someone's a requested meeting, so we're going to put it in. It's really a reflection process that helps you not just think, actually, some of these things could be done by other people, or we'd better done in another format, not necessarily a meeting, but also making sure you can go into each meeting, and we know meetings take up a lot of time in our diary, going into each meeting, understanding the strategic purpose of that conversation. And I also remember Guy Pasco talking about, I think it was in conversation with him when I was talking about using strategy as a filter to say no. And then his organization, which is quite a small organization, being able to say no is really critical for protecting the ability of the team to focus on the things that matter. And being strategic or having a strategy that's really clear gives you that ability to say no. So there were lots of conversations that that spoke to this theme of how to stay strategic amidst the daily bustle. And what really came through is it's not a capability issue. It's not about leaders not being able to be strategic. It's actually about a boundaries issue. It's about making sure you're protecting the time in which you can focus on being strategic, focus on moving, focus on being rather than doing, making sure you've got that really clear strategic purpose. The second theme, which I talked about back back in episode 177 that I wanted to explore during these interviews, was around making high-stakes decisions, given that we are in a world which is uncertain and complex. And there were some really interesting themes that emerged from the interviews around this as well. So I think that the key thing that came out of these conversations for me was that it's not about finding the one right answer, because normally there isn't. If it's complex, there isn't normally one right answer. Instead, it's about a process of learning. How do we go through an iterative process, a process of decision making where we're learning as we go? And although some high-stakes decisions are a once and done decision, there's either an A option or a B option, we've got to make a choice, and then it's irreversible. Sometimes that's the case. The vast majority of high-stakes decisions, there are options before that final decision where you just need to make decisions that help you to learn a bit more. So the next step is normally about how do we grow our understanding of the system we're working in, of the complexity, the uncertainty, in order to increase the quality of the decision making at the end. And there were some really interesting conversations that I had in this series, so that really speak to this. And a lot of those kind of came back to this idea that strategy isn't about having a long-term rigid plan. Strategy is about evolving decision-making as you go. And of course, these high-stakes decisions emerge from the strategy. So I remember Louise Simpson talking about the importance of not having too much rigidity and learning as you go and feeling through the different schools that she's leading within the group. What do they need that's slightly different? How do we learn from each of those different environments to make sure that we're making decisions that are really fit for the context, as well as being right for the whole group of schools that she's leading? Graeme Katz was talking about the importance of getting onto the balcony, which is a phrase I love. I hear it quite frequently. The idea of getting up on the balcony to see the patterns and learning more. And it's about this sense of maybe you're not ready to make a high-stakes decision. Maybe it's not more data or analytics you need. Maybe it's getting into a kind of a more distant position, up onto the balcony to look at the bigger picture of the patterns. And then you can start to predict a little bit more what's happening within the system that you're leading. Andy Johnson also reminds us in his conversation the importance of aligning head and heart. And that was really important because it's not just about learning more about the data and the analytics. It's about understanding how we can listen to our intuition, our own intuition as leaders, and how we can interpret what's happening for others. Yeah, every person in your school wants to feel really aligned, both their head and their heart. People don't always respond rationally to things. They lead from emotion sometimes, or they respond to change from emotion sometimes. So as a leader, it's really important that you're understanding. We're not all about head. There's heart as well. There's intuition, there's emotional intelligence that's really needed in leadership. And that's what you need to learn more about, not just the analytical side of it. In the conversation with Helen Olds, who was really interesting, talking about her background as a geographer, and really understanding that means that she pulls together threads from lots of different academic disciplines, lots of different themes and ways of seeing a context. And she was reflecting on the importance of bringing together all of these different parts of the system, but with the purpose of understanding why something worked in one context in order to understand better whether that might work in future or in a different context. So again, it's about learning, growing our understanding of the systems that we're leading in order to make high-stakes decisions, not just how do I make a big decision when it feels risky. There's a lot of thinking and analytics that can go in to feeling the system before that final decision. So the real skill isn't how do I force certainty in this decision, even though it is inherently uncertain and complex. The real skill is about how do I discern what's most important in this decision and how do I learn as I go? How do I get into motion, into action, courageous action, and then learn as we go. So those are really important themes that came out around making high-stakes decisions amid uncertainty and complexity from the interviews. And then the third theme that I set out to explore was creating and empowering high-performing teams. One of the things I know from my work with senior leaders is it's really important to be able to release some control in order to delegate effectively and then ensure that the people in your teams are both supported but also held accountable for delivering the various different projects that they're involved with. It's really important. Otherwise, you act as a bottleneck if you can't delegate effectively. And the thing that emerged for me from the conversations that we had in this series that were really important was that if you're trying to lead a high-performing team, it's not about being more in control. It's actually relinquishing control, but replacing that with clarity. So having really clear expectations of what's required of people or the outcome that's required. Although you might give them flexibility on how they get there. Really clear that no idea is a bad idea. There's psychological safety in this team, in this community. We can make mistakes, we can realize that things aren't failures if we're learning and moving forwards. And that clarity around shared ownership. So being really clear who's responsible for what, whilst also acknowledging this is complex, right? It's not simple. It's not just that one person is responsible for a particular project. There's an element of interdependence, of shared ownership. But that doesn't take away from the fact that there's a real clear accountability line. And some of the interviews and conversations around this really shone a light on this importance of creating high-performing teams. So Vinita Upal talking to her about the fact that when we have ideas, there's no hierarchy. The best ideas don't come from some kind of hierarchical structure in the sense that the more senior you are, the better your idea. No, absolutely not. Great ideas come from anywhere. So there's no hierarchy when we're thinking about ideation, creating new ideas, creating new solutions to problems. Joanna Paval talked about kindness, and really interestingly, he talked about how holding people accountable is a form of kindness. Giving people clarity is a kindness. So even though it may feel courageous as a leader to need to do that, actually what's really important is that clarity needs to be there so people could know what they need to do. And that is a kindness. It creates the boundaries in which people can operate. Really important for a high-performing team. Conversation with Simon Herbert really settled into what really resonated for me in this context was his conversation about values. When we name shared values, and he talked about respect, trust, and ambition, but of course the values in your school may be slightly different. When we name those shared values repeatedly, and then showcase when those values are being lived and when really exciting things are happening because we're living those values, the outcome, the impact of those. What it does is it reinforces the ways that leaders can make decisions all the way in all the way through the school. And those decisions become more consistent, more coherent, more heading in the same direction. And that itself is what helps to create a highly performing team. Because those leaders feel empowered to know they have the ability to make decisions knowing the shared value set that we have in the school. And also JD Barrot, I remember talking to him about cabinet responsibility. So we have a debate, we have a conversation, we make sure that behind closed doors a senior team is able to really explore something from all angles. No idea is a bad idea, no comment is, you know, disallowed. Real psychological safety. And when the decision is made, there's a cabinet responsibility, there's a sense that this is now the team's decision. And we all go out to then make sure that is implemented consistently in the school. Really important for a high-performing team. Really critical. The people, as they grow up from mid leadership into senior leadership, really understand the role of this. So it's not about control. It's not about more intervention or involvement as a leader. It's about relinquishing some of that control in order to go and create the space and the support. And sometimes that involves courageous conversations, giving people difficult feedback, but giving people clarity about their accountability, about the feedback that they're receiving so they can become the high-performing teams that we need them to be. So as I was reflecting during the interviews about the ways in which these conversations, they were all very unique, all very different, people from all over the world, different types of school, different challenges, different stages of leadership in some cases as well. What was really important was I was starting to see the patterns myself in how we can lead through complexity and uncertainty. And what distilled from me my own discernment process, my own judgment process, was a couple of things that are really, really important in amongst all of the different conversations that we were having in the in the podcast series. And the way my mind works is to create some structure around those themes, that complexity. So what I did was actually create a framework, which I'm calling the three-degree shift. And I want to share it with you today because I think it's really helpful for leaders to understand that when they're leading complexity, really high-stakes decisions, uncertainty, it can be really helpful to have some framework, but to also know a framework isn't a step-by-step instruction manual. It's a way to structure thinking, but that creates the flexibility for that thinking to be really unique depending on the situation that you're leading. And this is what I help leaders to do when I'm working with them. I wanted to share this with you today. So the idea of the three-degree shift comes from a kind of a metaphor that came to my mind, which is when you're looking at a really tangled situation, lots of information, lots of complexity, the systems, the people, the time frames, the scenarios that can unfold. It felt to me suddenly like a 3D, a kind of map of lots of different threads and things that are connected that look really messy from the position that I'm currently sitting in. All I need to do is shift myself three degrees to the left, look at the same set of challenges, and it looks different. And I can suddenly see a path through. It's not the final right answer, because as we said, that doesn't exist. It's a path through to see what I need to do next to grow my understanding of this system in order to then make the really high-stakes decision that I need to make. It only takes three degrees. It's not about looking at something completely different. It's not about changing what you're doing entirely as a leader. If you're in a leadership position, especially a senior leadership position, what you're doing is working because it's got you to where you are. It's having an impact on your organization already. We're just looking to make some small shifts in what you're doing that will then really accelerate the way you're able to lead. So it's a three-degree shift to the left. So the first degree shift is about seeing the strategic systems that you're that you're playing with, that you're trying to understand. So in front of you, you have a complex web of different information, data points, analytics, a complex web of different um systems, parts of the system, different departments in your school, different elements of the external environment in which you're marketing into, perhaps the way demand is shifting. You are looking at a system. And the key is not to think about this decision I need to make, this high-stake decision I need to make is a one-off decision. The key is to see the system in which it sits. So you're looking for connections, you're looking for interdependencies between different elements, you're looking for what are the first order consequences? So if I if I make this decision, what are the first things that happen? But then what are the second and third order consequences? What are the unexpected things that then ripple through the system later? Where is the pressure really coming from for this decision? It's really interesting in my conversation with leaders, it's not often where you think it's coming from. And for a lot of leaders I work with, the pressure comes from inside themselves to get it right with a capital to find the right answer. Often, actually, that pressure is unnecessary. And sometimes the high-stakes decisions that I work with leaders on, if we can realise actually this isn't as high-stakes as you think it is, it can suddenly make things look a little bit easier. So understanding where the pressure's coming from is really important. And really understanding, okay, now we can see the strategic system in which we're working. If we make one type of decision for this high-stage decision we're making, how does that ripple through the system? If we take a different option, make a different decision at this point, how does that ripple through the system? Now some leaders do this automatically. And when I'm working with some people, it's almost overwhelming because they can see so much of the system. Actually, they can see all of this really clearly. It's the people around them that they need to lead, see the way that they see. And for other people, it needs a conversation with someone like me to help them to really unpack the patterns that are happening and the interdependencies that are happening in that system. So if you're listening to me and you're thinking, well, that's obvious. Great, fantastic. You're already making that first degree shift. If you're listening to me and you're thinking, I don't really understand what Juliet's talking about, that's also great. Let's have a conversation. Let me help you see in your circumstances what it is about the system that you might not be able to see at the moment. So seeing the system takes you one degree to the left, but that's not enough on its own. I talked about the three degree shift. We've got two more shifts to come. The second shift to take you second degree around the problem to get a different angle on it is to really understand the human dynamics at play. We're not just managing a system. We're not just Just making a high-stakes decision. We are also navigating how people experience the decision, both those who are making it and those who will be receiving the implications or the impact of that decision. Decisions don't play out in a vacuum. They play out within a really complex set of human dynamics. So when we make this shift and we're really focusing on the human dynamics of this decision, it's really helpful to understand for each of the different stakeholder groups or individuals involved, what do we know about their motivations, their incentives, their fears, their emotions? We can't always know it directly. We might be able to get a sense. Or maybe the next step is to have a courageous conversation, to understand firsthand from them what is the way that this decision impacts you. And then it's not just about the individual, it's about the group dynamics. How is the different stakeholder groups or different individuals interacting with each other? And how does power flow in that dynamic? People don't often want to talk about power. Power can be uncomfortable to talk about, but it's really important when we're trying to understand these human dynamics. What is unspoken in these dynamics? What are the tensions or the histories or the kind of ways that people have been bound together in either positive or challenging dynamics in the past, which mean that actually these are now unspoken tensions in the dynamics? Be brave, be courageous. We need to understand these. We need to understand and kind of unearth some of these tensions to be really understanding these human dynamics. And then finally, we all have cognitive bias. Every single one of us, me included. Those biases play out in different ways, and some of them are driven by emotion. Um, and some of them can be driven by the way that our brains have been evolved over time in order to have shortcuts, heuristics, they're called, in the way that we do our thinking. Really understanding the role of those biases in their thinking is absolutely critical if you want to understand the human dynamics. So we've done two shifts. The first shift was understanding the system better, the second shift was understanding the human dynamics better, the third shift, the third degree shift you need to make kind of depends on each situation. I was trying to think of what is the third item in this shift, and what I realized was thinking about all the client work I've done, actually the third degree shift, the third shift is unique depending on the situation that you're in. So I'm going to give you a list of some of the ones that I can think of. There will probably be others beyond this list. But the key question here isn't what's the decision? It's not just I see the system, I see the human dynamics, what's the decision? The next question is I see the system, I understand the dynamics. What else needs to be factored in to this decision that isn't immediately visible? What is it that we're missing? It's a final check-in, it's a little bit of an intuitive check-in. It's a check-in with the people that are making the decision around the table. Okay, what else do we need to see? In some cases, it's to do with the time horizon. So do we need to be thinking a little bit more long term? Do we need to be thinking a little bit more short term? Where are we defaulting to in terms of our time horizon? What happens if we shift that time horizon? How does it look different? Sometimes it's thinking about risk. What is our risk tolerance here? How would this look different if we massively dialed up our risk tolerance? How would it look different if we massively dialed down our risk tolerance? Sometimes it's thinking about resource allocation. So where are we willing to spend our budget, our time, our scarce resources? What are we doing now by default? What if we massively shifted that? What if we put five times as much budget into this? What if we put a tenth of the budget into this? And by budget I can mean money, but I can also mean time and effort. What happens if we play with the resource allocation? How does it look different? And then one of my favorites pace and sequencing. A lot of leaders I work with, they're highly accomplished, highly successful leaders. They're used to doing lots of pace. Sometimes it's about slowing down. What happens if we say we want to do these things over a sequence of time? We do plan A, sorry, we do project A, project B, project C sequentially, not simultaneously. What happens if we massively speed up this project? What happens if we massively slow down this project? Playing with that helps you see something that you wouldn't have seen otherwise. There are many others, different things that you can play with, different things that occur to you. But that third and final degree shift, listen to your your team, listen to your intuition. What is it that you're not focusing on? What else needs to become visible before you're ready to make this decision? And then once you've done your first degree shift, the system, second degree shift, the human dynamics, third degree shift, whatever else feels important in this particular situation, then you're ready to make a decision. And it needs to take some action, it needs to take some courage. You need to actually move, not just think into action. But often it can be a small move, it can be a small step in one direction you learn, another small step you learn. And eventually you might have to make the take the big plunge. That's okay. It takes courage to do that. Decide between A and B, and this there's no going back. We do these high-stakes decisions sometimes, but it's preceded by a structured way of thinking about this. Now, I would love to hear your feedback. I'd love to hear what is it about these interviews that really resonated with you. And actually, a little tip. And when someone does, it really gets noticed and it's really appreciated. Obviously, you can reach out to me. If there were any of the guests that you listened to in this series and you thought that made a difference to me, please just send them an email or a LinkedIn message or send it via me if you can't find their contact details. It really makes a difference to people to know that someone's listening, someone's responding and having an impact from what they've shared. And I would love to hear about what you think around this three-degree shift. What isn't clear? What do I need to refine in the way I'm describing it? It's inherently complex, right? Because I'm trying to create a model or a framework for dealing with complexity. So it's inherently complex. I'd love to hear some feedback about how I explain this to the world. Okay. I'm slightly sad as we wrap up this series. It's been a really wonderful experience speaking to people. Thank you again to all of my guests. I will be, I'm sure people will be listening to this for for many months to come. Um so as a sign out, final sign out for this series of the Independent School Podcasts. Thank you so much for listening. If this way of thinking resonates with you, you can find out a lot more by signing up to my weekly emails. They're weekly-ish, I won't be bombarding you, don't worry. You can sign up at www.consultjuliet.co.uk slash sign up. And if you're navigating a complex decision at the moment, and you'd really value some space to think it through properly, really thoroughly, I'm always open to a conversation. So do please send me a quick email. Get in touch. The biggest challenges you face are rarely solved by working harder. They're solved by seeing the situation more clearly and thinking it through in the right way. Bye bye now.