Turn the Ship Around!: A True Story of Building Leaders by Breaking the Rules

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Fake it til you make it" - or, as the author says "Acting your way to new thinking" as a mechanism for control. Even if you feel bad - smile - that will eventually make you feel better (it's proven). If you have doubts and don't fully commit to a new thing - it will come through so fake it til it feels natural and only then will you be able to determine the efficacy. How do we release the intellect and initiative of each member of the organization toward a common purpose? Here’s the answer: With fascinating storytelling and a deep understanding of what motivates and inspires. David Marquet provides leaders in the military, business, and education a powerful vehicle that will delight, provoke, and encourage them to act.”– Michael P. Peters, president of the St. John’s College, Santa Fe It doesn't try patronizing you, doesn't pretend there's a magic sequence of works, secret super-efficient technique or just a new "framework" to free good spirits of self-organization within your team :) It's just a story (not complete one, just particular, representative scenarios) of developing leader (Captain - Commanding Officer of LA-class submarine) who've managed to elevate its crew from far beyond average to top notch performers by applying careful, highly aware leadership practices in so called leader-leader model, where everyone can contribute in highly autonomic way that utilizes her/his potential & skills. However, the specific context of military submarine makes the book more inspirational than practical. Described methods are to be heavily adapted while working in different areas (e.g. volunteer organizing in NGO).

With the holiday decision an obvious concern of the change in approach was that a sailor’s immediate supervisor might not know the overall context in granting leave (say, was an inspection coming up that might require all hands) but the solution to that is to push that context down. Indeed my biggest take away from the book is the need to cascade context, to push information down that people need to make good decisions, and then let the decisions come up, rather than the other way round. One can raise some arguments that the environment was specific (military, elitist, non-typical supply:demand in "job market", etc.), but in fact author's ideas are applicable in different contexts, sometimes with re-adjustments (SKIN IN THE GAME!), but they remain quite valid.The book is a step by step guide of changes from top-down management approach in organisation like US Navy. Story starts with Cpt. Marquet assigned in charge of submarine with worst results in the fleet, and turns it around within a year to the best one, by changing the top-down (leader-follower) approach to the empowerment (leader-leader) approach. USE YOUR LEGACY FOR INSPIRATION is a mechanism for CLARITY." Note achievements and legacy - these are helpful for guiding the team. BUILDING TRUST AND TAKING CARE OF YOUR PEOPLE is a mechanism for CLARITY." Providing them opportunities and materials to improve themselves both in their professional and personal goals builds a much stronger, competent and empowered team. Will this book shake your world? In my case, it didn't, but as it's a nice set of R-L cases, it's truly educative & I believe it has provided my some additional input to "digest" intellectually. David Marquet imagines a ​world where everyone engages and contributes their full intellectual capacity, a place where people are healthier and happier because they have more control over their work–a place where everyone is a leader.

When the performance of a unit goes down after an officer leaves, it is taken as a sign that he was a good leader, not that he was ineffective in training his people properly.” What? Yet another book on leadership, filled with generic statements focused on WHAT (which is quite straightforward) instead of HOW (the hard part ...)? Not really, not this time. To me the above does not diminish what they achieved. These were the attributes that made it possible to make all of these changes in such a short time. To be honest - I have never had a strong interest in military-oriented reading material, fiction or non-fiction. Aside from my interest in pre 20th century piracy on the high seas (more of social class/mobility angle here) - I haven't really read any books about life on boats or submarines.

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If there are rules, which could be applied in the military we can't say that our organisation is not agile enough to build the leader-leader approach to team management. The author explains why, in the long term, it is far more effective then leader-follower setup. You can also find here ready-to-use examples of how you can support your team members on their way to engage, taking ownership and becoming the leaders.