Turn the Ship Around!: A True Story of Turning Follower… (2024)

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.

David Marquet has written an incredibly clear and easy to understand book - that happens to be about submarines and their crews. The details about life on the submarine are sometimes a bit more than my interest can tolerate but overall the message about process and changing the structure from leader-follower to leader-leader is crystal clear. His writing style is incredibly well structured and meticulous -- all the examples work really well for his story.

As noted in the introduction, the core belief is that we can all be leaders - and the best way to get to that is to have a leader who can help identify the shared goals and vision for the team, and then let them do their work, providing feedback on what is working best as a way to attain excellence (vs avoiding mistakes). This is a system of empowerment that is focused on outcomes, and which worked so well for the author in his command that he DOUBLED the number of chiefs (who then transferred off to other ships the next day to new roles).

He discusses situations where team members automatically executed incorrect instructions from their leader or where mistakes were made because someone was operating on "auto pilot." Changing the processes to focus on the outcomes and goals rather than process/method made a huge difference.

The key concepts in this book include:

1. Achieve excellence - don't just avoid errors.

2. Use "I intend to... " to turn passive followers into active leaders. Avoid disempowered phrases such as "Request permission to . . . I would like to . . . What should I do about . . . Do you think we should . . . Could we . . ." (and I was always told "hopefully"). In empowering the officers to be responsible for their work - "the goal for the officers would be to give me a sufficiently complete report so that all I had to say was a simple approval."

3. Enhance opportunities for informal communication -- encourage team members to "THINK OUT LOUD is a mechanism for CONTROL" and ORGANIZATIONAL CLARITY. Author says "when I heard what my watch officers were thinking, it made it much easier for me to keep my mouth shut and let them execute their plans." This is related to "deliberate action." For example - where there is a process that has a significant impact (whether it's torpedoes or sending out an e-mail blast) - it helps to talk through what you intend so that a peer can catch any potential mistakes before the actual action. "Take deliberate action. We learn (everywhere, all the time). Don’t brief, certify."

4. Search for organizational practices or procedures that would need to be changed in order to effect the change required - that means updating any documentation, handbooks, wiki etc.

5. "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.

6. Short early conversations make efficient work (another mechanism for control) - this is basically like a daily standup in Agile - it helps to talk through any questions and get an idea of where potential misunderstandings or misdirections may lie. A standup isn't intended to solve all the problems - you may create more meetings out of this but it's a good touchpoint!

7. "RESIST THE URGE TO PROVIDE SOLUTIONS is a mechanism for CONTROL." The leader has to create space for open decision by the entire team; in crisis situations - you can have the team brainstorm and then as a leader vet the best option for action.

8. "ELIMINATING TOP-DOWN MONITORING SYSTEMS is a mechanism for CONTROL." Marquet emphasizes the use of mechanisms that actually give ownership and describes a log of work requests that was owned and maintained but not accessible by the entire team so they could actually see the backlog of work and get things done. He also says to avoid systems where senior personnel are determining what junior personnel should be doing as their day to day tasks - giving them goals and then reviewing their tactics (ie the "I intend to" reports).

9. "EMBRACE THE INSPECTORS is a mechanism for CONTROL, organizational control." Use the opportunities provided by inspection to learn where improvements can be made.

10. "WE LEARN (EVERYWHERE, ALL THE TIME) is a mechanism for COMPETENCE." This was a great section on learning from mistakes without coming down really hard on the team members - everything is a learning opportunity.

11. "DON’T BRIEF, CERTIFY is a mechanism for COMPETENCE." - this was fantastic because instead of the chief reading off the process while everyone else's eyes glazed over, the person who would be doing the task would identify the steps that he would be taking and the others would certify that process was correct (technical competence).

12. "CONTINUALLY AND CONSISTENTLY REPEAT THE MESSAGE is a mechanism for COMPETENCE."

13. "SPECIFYING GOALS, NOT METHODS is a mechanism for COMPETENCE." and CLARITY. Two excellent examples were around fire drills - which weren't going well because of process (ie "I'm not in charge of this area/shift") to make everyone responsible and the crew members CLOSEST to the fire would be responsible for taking action. On the ship, stealth (ie, not making loud noises) is critical so any time some loud noise is made - it can affect the sonar. The goal of a stealth ship was emphasized and everyone was required to report noises instead of the sonar team trying to find the source of a transient noise. This resulted in identifying a lot of other issues that they were able to fix and move even closer toward excellence.

14. "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.

15. "USE YOUR LEGACY FOR INSPIRATION is a mechanism for CLARITY." Note achievements and legacy - these are helpful for guiding the team.

16. "USE GUIDING PRINCIPLES FOR DECISION CRITERIA is a mechanism for CLARITY." Development of guiding principles (see the book - fantastic list created by his chiefs) is critical to empowering a team.

17. "USE IMMEDIATE RECOGNITION TO REINFORCE DESIRED BEHAVIORS is a mechanism for CLARITY." The author would provide immediate positive feedback vs submitting a form and waiting for a process to give the reward/recognition to the individual. He also points out that "Simply providing data to the teams on their relative performance results in a natural desire to improve."

18. "BEGIN WITH THE END IN MIND is an important mechanism for ORGANIZATIONAL CLARITY." The author worked with his officers in weekly one-on-one mentoring sessions to discuss goals and what they wanted their evaluations to look like 1, 2 and 3 years hence -- working with them to develop goals that cascaded down from the organization's goals. This turned into an opportunity for 2-way feedback and the end result was that his officers were able to achieve those goals by the end of their terms.

19. "ENCOURAGE A QUESTIONING ATTITUDE OVER BLIND OBEDIENCE is a mechanism for CLARITY."

All in all - a really solid book with a ton of great examples from the author's experiences. I'd LOVE to read a book written by one of the enlisted men on that ship to see his perspective and to see how that has carried over to other assignments on different vessels that may have had a top-down structure of leadership.