Turn the Ship Around! by L. David Marquet – Summary of key points:

Turn the Ship Around! is a leadership book based on the experience of Captain Marquet and his pioneering approach to running a US Navy submarine.

In it essence Marquet moved from the traditional top-down “Leader-Follower” model of leadership, to an empowered distributive “Leader-Leader” model.

Beyond the engaging narrative, the leadership take-aways can be categorised in three areas: control, competence and clarity

Control

• Marquet moved control to the senior leaders (officers), chiefs (middle leaders) and workers (the crew) – “Don’t move information to authority, move authority to the information.” (p.49) – “Identify decisions that are candidates for being pushed to the next lower level of the organisation.” (p.58)
• Language:  
• Shift from “Request permission to . . “/ “What should I do about . . . ?” 
• to “I intend to . . .” / “I plan on . . .” / “I will . . .”  (p.82-3)
• ‘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 . . .  it caused them to think at the next higher level.’(p.83)
• ‘As the level of control is divested, it becomes more and more important that the team be aligned with the goal of the organization.’ (p.88)
• You are responsible for your work
• Mechanisms for control
1. ‘Resist the urge to provide solutions.’ (p.92)
2. ‘Eliminating top-down monitoring systems.’(p.97)
3. ‘Specify goals not methods.’ (p.159)

Competence

•  ‘We rejected the inevitability of mistakes and came up with a way to reduce them.’ (p.117) (c.f. ‘Black Box thinking’)
• Mechanisms to strengthen technical competence:
1. ‘Take deliberate action’ (p.122) - don’t just do things on auto.
2. ‘We Learn (everywhere, all the time).’ (p.133)
3. ‘Don’t brief, certify.’ (p.140) – people switch off in briefings, ‘set read-ahead or think-ahead assignments’ and use meetings to check that everyone is engaged and on the same page.
4. ‘Continually and consistently repeat the message.’ (p.149)
5. ‘Specify goals not methods.’ (p.159)

Clarity

• ‘As more decision-making authority is pushed down the chain of command, it becomes increasingly important that the organisation understands what the organisation is about.’ (p.161)
• Mechanisms for clarity
1. ‘Build trust and take care of your people.’ (p.172)
2. ‘Use your legacy for inspiration.’ (p.176)
3. ‘Use guiding principles for decision criteria.’ (p.182)
4. Use immediate recognition to reinforce desired behaviours.’ (p.187)
5. ‘Begin with the end in mind’ (p.193)
6. ‘Encourage questioning over blind obedience.’ (p.200)
7. ‘Think out loud.’ (p.106)
8. ‘Specify goals not methods.’ (p.159) ‘by focusing on achieving excellence not avoiding errors.’

Other observations: 

·       On Inspection:  ‘ “inspection mentality” is a morale killer’ . . .  ‘If we were excellent and prepared, the drills and inspections would take care of themselves.’ (p.78-9)

·       On professional development: ‘We had no need of leadership development programs: the way we ran the ship was the leadership development program.’ (p.84)

·       On organisational aims: ‘focus on achieving excellence, not avoiding errors.’ (p.159)