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)

The personal cost of teaching abroad

There is a personal price that we pay working in schools overseas away from family and friends. This article explores some of those ideas from the perspective of teachers and the school leaders who are forced to make tough decisions when staff request a leave of absence during term time. 

Ask any expat and they’ll tell you that the greatest downside of working abroad is the distance from loved ones. This is thrown into sharp focus at times of celebration (births, marriages and anniversaries) and especially when testing times come. Distance and the cost of travel mean that it simply is not possible to have the same level of contact with family and friends as we had before. The personal price we pay is not FOMO (fear of missing out): we are missing out. 

All teachers are used to the problems of not being able to take planned annual leave during term time but the issue is much more acute when differences in time zone and travel times mean that returning to the UK for a day is likely to mean taking several days off work. 

Guilt and fear 

The hardest times to be abroad are when a loved one is taken ill, having an operation, or approaching the end. Long-term illness can be a real challenge because you simply can’t be there for more than a few days at a time. Guilt is the norm and it’s debilitating. But, above all, you fear that you will not be there to say a final goodbye. Guilt and fear are part of the personal price that we pay for working abroad. 

In my experience, international schools are very supportive of staff when times are tough and will do everything they can to help on these occasions without penalising the teacher financially. 

Schools have policies about taking leave in term. Typically, schools will allow a certain number of days of paid compassionate leave in the case of serious illness or death of a close family member. 

The policies also allow unpaid leave to enable staff to attend weddings and significant anniversaries (such as a golden wedding) and graduations, again, for close family members. Inevitably there are events that fall outside those allowed in a school policy (best friend’s wedding/a favourite great-aunt’s funeral) and this is one of the greatest causes of angst in an international school community.

Consistency is key 

The hardest part of the week when I was on the executive at JESS, Dubai was considering requests for leave that fell outside the terms of our policy. On the one hand, it was understandable that those teachers who were in their 20s and 30s wanted to attend their friends’ weddings. On the other, we had only 175 teaching days a year and there was no supply agency to provide cover. Surely missing friends’ weddings was part of the price that staff pay when they opted for the tax-free sunshine of Dubai? 

One of the most challenging aspects for school leaders on these occasions is not only to be consistent, fair and transparent but to be seen to be so. As an executive, we were conscious that any deviation from the norm was setting a precedent that would go around the school community within minutes.

For a short time, we took the view that we would exercise our discretion and allow staff to attend weddings if they were to be best man or maid of honour. But when literally every request received during the next term was to play a significant role in the wedding, we reverted to a hard-line approach. 

And then there was the debate about leave during Inset days, and whether the practicality of allowing a teacher to miss training days was tantamount to admitting that these were optional and even a waste of time. Few realised the pressure that the senior team felt to ensure that an Inset day was worthwhile, knowing that the teacher on the front row could have been at the wedding of a best friend from university. 

 A test of leadership 

Absence requests in an international context are a real test of school leadership. In many ways, these decisions are some of the most difficult and emotive ones that senior leadership teams (SLTs) make. Having to make tough decisions is never a route to popularity. So, if SLTs are to navigate the difficult waters of when to grant leave during term time, they need to have a published policy on staff absence that they follow in a transparent and consistent way. 

This article was published in Tes on 12/11/2019

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