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

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One of the advantages of a small command is the abutting completely affect change. This gave the author an advantage as he and his crew made changes, evaluated the results, and made further changes. They also had the advantage of a built in set of measurements. 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 Enhance opportunities for informal communication - encourage team members to think out loud as a mechanism for control and organizational clarity.

I'm always looking for books that teach me more about how to look after my students. Within scientific research there's more 'leading' than 'following' going on, with very little command structure, and PhD students and Postdocs usually being the leader of their project. There's collaboration but it's not easy for people to work on the same project without unnecessary duplication of work. Still, there's so much useful advice here on how to lead and teach, I recommend this to people who are looking to hone their leadership/organisational skills. The rating is for the book, not the content. The ideas and concepts the book brings up are quite interesting and sound like they would be quite useful to many organisations. However, it's written in a simplistic structure that came off cheesy and often annoying. The writing, in general, was amateurish and the narrator for the audiobook (who happened to be the author as well) did a pretty horrible job. The feeling I got from the whole experience was that the author managed to get some success with a new leadership methodology and let that success get to his head. Captain Marquet translates his experiences as a nuclear submarine commander into a book of highly readable and applicable leadership techniques. He discusses his ‘leader-leader’ model (as opposed to the traditional leader-follower) and the three pillars upon which it is built – 1) Control, 2) Competency, 3) Clarity. The best book on leadership I've ever read. The author nails down the three pillars that enable organisations to shift from a leader-of-followers paradigm to the leader-of-leaders. This transition has enabled him to turn the worst-performing submarine with 100% employee churn to an award-winning submarine with 100% retention, in under a year.The book, by a former US nuclear submarine commander, is based on his real-life experience of turning around an underperforming ship, the Santa Fe, by turning the traditional top-down management model upside down. 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. Taking care of your people does not mean protecting them from the consequences of their own behavior. That’s the path to irresponsibility. What it does mean is giving them every available tool and advantage to achieve their aims in life, beyond the specifics of the job.”

The book is a fast read, but the approaches he described are not simple or necessarily easy to apply. He sprinkles anecdotes liberally throughout each chapter. Focusing on avoiding mistakes takes our focus away from becoming truly exceptional. Once a ship has achieved success merely in the form of preventing major errors and is operating in a competent way, mission accomplished, there is no need to strive further.” 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.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. I was told this book explicitly is a foundation one successful organization has built its engineering culture upon, drawing strongly from its wisdom & principles Several principles from Covey's 7 Habits and 8th of Habit were covered throughout the book and Covey was a big fan of the author's success in empowering his organization. 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. 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.