Turn the ship around
David Marquet
Anyone who has been on any of our courses or chatted with us about agile will probably have heard us refer to this David Marquet’s book or video.
Why do we like the video so much? Well the first is that it’s reasonably short, while packing a punch in terms of content. It’s accessible when you don’t have a lot of time, you can watch it on the bus to work or refer to it as part of a conversation.
The second is that the theme is around leadership and a different way of thinking about leadership. It’s about how to create the culture and environment that allows people to think and flourish and that will allow teams to work together more effectively. This is contrary to the command and control style of leadership that we will have experienced at some point within our working life.
We also like this video because it broadly fits with a lot of the themes that emerge from agile ways of working - different style of leadership, and teams that are empowered, autonomous and creative.
If you are looking for leadership inspiration then this is a good video to watch.
We also like this video because it broadly fits with a lot of the themes that emerge from agile ways of working - different style of leadership, and teams that are empowered, autonomous and creative.
If you are looking for leadership inspiration then this is a good video to watch.
Setting the scene
The video centres around David Marquet’s time as a submarine commander, where his role was to control a submarine that he was new to. Although he was used to giving orders, his worry was that without being able to fully operate the submarine, he was potentially putting the crew and himself in danger and wouldn’t pass the (assessment). Recognising that the crew knew more about the submarine than he, they all decided that the crew would start to manage the submarine based on their own competence.
Let’s take a closer look at the key points and themes:
Leadership style
This is really interesting because David Marquet talks about the subtleties of moving from a command and control leadership to that which was more empowering by simply changing his language.
He vowed never to give another order (apart from the torpedo launch which he says he felt was his “moral and ethical responsibility”)
By not giving demands but by giving information, in particular intent, and asking the right questions, this allowed the crew to decide what they needed to do - empowering them to manage the submarine.
“If you want people to think, give intent”
Giving control
This relates to a key agile principle: “Build projects around motivated individuals. Give them the environment and support they need, and trust them to get the job done”
We talk a lot in our leadership courses about thinking differently about how you approach the day to day running of organisation - about how to provide support and direction rather than being dictatorial, and this is a great example of that shift.
If you are saying to yourself, “it can’t be as simple as just changing your language” then you’d be right. You can’t give control over to people who don’t have technical competence and don’t understand what the organisational or team goal is.
He talks about this being difficult only because we are “programmed to take control and attract followers, but we need to give control and create leaders”. Sounds easier than it is? Perhaps that’s because we are not confident that people have the bigger picture like us, or you’re not sure about the capability of your teams.
Marquet talks about the two pillars that you need in order to give control. He suggests that you need to ensure that the people you are giving control to have Competence and Clarity, which can be signified by questions such as Is it safe? (competence) and Is it the right thing to do? (clarity)
In agile, this is about providing a vision to your teams, so they know what the objective is. Having the clarity and information means that you will be giving your teams the conditions needed to enable them to work on the right things, make the right decisions and at the right time. It’s about ensuring that people have the skills they need to do their job, or supporting them to ensure they can grow these skills.
Back to the agile principle we mentioned before: “Build projects around motivated individuals. Give them the environment and support they need, and trust them to get the job done”
The change in the submarine was significant because David Marquet explains how he now had the equivalent of 135 crew (including himself) that could think like the commander and had the competence to operate the submarine, unlike other submarines where a single person gave an order and the crew followed orders.
He says his submarine had “135 thinking, active, passionate, creative, proactive, taking initiative people - it’s a tidal wave”
“Move authority to where the information is” so that anyone can make a decision “as if the CEO is standing behind them - if they are not making the same decisions they are making better ones” because they are ones with the information.
How motivated do you think these people were being given this autonomy? This is key to building successful (agile) teams.
Self organising
Another agile principle to bring in here is: “The best architectures, requirements, and designs emerge from self-organizing teams”
So by now Marquet has enabled the environment for the crew to think for themselves and make decisions. He has also supported them to ensure the competence and clarity to do their roles successfully. He has not only created a motivated environment, but also enabled the team to self organise and work in the most suitable way.
The benefits?
There’s no longer a delay to decision making, shipping and closing deals This starts to link into some of the other agile principles for example: Our highest priority is to satisfy the customer through early and continuous delivery of valuable software and deliver working software frequently, from a couple of weeks to a couple of months, with a preference to the shorter timescale.
These principles are all about enabling us to deliver product to our customers regularly and the ability to streamline the time taken to make decisions and to ship products is enhanced with an approach like Marquets.
People will feel like they matter, because they are thinking and you will have engendered this thinking by creating the right environment. This all ties back to the motivation and environment for autonomy that we mentioned before.
I could think of more - if we were building products and not managing a submarine then motivation makes being happier, encourages better quality, more focussed products that meet customer needs. I’m sure you can think of more too.
In summary
Finally Marquet wraps up the video with the rather inspirational speech… “You will achieve greatness, not on your actions but because you set an environment where people around you have achieved greatness”
What’s not to like about an empowered, self organisation set of people within an organisation, producing great services and products, and as David Marquet says in the video, if they're not all asking you what to do, then at least you get to go home and eat dinner!
David Marquets book Turn The Ship Around!: A True Story of Turning Followers Into Leaders, is available in a number of different formats.
