Turn This Ship Around! (Book Review)
Turn This Ship Around! was a fun book, both for the great management advice and for how you learn more about how the Navy and nuclear submarines work. The advice in this book is solid: good managers trust their reports with significant responsibilities.
The book shows how organizations governed by "cover your ass" (CYA), or only making sure they dont make mistakes, fail. Great organizations have people operating beyond CYA. They are working to make the whole better. Great teams are outward focused, not inward focused. He has a great line in the book where he asked "is your team spending more time to reduce errors then to improve efficiencies." It is something to think about.
He also talks about if you have a fear-based organization rooted in people not wanting to make mistakes, they will certainly not take any chances to make things better. The risk of failure it too high. An organization that can get things done is one in which they are not afraid of failing.
In the book he would ask his new people what they do and their response was often "whatever they tell me to do." This was, in his summation, such a waste of talent and resources, to have people acting like button pushers and not being thought leaders. He wanted his people building, improving, and creating.
Another great lesson was from Captain Marquet when he said, "If everyone thinks like you, you don't need them." Great teams have healthy disagreements. People challenge each other. The leader isn't always right, and when everyone agrees and repeats what the leader says teams don't always make the right choices.
Captain Marquet starts hitting his stride when his team is able to tell him he is wrong without him getting made and when the team is able to operate without him being involved in every details. Often leaders mistake that they need to be always on and involved so they can run the show; this is a sign of a mediocre leader, at best. The sign of a great leader, however, is that things operate well while you are gone.
At the end of the day, this is a great book for someone who is a new to a company or organization and has the responsibly to managing a team. Captain Marquet his this challenge and is able to earn the respect and trust of his team while also making massive improvements on the submarine. He approached his new reports with humility. He took their fears away when he told them that the submarine was broken because of leadership problems, not because of employee problems. Captain Marquet shows what it is to be a great leader.
The book shows how organizations governed by "cover your ass" (CYA), or only making sure they dont make mistakes, fail. Great organizations have people operating beyond CYA. They are working to make the whole better. Great teams are outward focused, not inward focused. He has a great line in the book where he asked "is your team spending more time to reduce errors then to improve efficiencies." It is something to think about.
He also talks about if you have a fear-based organization rooted in people not wanting to make mistakes, they will certainly not take any chances to make things better. The risk of failure it too high. An organization that can get things done is one in which they are not afraid of failing.
In the book he would ask his new people what they do and their response was often "whatever they tell me to do." This was, in his summation, such a waste of talent and resources, to have people acting like button pushers and not being thought leaders. He wanted his people building, improving, and creating.
Another great lesson was from Captain Marquet when he said, "If everyone thinks like you, you don't need them." Great teams have healthy disagreements. People challenge each other. The leader isn't always right, and when everyone agrees and repeats what the leader says teams don't always make the right choices.
Captain Marquet starts hitting his stride when his team is able to tell him he is wrong without him getting made and when the team is able to operate without him being involved in every details. Often leaders mistake that they need to be always on and involved so they can run the show; this is a sign of a mediocre leader, at best. The sign of a great leader, however, is that things operate well while you are gone.
At the end of the day, this is a great book for someone who is a new to a company or organization and has the responsibly to managing a team. Captain Marquet his this challenge and is able to earn the respect and trust of his team while also making massive improvements on the submarine. He approached his new reports with humility. He took their fears away when he told them that the submarine was broken because of leadership problems, not because of employee problems. Captain Marquet shows what it is to be a great leader.