Turn Ship Around! "A true story of turning followers into leaders" Authored by L. DAVID MARQUET

Leadership in the navy and in most of organization, is about controlling people: leaders and followers. Most of what we study, learn and practice in term of leadership topic follow this leader-follower structure.

Captain Marquet realized that problem of on USS “Sante Fe” is same leader-follower approach of command. He realized that people who are treated as followers, they have limited decision-making authority and those who takes orders usually un at half speed, underutilizing their imagination and initiative.

The solution: Leader-Leader structure-

Leader-Leader structures are significantly more resilient, and they do not rely on the designated leader always being right, Further, leader-leader structures spawn additional leaders throughout the organization naturally, It can’t be stopped.

In recent decades. The Concept of “Empowerment” has emerged as a trendy solution to move away from “Leaders-Followers approach” but the problem While the message is “empowerment” the method-it take me to empower you-fundamentally disempowers employees.

?Consequently, Captain Marquet chose to implement a “Leaders-Leaders structure” to unleash the potential of his crew and foster empowerment from within the team itself, rather than relying solely on the authority of the captain.

Captain Marquet know that our greatest struggle is within ourselves. He was aware until-unless he’ll be not able to take his Crew out of this struggle, he’ll unable to rescue his Crew from “follower mentality” and fail to generate “Leaders-Leaders structure”.

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Avoid Contradict, Thinks Anew-

The leadership structure, which was strongly reinforced by the behavior and expectation of the captain trouble by “Idea of empowerment” is have inherently contradictory, where a leader empowers to his subordinate and her subordinate empower to her subordinate. Captain Marquet know that power come from within and attempts to empower felt like again “fall in follower mentality”.

Three golden rule Ownership, competency and clarity – Ownership without competency and clarity is chaos. When we push authority down the line without given proper competency and clarity could be havoc.? Before give ownership a leaders must be ensure both behavioral as well technical competency along with clarity of tasks.

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Leadership Is Not About Only Momentarily Performance- Captain Marquet talk about that in navy and most of other organization leaders are graded on “how well they and their unit do during their tenure, not after their departure”. we didn’t associate and officer’s leadership effectiveness with how well his unit performed after he left. We didn’t associate an officer’s leadership effectiveness with how often his people get promoted two, three or four years hence. All that mattered was performance in the moment.

Leadership is not only about take action, it more about train to people- Officer are rewards for begin indispensable, for being missed after they depart. When the performance of unit goes down after an officer leaves, it is taken that a sign as he was a good leader, not that he was ineffective in training his people properly.

“Whatever They Tell Me to Do!” – ??Pointed to the reality that the fundamental structure of Leaders-Followers is the problem on ship as well most of working place acknowledged by Captain Marquet. Everyone below the Captain or department head had their brain shut-off.?

Avoiding Error to Achieve Excellence – Captain Marquet Realized that on USS Santa Fe Crew spending more energy trying to avoid errors than achieving excellence? isn’t happening most of working place?

Captain Marquet seemed clear that he crew was in a self-reinforcing downward spiral where poor practice resulted in mistake, and mistake resulted in poor morale, and poor morale resulted in avoiding initiative and going into a survival mode doing only what was absolute necessary.? Captain Marquet realized in order to break this cycle, he’d need to radically change the daily motivation by shifting “the focus from avoiding errors to achieving excellence”.

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Organizational Culture shift from own behavior and thinking- With his past experience Captain Marquet know that when anyone trying to change employees’ behavior, we basically have two approaches to choose from: “change own thinking and hope this lead to new behavior” or “Change own behavior and hope this leads to new thinking”. Captain Marquet adopts later one.

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Perfect Plans Never Exist- Captain Marquet mention that there was another human tendency working against us as well. Subordinates generally desire to present the boss with a “perfect plan or product the first time”. Unfortunately, this gets in the way of efficiency because significant effort can be wasted. Cap. Marquet decide to review each phase rather than final product. He boiled this down to this motto “A little rudder far from the rocks is a lot better than a lot of rudder close to the rock”. “Short, early conversations make efficient work”.

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Repercussion of Top-down, command and control leadership culture –

“You know this action could be lead serious damaged” Captain Marquet asked to one sailor.

“Yes, I was aware Captain” sailor respond.

“Well, why did you order it” astounded Captain Marquet asked.

“Because you told me to” Sailor respond, “I thought you’d learned something secret at PCO training school that they only taught to Captain rank only”.

Captain Marquet realized sailor was perfectly honest. By giving that order, Captain took the crew right back to the top-down, command and control leadership model. What happens in a top-down culture when the leader is wrong? Everyone goes over the cliff.

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The power of words “I Intend To . . . . ?”- Post above mention incident Captain Marquet adopt “I intend to. .” technique for power shifting rather than empowerment.

Every sailor now come with action in form “I intend to (Mention action) “with sufficient detail report to his seniors, and after carefully inspection seniors a simple approval.

The benefits of this simple extension were that it caused each sailor to think at the next higher level and second each sailor go very deep before “intending any actions”.

Eventually this approach turns to each sailor into active leaders as opposed to passive sailor.

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Leaders Don’t Put Their Feet in Every Shoes- Leaders those have temptation to “provide solution for every problem” kills creative thinking for employees.

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Take Deliberate Action and speak aloud- There are two type action we usually take, first is automotive action and second is deliberate action, second one is rare one. Most of action on working place as well in life take automotive, we think almost negligibly before act, same was with USS “Santa Fe”, everyone was taking operation action automotive without put head. Captain Marquet adopt “deliberate action” each sailor needs to pause few second, think and speak aloud to action he is going to take. This approach helps to sailor to avoid automotive mistake, either by himself or his peers.

Specify Goals, Not Method- The problem with specifying the method along with the goal is one diminished control. Provide people with the objective and let them figures out the method, help to generate creativity and ownership in them.

Take care of people Extends Beyond Their work lives- It’s hard to find leadership book that doesn’t encourage us to “Take care of people”, mention by Captain Marquet, what I learned is this, taking care of our people doesn’t not mean protecting them from the consequences of their own behavior. That’s path of irresponsibility.

“Caring people” mean giving them every available tool and advantage to achieve their aim in life, beyond specifics of the job. In some cases that meant further education, on other cases compatible with navy life.

Live-In In Guiding Principle- Captain Marquet narrated a funny incidence happened during his visit at one organization, where organizational motto proudly displayed in Latin on a huge wall. Captain asked everyone “what is meant”, The only CEO was knew.

Guiding principle have to accurately represent the principles of the real organization, not the imagined organization. Falseness is what the organization is about results in problems. Since there are a set of criteria that employees will use when they make decision, decisions won’t be aligned to the organization’s goal.

Encourage a Questioning Attitude Over Blind Obedience- Encouraging a questioning mindset instead of just obeying orders is important in any workplace. It means that instead of just doing what you're told without thinking, it's okay to ask questions and think for yourself. When people feel comfortable asking questions and sharing their ideas, it leads to better teamwork and helps us find new ways to do things. So, by being curious and open-minded, we can work together better and achieve our goals more effectively.

Don’t Empower, Emancipate-?? Captain Marquet believe that, emancipate is fundamentally different from empowerment. With emancipate we are recognizing the inherent genius, energy and creativity in all people, and allowing those talents to emerge. Emancipation results when teams have been giving decision-making control and additional characteristic of competence and clarity.

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Final words by Captain Marquet-

?“Ultimately, the most important person to have control over is yourself, for it is that self-control that will allow you to “give control, create leaders”.? I believe that rejecting the impulse to take control and attract followers will be your greatest challenge and, its time, you are most powerful and enduing success.”

“We may be able to buy a person’s back with a paycheck, position, power or fear but a human being’s genius, passion, loyalty and tenacious creativity are volunteered only. The world’s greatest problems will be solved by passionate unleashed “Volunteers”.