Turn the Ship Around! By L. David Marquet Re-read Saturday Week 14, Part IV and Chapter 21, Under Way for Deployment

In week 14 of our re-read of L. David Marquet’s Turn the Ship Around!  we begin Part IV of Turn The Ship Around and tackle chapter 21. The first three parts of the book bring the story to the beginning of deployment of the Santa Fe, Part iV picks up from there.

Part I – Starting Over – This section profile why Marquet is frustrated with leader-follower model of leadership.

Part II – Control – This section profiles the change and command and begins to layout Marquet’s vision of a leader – leader model of leadership. This section delivers mechanisms for control in a leader – leader model.

Part III – Competence – This section builds on the story of how the Santa Fe prepares for deployment and Marquet lays out mechanisms for building technical competence, the second leg of his leader-leader model.

Part IV – Clarity – This section completes the leader – leader model, focusing on the third leg of the leader – leader model, clarity.

Clarity means that people at all levels of the organization understand the nuances of what the organization is about. I have recently changed job and have gone through a few weeks of difficult product training. At first, I bridled at not diving into the day-to-day activities of my coaching. Re-reading this section is a reminder that developing an understanding of the organization’s values by translating them into behaviors and product will pay huge dividends in the long run by pushing decision making down the chain of command.

Chapter 21: Under Way for Deployment

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Turn the Ship Around! By L. David Marquet Re-read Saturday Week 12, Chapters 18 – 19, Underway For San Diego and All Present And Accounted For

This week we tackle chapters 18 and 19 of L. David Marquet’s Turn the Ship Around! (have you bought your copy?). The two chapters are Underway For San Diego and All Present And Accounted For. The mechanisms in these two chapters focus on building competence.

Chapter 18: Underway For San Diego

 

Turn the Ship Around! By L. David Marquet Re-read Saturday Week 11, Chapters 16 – 17, Mistakes Just Happen and We Learn

Part III: Competence

One of the two pillars that support Marquet’s concept of control is confidence. Confidence requires people to be technically competent to make the decision effectively. While this sounds pretty obvious, the classic leader-follower leverages the premise that followers do not have the competence needed to make decisions. Part III focuses on the mechanisms Marquet used to establish and strengthen technical competence.

Chapter 16: Mistakes Just Happen

 

Micromanagement: Break The Cycle!

At least 99% of the time, micromanagement is bad. It would be nice if we could wave a magic wand and break the cycle of micromanagement. It would be equally as nice if just recognizing that you were a micromanager was enough to change the behavior. While knowing is part of the battle, micromanagement is an addiction that requires effort to stop. There are several steps I have found useful that can be taken to breaking the addiction of micromanagement. 

 

Are You A Micromanager? (I Won’t Tell)

Sometimes . . .

Micromanagement is a type of authoritarian leadership. In general, this form of leadership is harmful because the manager exerts excessive control and/or pays excessive attention to details. The subordinates of micromanagers have little to no freedom of thought or action. This form of management is stark and easy to recognize from the outside. However, it is often difficult to recognize in ourselves. There are several useful questions to alert a manager to the possibility that they are a micromanager.

 

Observations on the Definition of Micromanagement

Save Our Ship or maybe Save Our Team

Micromanagement is a type of authoritarian leadership. Merriam-Webster defines micromanagement “as managing with excessive control or attention to details.” In general, this form of leadership is harmful. In a software or business environment, a micromanager closely controls the work of their subordinates. Closely observing how work is being done and providing explicit feedback to change the subordinate’s behavior to meet expectations generates control. The subordinate has little to no freedom of thought or action. While this might (and I stress might), be an acceptable leadership style when disarming a nuclear weapon, it DOES NOT make sense in the business environment. If it were rare, we could constrain the discussion to footnotes, yet this form of leadership is not rare.

 

SPaMCAST 494 – Alan Mallory, The Family that Conquered Everest

http://www.spamcast.net

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SPaMCAST 494 features our interview with Alan Mallory.  We discussed his book The Family That Conquered Everest (https://amzn.to/2Iiz3Tc).  The book provides strong lessons on leadership and teamwork in an environment where failure can lead to death or worse!  Danger, mountaineering, and leadership in a single interview; a first for the Software Process and Measurement Cast.

Alan’s Bio

Alan Mallory is an international speaker, author and performance coach who is passionate about leadership and human performance. A graduate from Queen’s University, he has worked internationally with large organizations as a professional engineer and project manager. Living and working abroad has given Alan the opportunity to deepen his understanding of individual and team challenges, better appreciate cultural diversity and successfully adapt to different organizational structures. Through his work and life experiences, he has discovered that his true passion is helping people reach new heights by cultivating effective ways of thinking and taking action. Building experience through a lifestyle of adventure and challenge, in the spring of 2008 Alan embarked on the journey of a lifetime: to attempt to reach the summit of Mount Everest. Along with three members of his immediate family, Alan climbed through some of the most challenging yet exciting conditions imaginable and set a world record when all four of them set foot on the summit. The expedition involved two years of planning and two months of climbing through immense challenges but they were able to overcome these obstacles through strategic planning, healthy team dynamics, self-awareness and perseverance. Alan delivers a number of exciting presentations and training programs designed to help individuals, team members and organizations reach new heights in the way we think and the actions we take in order to achieve breakthrough performance. For more information, visit www.alanmallory.com.

Contact
Phone: 647-388-4044

Email: alan@alanmallory.com

Web: alanmallory.com

Re-Read Saturday News

In week nine of the re-read of L. David Marquet’s Turn the Ship Around! we discuss chapters 12 and 13, titled Up Scope! and ”A New Ship”.

Current Installment:

Week 9: Up Scope! and ”A New Ship” – https://bit.ly/2KfDZbS