Leadership is Language Re-read Saturday, Week 9 Chapter 8: The Enabling Play: Connect

This Chapter of  Leadership is Language: The Hidden Power of What You Say – and What You Don’t begins with the story of the Deepwater Horizon disaster. The disaster may have been avoided if a single button had been pushed. The button went unpushed until too late because the person did not have permission. Marquet states  “How is it that a person could be more afraid of pushing a button without permission, than dying in a fiery explosion?” Hierarchy above all is a power play from the Industrial Age, a play that remains entrenched in corporate life. Fear supported by steep hierarchies, distorts common sense in environments with a strong culture of control and compliance. 

 

Leadership is Language Re-read Saturday, Week 8 Chapter 7: Completing the Cycle: Improve

The improve play is one of the most powerful aspects of Marquet’s suggested framework. Improve is chapter 7 of Leadership is Language: The Hidden Power of What You Say – and What You Don’t. Improve is a time for stepping back from the pressure of getting stuff done to consider whether you are doing the right thing, right. We have spoken about the need to pause, reflect, and replan periodically – this is the heart of the Improve play. The author states:

“Improvement — which comes from egoless scrutiny of past actions, and deep reflective thinking about what could be better — is the core purpose of bluework, which is meant to improve redwork.”

The term egoless is important and easily overlooked. Forgetting that phrase is where things often go wrong. 

 

Leadership is Language Re-read Saturday, Week 7, Chapter 6: The End of Redwork

The first of the 12 Principles in the Agile Manifesto is:

“Our highest priority is to satisfy the customer through the early and continuous delivery of valuable software.”  

Couple that with principle number three:

“Deliver working software frequently, from a couple of weeks to a couple of months, with a preference for the shorter timescale.”

These two principles foreshadow Marquet’s concept of “Complete” which is the next chapter in Leadership is Language: The Hidden Power of What You Say – and What You Don’t. This concept suggests breaking goals into smaller chunks with pauses to think and replan between each. This is a different way to describe iterations or sprints. As an agile coach, I counsel teams and leaders on the idea of getting something useable into the requesters’ hands every sprint. This is a core idea in agile, and 20 years into the agile revolution isn’t strange or radical. But it still is hard to implement, waterfall delivery concepts are hard to destroy. I find Marquet’s explanation of the idea of Complete is useful for explaining the rationale for incremental delivery models. 

 

SPaMCAST 778 – Charting A New Odyssey, A Conversation With Bill Fox

The Software Process and Measurement Cast 778 marks our return from Iceland.  WICKED trip, great country, great people!  We return with our interview with Bill Fox. Bill and I discussed his new book, Charting A New Odyssey, transformation, dialog, listening, and leadership. The many conversations Bill and I have had over the years leave me in a better place.

Bill states, “I believe that the great leaders and companies in the 21st century will go on a Forward Thinking journey and be built from the inside out.’

The world has shifted, and new rules apply. It used to be that you would win by managing change, following best practices, working harder, or even smarter. It was the age of Industrial Thinking and people as profit-producing units.

 

Leadership is Language Re-read Saturday, Week 6, Chapter 5, Leaving Bluework Behind: Commit

Chapter 5 of Leadership is Language: The Hidden Power of What You Say – and What You Don’t is titled, Leaving Bluework Behind: Commit. Whether you classify thinking as System Two thinking or bluework, at some point you have to cross the barrier from contemplation to doing. Chapter Five focuses on reducing the barrier between thinking and action.  The process that bridges that barrier is commitment. The author begins the chapter by making the distinction between commitment and coercion. 

 

Leadership is Language Re-read Saturday, Week 5, Chapter 4, Into the Bluework – Collaborate

Chapter 4 of L. David Marquet’s book, Leadership is Language: The Hidden Power of What You Say – and What You Don’t is titled Into the Bluework: Collaborate. A simple definition of collaboration is working with a group to generate an outcome. The dark side of collaboration is coercion. Collaboration with social pressure or with a power imbalance is not collaboration. It is the same as telling people what to do. Last week I listened to the manager state at the beginning of a meeting, “I need to convince you to work this weekend, let’s collaborate.” There was not a lot of discussion and I was glad most microphones and cameras were off. Regardless of the words this was a leader seeking validation for their actions. Marquet states that the solution is to let the followers be the deciders. 

 

Leadership is Language Re-read Saturday, Week 4, Chapter 3, Exiting Redwork – Control the Clock

Control The Clock is the first play in the new playbook, replacing Obey The Clock. Chapter 3 of L. David Marquet’s book, Leadership is Language: The Hidden Power of What You Say – and What You Don’t opens with the story of a disastrous Academy Awards program; the show where the presenter announced that La La Land was the winner of Best Picture. It wasn’t! While there were many contributing factors to the embarrassing episode, the probable root cause was the perceived need to hit the program time marks. The presenters let the clock cloud their vision. They were in performance mode: redwork. They let the clock control them rather than letting their mind control their actions. 

 

Leadership is Language Re-read Saturday, Week 3, Chapter 2, The New Playbook

Chapter 2 of L. David Marquet’s book, Leadership is Language: The Hidden Power of What You Say – and What You Don’t continues to make the case for changing how people work. In the knowledge economy, we need a different perspective than in the industrial age. Chapter 2, while drawing on the story of the El Faro, makes the case in a more general sense. The chapter ends by listing the six plays in the new playbook.

 

Leadership is Language Re-read Saturday, Week 2, Chapter One, El Faro

After reading Chapter One of  L. David Marquet’s book, Leadership is Language: The Hidden Power of What You Say – and What You Don’t for the first time I wanted to scream. I wasn’t mollified much after watching a video from the National Transportation Safety Board  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=66bvIgfHwYU. While very few of us will take part in a shipping accident, the same basic problems show up in organizations. The use of the El Faro is an apt central metaphor for bad management in a book on leadership.

In the Introduction, Marquet introduces the concept of a leadership playbook. Leadership is Language intends to deliver a new leadership playbook. The author uses the El Faro disaster to highlight five plays in the industrial-age leadership playbook. 

 

SPaMCAST 772 – New Engineering Managers, Don’t Be A Victim, A Conversation With Ahmed Wasfy

The Software Process and Measurement Cast 772 features our interview with Ahmed Wasfy. We discuss the role of the engineering manager and how people learn to be engineering managers. Coming to grips with the new role requires learning new skills not just rehashed technical skills. Ahmed, advises new leaders to take control of their careers and not to be a victim.

Ahmed is an experienced engineering leader, having led teams at Microsoft, Amazon, and Google. In addition to his day job, Ahmed also helps engineering managers become effective leaders through his coaching.

Links

Instagram: https://instagram.com/a1wasfy

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/awasfy/

Website: https://www.thethrivingem.com/