“Language of Leadership” by L David Marquet

  • Industrial Age language
    • Continue
    • Escalation of commitment
    • Coercion
  • We tend to focus on other people’s behavior instead of changing our own
    • “Feel free to speak up” vs “I am listening to your suggestions”
  • Emotions are needed to make decisions
  • “Discuss then vote” creates poorer results where voting first gives better results
    • Couples tend to estimate household contributions that total to 130%
  • In manufacturing, we strive to reduce variation
  • We need to shift between “thinking” and “doing” modes
  • “How sure are you?” is better than “Are you sure?”
  • White collar work is about thinking
  • Blue collar workers are not supposed to think
  • Added stress reduces an ability to learn
  • Control the clock instead of obeying the clock
  • Scheduled check-ins lets the team fully focus on delivery
  • “How likely is it to work?”
  • Inputs don’t need to be binary even if the decision is
  • “How does that align with our objective?
  • Descriptions tap a different part of the brain than emotions
  • Invite descent
  • Give information rather than direction
  • Consider having senior people do the evaluation with junior people making the decision
  • Immediate, positive, and certain outcomes are most important
  • Antecedent behaviors are not important
  • Scheduled check-ins lets the team fully focus on delivery
  • Celebrate with, not for (“I see…”, “I noticed…”, “It looks like…” not “I’m proud of you…”)
  • Improvement should be a stairway, not a ramp
    • Specify the exit from Red work before starting it
    • Hold off on updates or changes until after the celebration
  • Red work should be learning work
  • Self-determination theory
  • Phrase to focus on next time or handing to someone else
  • Pilots crash more often than co-pilots because people are more scared to suggestion corrections to them