Leadership is language

The Hidden Power of What You Say and What You Don't

Pitch

Few of us realize that our language in the workplace inhibits creative problem-solving and escalates uncertainty and stress. In both high-pressure situations and everyday scenarios, in each meeting and email, we have the opportunity to empower our colleagues by using the right words.

In Leadership is Language, Former US navy captain David Marquet expands on his bestselling leadership book Turn the Ship Around! and shows managers and leaders the next step in their development: how to enable their team through communication.

Marquet outlines a set of principles and tools that help leaders inspire their people to take responsibility and address challenges without waiting to be told what to do, highlighting how small changes in language can lead to dramatic changes in a team's success and happiness.

Source : https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/42774083-leadership-is-language

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Notes

Santa Fé

• A system over which had little control

  • What we could control

  • How we talked to each other

    • Starting with me

Changing the way we communicated, changed the culture

• Changing ours words changed our world

  • Replaced

    • Reactive language

      • Convince, coerce, comply, conform

      • WITH Proactive language of intent & commitment to action

    • A language of "prove & perform"

      • With a language of "Improve & learn"

    • A language of invulnerability & certainty

      • With a language of vulnerability & curiosity

Sink of El Faro

• Used an old playbook

• A real danger to use old thinking in new situations

• Language of the captain

  • Binary affirmations

    • "You know what I'm saying"

    • "It's going to be between these 2, right ?"

  • Justifying decision

    • "Should work out OK"

  • No vulnerability displayed

    • Emotions are necessary for decision-making

• They were programmed for

  • Obeyed the clock when they should have controlled the clock

  • The captain coerced the crew into compliance instead of collaboration

  • The crew complied instead of having made their own commitment

  • They continued to follow a monolithic plan instead of having completed 1 section at a time

  • They were in prove mode instead of improve mode

  • They conformed to their roles instead of connected with each other

The new playbook

• 6 new leadership principles :

  • Control the clock instead of obeying the clock

  • Collaborate instead of coercing

  • Commitment rather than compliance

  • Complete defined goals instead of continuing work indefinitely

  • Improve outcomes rather than prove ability

  • Connect with people instead of conforming to your role

• Diverge first

  • Allow each member to make his/her guess before being influenced

  • Greatest possible diversity of thought

  • WISDOM OF THE CROWD

• 2 different kind of work

  • Decision-making (Thinking)

    • Bluework

      • "How do you see it ?"

      • "What can we do better ?"

  • Execution (Doing)

    • Redwork

      • "Get it done!"

      • "Make it happen"

We are all both Redworkers and Blueworkers

Differences between Redwork & Bluework

The problem is that the language we use is only about doing, not thinking

1) Control the clock : exiting redwork

• Bluework allows us to adapt

  • But you have no chance to do bluework if you don't control the clock

1) Make a pause possible

• Instead of preempting one

• Invite a pause

  • Examples : score 1 to 5

    • "We need to make quota today": 1

    • "I'll be coming by at twelve to check on you" : 3

    • "I'm a bit nervous about the storm. we are going to start work, but we will revisit this decision at twelve" : 5

2) Give the pause a name

• "Time-out"

• "Hands-off"

• Raise a hand

• ...

3) Call a pause

• Instead of pressing on with redwork

4) Preplan the next pause

• Instead of relying on someone to signal 1

• Metacognition

  • Thinking about our thinking

• By preplanning next pause

  • Knowing that a pause is coming allows teams to focus 100 percent on the work

  • Allow leaders to resist the trap of becoming "good idea fairies"

"If you are on the team and see something unexpected, it's your responsibility to call a pause"

Attention points

• Team in redwork want to continue in redwork

• The team relies on the leader either to preplan the length of redwork and the moment to exit it

2) Collaborate : into the bluework

Let the doers be the deciders -> move from coercion to collaboration

1) Vote first, Then discuss

• Conduct anonymous blind electronic polling

• Ask probabilistic questions instead of binary ones

• Use probability cards

  • "How strongly do you believe we should launch on time?"

    • 1 : totally disagree

    • 99 : totally agree

• Use dot voting

• Use fist to five voting

2) Be curious, not compelling

• Seek first to understand, Then to be understood

  • LEADERS SPEAK LAST

• Ask better questions

Instead of	Try
Question stacking	One and done
Teaching moment	A learning moment
Dirty question	Clean one`
Binary questions	Start with what / how
Self-affirming	Self-education
Jumping into the future	Start with present, past then future

"Before I tell you what I think we should do, what would you do if I weren't there

3) Invite dissent rather than drive consensus

Use dissent cards

• In a ratio of five to one if you have a red card

  • You have to dissent

  • The card makes it safe and necessary to do so

• Fear in many organizations

  • Dissent = disharmony

    • Is to be avoided

  • In organizations that practice dissent

    • Where people are dissenting with the best interests fo the organization

    • And where people respond to dissenters with curiosity

    • Dissent creates a sense of excitement and energy

• Instead of arguing with dissenter

  • And explaining why he is wrong

  • Ask curious questions

    • "What's behind what you are saying ?"

    • "Can you tell us more about that ?"

• Invite for dissent

  • "Paul you've presented your case. I'd like to invite someone to challenge that position"

4) Give information, not instructions

From "Park there" to "I see a parking spot there"

A leader's obligation is to listen to the dissenters

3) Commit

1) Commit to learn, Not (just) Do

Develop hypothesis to test rather than making decisions to execute

2) Commit actions, not beliefs

Once the decision is made don't try to convince dissenters

3) Chunk it small but do it all

• Separate the decision-maker from the decision evaluator :

  • Junior as the decision-maker

  • Senior as the decision-evaluator

4) Complete : the end of Redwork

• Completion mark the end of a period of redwork

  • It means thinking of work in terms of smaller chunks of production work (redwork)

• It serves to proactively control the clock

  • Exiting us from redwork Launching us into bluework

1) Chunk work for frequent completes early (Few completes late)

At the beginning of a project : shorter redwork periods and more frequent bluework periods to bias toward learning and improving

• Completes invites Celebrate

  • Complete is an interruption to redwork

• The cost of managing by metrics

  • Workers seek to meet only the minimum requirements

2) Celebrate with, NOT For

• Celebrating For :

  • Usual sentences :

    • "Good job"

    • "I m so proud of you"

  • Here :

    • Setting myself up as the judge

    • Transference of the reward to us rather than leaving it with the person

To celebrate with (not for)

Don't	But
Evaluate	Observe
Judge	Observe
Praise	Prize

"I saw that the proposal went out yesterday. Thank you. That will allow the client to look at it before the weekend"

Use Descriptive statements

It can start with "I see", I" noticed", "It looks like"

3) Focus on behavior, not characteristics

Be conscious about how even positive feedback can have negative consequences it delivered improperly

4) Focus on Journey, Not destination

• Invite people to tell their story

  • "Tell me what key decisions you needed to make"

  • "Tell me more about..."

• We need to hear the story behind the achievement

5) Improve : completing the cycle

• Aim for discontinuous improvement

  • Improvement process (aka learning process) is a stairway not a ramp

• "Be good" self vs "Get better" self

  • Be good

    • Wants to feel

      • Competent

      • Effective

      • Credible

    • "I didn't anything wrong"

    • "I would do it the same next time"

    • "I've been doing this a long time"

  • Get better

    • "What could we do differently ?"

"Employees with the autonomy to decide how to go about solving problems and achieving goals innovate"

1) Forward, Not Backward

"What do we want to do differently next time ?"

2) Outward, not inward

• Focusing on others instead of oneself

  • "What could we do better serve our customers ?"

3) Process, not people

"How could this be done better ?"

4) Achieve excellence, Not avoid errors

Improve pits the "get better" self against the "be good"

6) Connect : enabling play

• Play is about caring

  • What people think

  • Caring how they feel

  • Caring for their personal goals

1) Flatten the power gradient

• Power Gradient : The amount of social distance there is between one person and another

• Examples : Meeting doesn't start until the most senior person shows up

• Censoring of information is directly proportionate to it

• From

  • "I've been doing this longer than you"

  • "Im the boss here"

• To

  • "We need to decide about this"

  • "Your opinion matters here"

2) Admit you don't know

• It's hard to connect with a Know-it-all

• If a boss says "I don't know..."

  • It allows junior to say

    • "I know..."

    • "How about this...?"

3) Be vulnerable

• It reduces Power gradient

  • "How is everyone feeling about this ?"

    • "I think I m moving away from excited toward worried"

4) Trust first

• Your trust in people will affect their behavior

  • They will work harder

  • Stay longer

  • Unlock more discretionary effort

Never underestimate the power of fear to distort common sense in environments with a strong culture of control and compliance

"Cheat sheet"

• 2 different work modes

  • Redwork : active production

    • Mindset : prove

  • Bluework

    • Mindset : improve

• Within these 2 modes :

  • Starting in redwork...

  • Transition from redwork to bluework with

    • CONTROL THE CLOCK, not obey the clock

    • COMPLETE not continue

  • While in bluework

    • COLLABORATE, not coerce with the goal to : IMPROVE, not prove

  • Transition from blue work back to redwork with : COMMIT not comply

    • And use the enabling play CONNECT not conform