Turn the Ship Around!: A True Story of Turning Followers into Leaders

This book is a great lesson in leadership. Necessity is the mother of all inventions and that is clear in David Marquet's origin story for Intent Leadership.

"One of the things that limit our learning is our belief that we already know something"

"Provide your people with the objective and let them figure out the method"

"What can you do in your organization to add “a little rudder far from the rocks” to prevent needing “a lot of rudder next to the rocks”?"

The book takes you on a journey with David as he was planning to take command of a submarine called Olympia and then with two weeks’ notice, he was told that he is not going to command the Olympia but rather a completely different submarine called Santa Fe. It isn't just that it was a different boat, but most of the systems were different, and he was expected to KNOW what to do. We can all sympathize with being told that something you planned for was not going to happen and throwing us a curve ball, expecting us to deal with it. In David's case, the lives of the crew were in his hands, and a bad order or mistake could kill them all. Working with his executive officers, they came up with the INTENT-based leadership model, which would change how things were done. Instead of giving an order and the team member doing whatever was said, they pushed the responsibility to the crew. They knew what needed to be done. There was still a chain of command. But, instead of giving orders, the crew members would report their intent. 'sir, I intend to surface the ship,' and the captain would acknowledge. This mental shift was empowering to the highly trained team.

Below is a short video that explains the concept.