📖 Leadership is Language in 50 drawings
A visual walkthrough L. David Marquet playbook for successful team management. (part 1/2)
Hello & happy holidays for those of you who are in between Christmas and the end of the year celebration!
Below is a visual summary of an incredible book: “ Leadership is Language”, it will help you use better words for collaboration and leadership, but also generally how to create a better environment for success in any team.
If you know someone who loved this book, or would enjoy discovering it, sharing is caring 😊!
Foreword
Leaders may feel the pressure to be “know-it-all”, the book will covers how they can stop pretending having all the answers and encourage their team to take decisions and feel more ownership.
Introduction
Chapter 1 - Losing El Faro
In chapter 1 we get an heartbreaking cautionary tale on the consequences of using the wrong type of language and culture.
”El Faro” a container ship, sank in a storm for completely avoidable reasons. They had multiple opportunities to avoid the hurricane, but the captain’s words, prevented his team to share their concerns:
-“We are good.”
- “We will have to tough this one out..”
etc… He was more worried by obeying the clock (taking the fastest path), than listening to his team.
Chapter 2 - The New Playbook
Embrace vs reduce variability
I used the symbol sigma in the drawing which represents a « standard deviation » in statistic, and also used to define quality standards in manufacturing.
While reducing variability makes sense in a product, when dealing with humans your language should be able to encourage different opinions & ideas to be heard.
For example: « Yes/No » questions can be replaced by « How » type of questions that allows to diverge and share more personal answers.
Redwork vs Bluework
We inherited from the Industrial Age the tendency to divide the thinkers and doers, however this is no longer relevant in most jobs of today.
Each of us regardless of our title / place in the hierarchy, need take part of both type of work:
Redwork (focused on getting it done)
Bluework (focused on thinking / variability)
We need to be able to identify, and switch between the two, especially in our language.
The Rythm between Redwork-Bluework
Properly alternating the two work types is essential,
It is similar to open water swimming, where you need to regularly switch between swimming fast and looking ahead to make sure you are still on the right path.
The brain response to stress and motivation
Stress triggers our reptilian brain, and pushes toward two different attitudes:
Prove and Perform:
Example “I did it!” - “We need to show we can perform” etc… This mindset is ok if we do Redwork (no thinking involved).
Protect mindset:
Example “It wasn’t me”- “We did the best we could with the time we had” etc… That mindset is not really helpful for anything.
But there is a third mindset!
Improve mindset which is best for Bluework (thinking) but cannot stand stress.
Chapter 3 - Control the Clock
Obeying the clock can lead you to a dangerous paths.
Make a Pause possible
The author takes the example of a team working on a construction site, with a pressure to meet a project deadline, but also faced with an uncertain weather planned to deteriorate.
Obeying the clock
An example of “obeying the clock”:
After proud announcements, the Boeing 787 was constantly getting delayed and each new announcements of a deadline seemed to push the teams more toward the Prove or Protect mindset (previously seen), which makes it hard to speak up and share concerns from the team.
Give the pause a name
To make sure a team feel comfortable raising potential problems, you can give the act of pausing a name.
Pausing should also become second nature, so be practiced, and leaders need to make sure to show appreciation when it is used.
Preplan the next pause
Being deep into Redwork (getting thing done) makes it hard to even see the necessity of a pause, attentive leaders may notice it sometimes, but the best is to have it planned upfront. An example of that is the agile method that works with sprints (redwork) that end with a retrospective & planning (pause/bluework)
Chapter 4 - Collaborate
Leaders have the tendency to use every tool in their arsenal to get their teams on board with their decision, but this is COERCION rather than COLLABORATION, as it prevent diverging ideas to emerge from the team. In this chapter some techniques will be shared to help a real collaborative work.
Vote first, then discuss
Starting with an opinion, especially as a leader, will influence the team and prevent it to feel comfortable sharing their true thoughts.
A simple way to avoid that pitfall is to vote first!
Many different ways of voting exist, depending on the level of trust, and the question being asked.
A general advice from the book is to use whenever possible “How” questions, and probabilistic answers (Example: How likely are we to deliver on time?)
Tools:
Anonymous voting: Voting anonymously is needed in case of a lack of psychological safety in the team.
Fist-to-five: A visual vote with 0 to 5 scale using your hands (instead of a yes / no binary answer)
Probability cards: Cards with numbers from 1 to 99 to ask the perceived probability of something. Useful when you need to ask “Are you sure? / how likely…”,
Dot voting: Handy whenever multiple options are possible, each team member put a dot on his preferred option.
Be curious, not compelling
By default we may be tempted to try to impose our opinion, but the approach proposed in the book is to force ourselves into a curious mindset.
Example of techniques:
Having the leader speak last
Separate into groups
Being given the task to defend the opposing view
Of course the main ingredient is to truly listen.
The 7 sins of questioning
As we try to approach others with a curious mind, it is important to learn how to ask good questions (or avoid bad ones)
1. Questions staking - Ask one question at a time rather than a multitude at once.
2. Leading questions - Ask to learn not to teach.
3. ”Why” questions - Ask “How” or “What”, “Why” is more easily taken defensively
4. Dirty questions - Ask without integrating your bias in the question
5. Binary questions - again Ask “How” and “What” instead of “yes or no”
6. Self-affirming questions - Avoid asking questions that try to get your wishes confirmed
7. Aggressive questions - Here aggressive is not referring to the tone of the question, but rather as a question that the team is not yet prepared to answer. You may instead start with questions asking to describe factually the past, then move to the present situation, before asking about the future.
Inviting dissent
In this chapter of the book, the author L. David Marquet make the case for purposefully inviting dissent into the conversation. An opinion shared by a group makes it hard for somebody disagreeing to raise his voice, fearing to break the group harmony.
Leaders can try to notice the silent people and invite them to share a different perspective to help the group be closer to the reality, or even find novel ideas.
Some tool like « dissent » cards can make it easier to voice different opinion, the group receive each a card and if your card is a « dissent » card you have to oppose the group’s idea.
Give information not instructions
Instead of giving orders:
“Park here”
“Be back at 10:00”
You can try to give information:
“There is a parking spot available on your right”
“I will restart the workshop at 10:00”
Giving information empower the receiver to choose their own action (and also better understand their potential consequences).
Establish the right Hypothesis
Collaboration needs to lead to a decision, however that decision could be an hypothesis that needs to be tested.
In this way the team can commit to the work to do, but gather facts and evidences to confirm (or not) the validity of the hypothesis it was based on.
And that is it for today! I will share next week the part 2, with the rest of the 50 drawings to conclude our visual walkthrough of the book!
If you enjoyed it, or have some feedback, don’t hesitate to let me know in the comments!
Part 2 is here, you can find it here: https://open.substack.com/pub/ludtoussaint/p/leadership-is-language-in-50-drawings-a64