Leadership Is Language: The Hidden Power of What You Say--and What You Don't

by L. David Marquet

The root cause of this is the separation of roles into redworkers and blueworkers. The solution can be summed up as follows: let the doers be the deciders.

when leaders attempt to collaborate with their teams to make decisions, they often end up skipping the divergent part (“What does everyone think?”) and jumping straight to the convergent part (“Here’s what I think. Does everyone agree?”).

Here’s what we don’t want as a decision-making model: the boss decides and seeks validation from the group.

We judge ourselves by our intentions, but we judge others by their behavior. If we fall short, we come up with external reasons to explain what prevented us from acting in a way that is consistent with how we think of ourselves. When others fall short, we tend to blame them as people and discount the environmental barriers that might have been in the way.

For me, it’s good enough that I wanted to help but couldn’t, but I have no sense of the other person’s desire to help. I only see the behavior of not helping. Then I judge.

bias gets in the way of collaboration because collaboration is based on the belief that othe...

TO MOVE FROM COERCION TO COLLABORATION Vote first, then discuss. Be curious, not compelling. Invite dissent rather than drive consensus. Give information, not instructions.

Ask probabilistic questions instead of binary ones. Instead of the binary “Is it safe?” or “Will it work?” ask “How safe is it?” or “How likely is it to work?” The idea is to invite thinking that considers future events as a range of possibilities, not as will-happen or won’t-happen choices. This means starting the question with the word “how.” We like practicing this with most questions about feelings, assessments, and even descriptions. For example, instead of “Did you like the movie?” or “Do you speak Spanish?” consider “How much did you like the movie?” or “How well do you speak Spanish?” Encouraging others to respond on a scale rather than with a simple yes or no allows you to bring more nuance and information into the discussion.

Questions I like to ask the outliers are “What do you see that we don’t?” or “What is behind that vote?”

When psychological safety is middle to low, it is sometimes better to ask the group to rationalize each outlier’s position. This has the benefit of not putting outliers on the spot and exercises our ability to view things from another’s perspective. If outliers know they will be put on the spot, it will reduce the tendency of people to take outlying positions.

Keep in mind, the people who vote do not know they will be the outliers until the votes are revealed. They might need a moment to reflect on this before they are ready to explain what they see and what they know. Additionally, if every time they vote a 1 or 99 they get “called out,” people will eventually stop voting that way. It’s only by being truly curious about the outliers’ observations or information and making it safe for them to speak that we will continue to get good variability of expression.

“What might be behind a vote like this?” “Let’s come up with some reasons why this might be right.” “What could explain this vote?” “What does a person who voted this way see that we don’t?”

differently than you, your next play is to be curious about what they see that you don’t see and what they think that you don’t think. The programmed Industrial Age response is for people to defend their own positions. There is a time and place for that, but the overriding mindset of the leader should be one of curiosity.

Using this exercise, we often see groups come to an agreement or compromise without needing the boss to act as a decision-maker. This is because it trains your brain to think considerately about ideas other than your own—and opens your perspective on what the situation might actually be.

Instead, have a learning moment for yourself. Ask questions that assume the other person might be right, not you. An easy start is the neutral, “Tell me about that.” Temporarily set aside judgment, and then be curious about what they see that you don’t see and what they think that you don’t think. Since it is temporary, you can immerse yourself in that belief, and when it is over, you do not need to agree with them or approve the action.

Another approach is to start the question with “how.” Ask, “How would that work?” or “How does that align with our objectives?” This is the “inquisitive how.” The inquisitive how sounds like “How does ____ affect ____?” or “How do you see that?”

it’s best to reserve judgment and simply say, “Tell me more about that.” Another option is to ask, “What is behind your decision?” or “How do you see the issue?”

Here’s an example: Let’s say a colleague has expressed frustration with another colleague and said that they are at a dead end when it comes to getting the other person to complete work that a project depends upon. You ask, “Do you have the courage to stand up to them?” That is a dirty question.

A clean question would eliminate those biases and would sound like this: “What do you mean by dead end?” or “What do you want to have happen?” The structure of the clean question is designed to remove your biases and preconceptions.

Instead, start your question with “what” or “how.” This makes it impossible to ask a binary question. For example: “How safe is it?” or “How ready are we to launch?” “What” versions of the question might sound like “What might go wrong?” or “What do we need before we’re ready to launch?”

SEVEN WAYS TO ASK BETTER QUESTIONS Instead of question stacking, try one and done. Instead of a teaching moment, try a learning moment. Instead of a dirty question, try a clean question. Instead of a binary question, start the question with “what” or “how.” Instead of a “why” question, try “tell me more.” Instead of self-affirming questions, try self-educating questions. Instead of jumping to the future, start with present, past, then future.

I saw the amazing power of dissent in an exercise I was running with a group of executives in China. Forty executives, all men, were sitting at four tables of ten. After watching a short video, their task was to determine, as a table group, how many sails an old-fashioned sailing ship in the video had up. They had two minutes. I observed the tables. Not knowing the language, I focused on who spoke in what order and the body language. The tables were close together, but I did not observe any cross talk between tables. When it was time to share their answers, an executive from the first table stood up, gave a nice speech about having a “harmonious conversation,” during which everyone’s voice was heard, and asserted that there were five sails.

At each of the next three tables, an executive stood up, gave a variation of the same speech, and said the exact same number, five. The answer was eight sails. Every table had it wrong. We then passed out the dissent cards—two reds and eight blacks to every table—and had them repeat the exercise. The people with the red cards had to dissent from the group. And here’s the key: I did not show them the video again, so they could not revise their answer by looking more closely. The only new information they had was that their previous answer, five, was wrong. After two minutes, it was time to share their results. This time there was no speech, but the answers were seven, eight, seven, eight. I could not believe it. By introducing nothing but a dissenter, we got the groups much closer to the truth, to reality. The point is that we do not want a “harmonious conversation.” What we want is an accurate picture of reality. Harmonious and wrong means out of business or dead people. Harmonious means thirty-three dead on El Faro, seven dead on the space shuttle Challenger.

The fear is that dissent equals disharmony and is to be avoided. But in organizations that practice dissent, where people are dissenting with the best interests of the organization in mind, and where people respond to the dis...

Dissent creates...

of excitement and energy—a leaning forward, a rubbing-the-hands-together feeling of “This could be the start of...

Instead of arguing with the dissenter and explaining why that person is wrong, members of the group should ask curious questions. These curious questions sound like this: “What’s behind what you are saying?” “Can you tell us more about that?” “What are you seeing that leads you to believe that?

Leaders, your job during any meeting is to scan the room and pay close attention to those who remain quiet. These people will often hold differing opinions that they don’t feel comfortable voicing. Leadership at moments like these sounds like this:

“Liz, I notice you haven’t said anything. How do you see things differently from the rest of us?” If Liz seems particularly uncomfortable speaking in front of the group, you invite her to speak after the meeting. “Paul, you’ve presented your case. I’d like to invite someone to challenge that position.” “We seem to be coalescing on the view that we should do this. Now I’d like to flip it and assume it’s actually a bad thing. What would be the case for that?”

In other words, if you are running your meeting properly and divergent thinking still isn’t happening, your responsibility as a leader is to go looking for it. An absence of dissent is never a guarantee that you’re on the right track. Your confidence in a decision should di...

there is no obligation to stop action or give dissenters what they want. This would give too much power to dissenters to derail action. There will almost always be people who see things differently and don’t like a particular decision. That’s fine, and actually a good thing. There is no need to convince these people they are “wrong” if a decision does not go their way. All we need is that the team members support the decision with their actions and behaviors.

With coercion, the best we can hope for is compliance. With compliance, we get effort, but not discretionary effort. The output of collaboration, however, is a commitment to move forward. This commitment signals the end of bluework (embracing variability), and the start of redwork (reducing variability).

TO MOVE FROM COERCE TO COLLABORATE Vote first, then discuss. Be curious, not compelling. Invite dissent rather than drive consensus. Give information, not instructions.

Industrial Age organizations assigned deciding and doing to two groups of people: blueworkers and redworkers. Blueworkers (management) needed to get the redworkers to follow the decisions the blueworkers decided for them. Blueworkers achieved this through coercion.

For collaboration, we need to let the doers be the deciders. There is still bluework and redwork, but there are no blueworkers and no redworkers.

Collaboration requires us to share ideas, be vulnerable, and respect the ideas of others. Collaboration happens through the questions we ask and requires that we admit we don’t have the whole picture. Deep down, we need to believe others can contribute to our thinking and understanding of the world. With collaboration, we ask questions starting with “what” and “how.” We invite dissent. We practice being curious before being compelling. The leader’s obligation is to listen to the dissenters, not to stall decisions until each is convinced of the new direction. Always stopping action because of dissent gives too much power to dissenters. It will invite blockers, inhibit bold decision-making, and delay action.

Commitment comes from within, whereas compliance is forced by an external source. Commitment is more powerful, because it is an intrinsic motivator. Commitment invites full participation, engagement, and discretionary effort. Compliance invites doing just enough to get by, get through, or get it done.

Turns out that telling yourself you don’t eat sweets is more powerful. You’ll end up eating fewer sweets with “don’t” than “can’t” because, by using the word “don’t,” the motivation comes from within. “Don’t” identifies you as “a person who does not eat sweets.” It allocates the power to you.

envision a culture of deliberate decision-making, an energetic bias for action, a focus on achieving excellence rather than avoiding errors, and personal ownership and accountability for outcomes. This is why we must reduce the barrier to exit contemplation (bluework) and move to action (redwork).

The key is that there must be choice before there is commitment. If a person has no choice but to say yes, then what we have is compliance. So while “inspire” and “empower” are common workplace mantras that employers hope will spark action and commitment within employees to carry out the desired company goals, unless there is choice there will, at best, be compliance.

“I’m not paid to think.”

Above my pay grade

While compliance was the natural consequence of the Industrial Age division of people into deciders and doers, commitment is what we want now. Compliance may have worked for simple, physical, repetitive, individual tasks, but it does not work for complex, cognitive, custom, team tasks. Compliance only gets minimum fulfillment of requirements, whereas commitment invites discretionary effort.

Bringing our whole selves to the work

TO MOVE FROM COMPLIANCE TO COMMITMENT Commit to learn, not (just) do. Commit actions, not beliefs. Chunk it small but do it all.

Achieve an Outcome, not just an Output

Developing hypotheses requires making decisions not only about what to do but what to learn. The idea of a hypothesis is that it puts us in a learning and improving mindset. It frames the upcoming period of redwork not as redwork for the sake of redwork but redwork with the idea that we will learn something.

the question to ask at the end of a bluework meeting would be not only “What are we going to do?” but also “What are we going to learn?”

Innovations, new product design, and improving manufacturing processes might not reveal the natural bluework pauses like an operational action does. In this case, we need to deliberately chunk the improvement cycle into discrete, small, bite-size pieces, but each one should result in a complete product—testable in the market.

Like cupcakes vs cakes

Here’s the rule about the blue-red-blue cycle length: shorter periods of redwork increase learning but reduce production output, and vice versa. Therefore, in environments and under conditions of high uncertainty and unpredictability, we need to shorten redwork periods. As the product or exterior conditions become more defined, we can extend the length of the redwork.

Making a commitment to a small increment also frees us up to be completely absorbed in the work, but for a short period of time. We do not need to reserve part of our brain to monitor whether we are on track, because ...

We want to make an emotionally strong commitment to a short burst of activity—redwork—for the purpose of learning something. We want to com...

In the COLLABORATE play, I discussed the power of starting questions with “what” and “how.” There was the probabilistic how and the inquisitive how. The probabilistic how sounds like “How sure are you?” or “How likely is that assumption to be true?” The inquisitive how helps us ask neutral, open, curious questions without judgment. The inquisitive how sounds like “How does ____ affect ____?” or “How do you see that?”