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

by L. David Marquet

One question you might ask at this point is: “What is in the way of being on time to the meeting?” You want to say it in a way that allows that some of the barriers to being on time might be legitimate reasons.

I was not rewarded for saying “I don’t know,” but I have found that leaders who can say these words lead better teams.

all learning starts with “I don’t know . . .” Now, that’s not the end of the conversation. It’s “I don’t know, . . . . . . let’s look it up.” . . . how can we test it?” . . . let’s run an experiment.”

Vulnerability is anything but weak. In fact, it’s a tremendously powerful tool for creating connection.

Because trust means “I trust you are trying to make the right decision,” it is OK (and appropriate) to then follow up with “Now take me through your thinking on this decision.” Because the decision itself has been separated from the emotional heaviness of trust, the discussion happens more freely.

Connection is about bringing intuition to work, acknowledging the importance of emotions and psychological safety in decision-making.

As the need to get everyone involved in the uncertainty of bluework increases, so does the need for emotion in the workplace.

Each of us is more likely to be aware of the power gradient going up than the one going down. The people subordinate to you are far more aware of these cues, and if you’re not deliberate about smoothing that gradient, you are unconsciously hindering your team’s ability to innovate and learn. Whether or not you see the power gradient below you, it’s there.

The rule of power gradients is that the steeper the gradient, the more difficult it is for information—think, truth—to flow upward.

Once he asked, “How helpful would it be if I came over?” it became a request for information. Notice how he phrased the question. He didn’t ask, “Would it be helpful . . . ?” That would have been a binary question that again would have made it just a bit harder for her to say “yes.”

The first question is: “Are we in redwork or bluework?” Remember, redwork is doing, executing, and proving. Typically, it’s the work of the organization—operating machinery, making products, serving customers. Bluework is thinking, deciding, and improving. If you are not sure whether you are in redwork or bluework, ask yourself whether the activity you are engaged in would benefit more from embracing variability or reducing variability. If you want more variability—more ideas, different options, decisions made in uncertain times—then you are in bluework. If you want less variability—consistency in a process, production of identical parts—then you are in redwork.

You are in bluework, but need to start taking action. You want to wrap up the COLLABORATE play and move to COMMIT, with a plan to CONTROL THE CLOCK that includes COMPLETE and IMPROVE.

If you’re starting to plateau in redwork, and need to rethink or improve your processes, you want to CONTROL THE CLOCK and then take steps to COLLABORATE and IMPROVE.

Learning to execute the pivot from redwork to bluework or vice versa takes practice. Start really, really small—and start with yourself. Maybe start by avoiding binary questions; instead of setting people up to give you a “yes or no” answer, ask them a “what?” or “how?” question. Try that and see what changes happen around you.

assume that Jens is closer to the problem than she is, since he is in the code, and that he has something to offer. Asking “what?” and “how?” questions would help her uncover what Jens sees that she is not seeing. She might ask:

“What would the next step look like?” “How does that align with what the user might need?” “How does that simplify the process for the customer?” “What assumptions is that based on?”

development criteria

Something like strategy or a better understanding of the end clients

At the end of the process, Jessica may have to approve one approach or another. It may turn out that Jens’s proposal offers the best solution, or it may turn out that his idea won’t work.

No understanding of discovery

All she needs to do is get a commitment from Jens that he will support the decision she makes about the team’s course of action.

Our approach is not to study forever until we somehow find an infallible solution, but to create a system where we can experiment safely and get better. We are launching into a period of doing, redwork, and in three months we will pause, reflect, and collaborate in bluework sessions. I’m asking everyone to take notes about how it goes—we’ve given everyone a journal for this purpose—and participate fully in the retrospective.”

How can Andy CONTROL THE CLOCK? Even though he feels like he needs to respond immediately, Andy does not need to make a commitment to his colleague right then. It is perfectly appropriate for him to say, “I would like to hear more about what you are expecting from me on this project. How many hours do you think you will need from me, and when does that work need to be done?”

Additionally, he could also say something like, “I cannot say yes right now. Let me think about it for a day before I make a commitment.”

Since bluework both precedes redwork, in terms of decision-making, and follows redwork, in terms of reflection and learning, the description should contain verbs that describe bluework and redwork. Front-end bluework words about decision-making include decide, determine, propose, initiate, commit, recommend, and choose. Bluework verbs capturing the function of reflection and learning include reflect, learn, formulate hypothesis, test, experiment.

Rosario would also want to describe responsibilities in terms of outcomes, not as tasks. While the task might be to compile a report, the outcome is to provide transparency of data, measurement of performance, and trend data that ultimately would be used for incremental improvement.

Numerous studies have affirmed that setting specific, challenging goals boosts performance in the short term. Specific goals focus attention and reduce distraction. These are natural allies for redwork—a focusing of attention and adoption of a prove-and-perform mindset. But since bluework benefits from a wider perspective and embraces variability, goal setting can have unintended negative consequences.

You have to have a learning goal first

The Harvard Business School paper authors link goals with the propensity of unethical behavior within the ranks of an organization. Either people fudge the numbers or they fudge the process to reach the numbers. The authors think that “aggressive goal setting within an organization will foster an organizational climate ripe for unethical behavior.”

managers and leaders should react to unexpected and disproving information about their strategy with gratitude rather than digging in their heels, and listen instead of trying to paint a positive picture of things.

In a complex, fast-changing world, long-term survival is more about adaptation than achievement.

experiments are designed to have natural variations in order to discover the impact of various traits. The problem with goals is that they do exactly the opposite. They reduce variability. Reducing variability is the defining feature of redwork, and that is why goals work at improving the performance of redwork.

Are experiments incompatible with goals? Not if you're experimenting in pursuit of a goal, like an Outcomes-focused goal...

Setting a goal like Ford’s 2,000-pound, $2,000 car should come from the doers. This separates the decision-maker from the decision-evaluator.

The key was to determine the thinnest slice of product they could commit to, one that would give them initial feedback on their hypothesis.

In this way, the firms can reduce uncertainty in product development because they gauge the market before investing in the actual manufacture of the product.

Validate the biggest risk, desirability first

Notice how the agile rhythm of planning-sprint-retrospective fits the redwork-bluework play cycle of collaborate-commit-complete-celebrate. This is what a redwork-bluework operating rhythm looks like when applied to product development.

We also saw in the education system a desire to create humans who would conform to the six plays of the Industrial Age. Education was about obeying the clock, complying, and proving. This legacy continues to weigh heavily on the current classroom.

Then we pause; we shift to bluework. We reflect on how our lives are going. We give our brains time to rest. We look dispassionately at our careers and seek to embrace an improve mindset. At this point our “get better” self is dominant. We take classes, we enroll in school again, we develop new skills or a new line of work altogether. To be most effective we would engage others in these periods of reflection.

The second domain is within the bluework periods—getting everyone involved in bluework rather than leadership only, and managing the bluework periods with a goal of embracing variability.

The Product trio - there can be too many people involved in bluework to.move fast & make decisions to move forward on

The outcome of the redwork-bluework rhythm is learning—learning at work, at home, and at life.

“Chief, you showed a zero. Tell us about that.”

avoids asking, “Why did you vote that way?” as this may indicate disapproval and put the voter on the defensive.

The leader’s job in the bluework play of COLLABORATE is not to drive consensus but to invite discussion, especially from the quieter outliers.

The mindset during bluework should be biased toward growth, mastery, and learning.

During meetings, they practice voting first, then discussing, and being curious instead of compelling. Confident that they will be heard, they do not need to clamor for attention.