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May 29 - June 14, 2021
Organizations should reward risk-takers, even if they fall short once in a while.
Rules that made sense when they were written may well be obsolete. Make them extinct, too.
You can never go wrong if you do “the right thing.”
being likable is not high among a ship captain’s job requirements. What is essential is to be respected, trusted, and effective.
That’s another thing you need to learn about your people: They are more perceptive than you give them credit for, and they always know the score—even when you don’t want them to.
When I took command of Benfold, I realized that no one, including me, is capable of making every decision. I would have to train my people to think and make judgments on their own. Empowering means defining the parameters in which people are allowed to operate, and then setting them free.
Whenever the consequences of a decision had the potential to kill or injure someone, waste tax-payers’ money, or damage the ship, I had to be consulted. Short of those contingencies, the crew was authorized to make their own decisions.
If your bosses see you lifting burdens off their shoulders, and they find out they can trust you, they stay out of your face.
A leader will never accomplish what he or she wants by ordering it done. Real leadership must be done by example, not precept.
Whenever I could not get the results I wanted, I swallowed my temper and turned inward to see if I was part of the problem. I asked myself three questions: Did I clearly articulate the goals? Did I give people enough time and resources to accomplish the task? Did I give them enough training? I discovered that 90 percent of the time, I was at least as much a part of the problem as my people were.
You never know all the things you should know.
NO ONE FOLLOWS A LEADER WHO LIES.
OBEY EVEN WHEN YOU DISAGREE. Every so often, your chain of command comes up with a policy that you disagree with—yet it’s your responsibility to enforce it. It’s important to make your objections known in a private manner with your bosses. But if you lose your argument, it’s also important that you carry out that order as if you supported it 100 percent.
There is nothing wrong with trying to offer a better way to meet a requirement that has been imposed on you.
FIND ROUND PEOPLE FOR ROUND HOLES.
Give me performance over seniority any day of the week.
Like any other workforce, mine appreciated hearing from top management.
Change frightens workers, and their fears thrive in silence. The antidote is obvious: Keep talking.
People can absorb anything if they are not deceived or treated arrogantly. Lies and arrogance create an us-versus-them atmosphere that poisons productivity.
Some leaders feel that by keeping people in the dark, they maintain a measure of control. But that is a leader’s folly and an organization’s failure. Secrecy spawns isolation, not success. Knowledge is power, yes, but what leaders need is collective power, and that requires collective knowledge. I found that the more people knew what the goals were, the better buy-in I got—and the better results we achieved together.
There was a direct relationship between how much the crew knew about a plan and how well they carried it out.
talent knows no rank.
no matter how fantastic your message is, if no one is receiving it, you aren’t communicating.
Free people have a powerful incentive not to screw up.
Trust is like a bank account—you have got to keep making deposits if you want it to grow.
You should never bring petty problems to the attention of your boss if you can solve them yourself.
Bad news does not improve with age.
Empower your people, and at the same time give them guidelines within which they are allowed to roam.
Trying takes grit,
All managers should nurture the freedom to fail.
If all you give are orders, then all you will get are order-takers.
You will seldom get in trouble for following standard operating procedure. On the other hand, you will rarely get outstanding results.
If you prepare for the most challenging scenarios, chances are good that you will be much better prepared for the unforeseen.
When they can’t get along without you, they will support nearly anything you seek to accomplish.
you can’t “order” an outstanding performance. You have to plan, enable, nurture, and focus on it.
the goal shouldn’t be to reduce the standards for some, but to raise everyone else to the highest possible level.
I rarely asked permission. I just acted on the theory that my bosses had authorized me to do so in their behalf.
Why not instead assume that everyone is inherently talented, and then spur them to live up to those expectations?
I gave the shortest change-of-command speech in military history. It was five words long: “You know how I feel.”
