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Lead by example; listen aggressively; communicate purpose and meaning; create a climate of trust; look for results, not salutes; take calculated risks; go beyond standard procedure; build up your people’s confidence; generate unity; and improve everyone’s quality of life as much as possible.
Leaders must be willing to put the ship’s performance ahead of their egos, which for some people is harder than for others. The command-and-control approach is far from the most efficient way to tap people’s intelligence and skills.
I found that the more control I gave up, the more command I got. In the beginning, people kept asking my permission to do things. Eventually, I told the crew, “It’s your ship. You’re responsible for it. Make a decision and see what happens.”
I worked hard at convincing my crew that I did want the rules to be questioned and challenged, and that “they” is “us.” One of the ways I demonstrated my commitment was to question and challenge rules to my bosses. In the end, both the bosses and my crew listened.
management committee always wants to see the metrics before they allow you to launch new ideas. Since, by definition, new ideas don’t have metrics, the result is that great ideas tend to be stillborn in major companies today.
If I had been forced to chart a course defined by metrics, the creativity we sparked and the changes we achieved probably could not have happened.
without metrics, how could I decide whether something new was a good idea? There were no guarantees. Life isn’t always tidy, and often unintended consequences result from well-meant actions. In general, however, I decided that on just about everything I did, my standard should be simply whether or not it felt right. You can never go wrong if you do “the right thing.” How do you define the right thing? As U.S. Supreme Court justice Potter Stewart said about pornography, you know it when you see it. If it feels right, smells right, tastes right, it’s almost surely the right thing—and you will be
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I read some exit surveys, interviews conducted by the military to find out why people are leaving. I assumed that low pay would be the first reason, but in fact it was fifth. The top reason was not being treated with respect or dignity; second was being prevented from making an impact on the organization; third, not being listened to; and fourth, not being rewarded with more responsibility.
My organizing principle was simple: The key to being a successful skipper is to see the ship through the eyes of the crew. Only then can you find out what’s really wrong and, in so doing, help the sailors empower themselves to fix it.
Officers are told to delegate authority and empower subordinates, but in reality they are expected never to utter the words “I don’t know.” So they are on constant alert, riding herd on every detail. In short, the system rewards micromanagement by superiors—at the cost of disempowering those below.
I began with the idea that there is always a better way to do things, and that, contrary to tradition, the crew’s insights might be more profound than even the captain’s. Accordingly, we spent several months analyzing every process on the ship. I asked everyone, “Is there a better way to do what you do?” Time after time, the answer was yes, and many of the answers were revelations to me. My second assumption was that the secret to lasting change is to implement processes that people will enjoy carrying out. To that end, I focused my leadership efforts on encouraging people not only to find
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What’s needed now is a dramatic new way of inspiring people to excel while things are happening at lightning speed.
Empowering means defining the parameters in which people are allowed to operate, and then setting them free.
the crew was authorized to make their own decisions. Even if the decisions were wrong, I would stand by them. Hopefully, they would learn from their mistakes. And the more responsibility they were given, the more they learned.
the new environment aboard Benfold created a company of collaborators who were flourishing in a spirit of relaxed discipline, creativity, humor, and pride.
my job was to create the climate that enabled people to unleash their potential. Given the right environment, there are few limits to what people can achieve.
A leader will never accomplish what he or she wants by ordering it done. Real leadership must be done by example, not precept. Whether you like it or not, your people follow your example. They look to you for signals, and you have enormous influence over them.
Whenever an officer proposed a plan, I asked, “Why do we have to do it that way? Is there a better way?” So they always searched for better ways before coming to me.
I wanted them to have as much fun from nine to five every day at work as they did from five to nine every night at home. I realized what was missing: No one had ever thought to give them a compelling vision of their work, a good reason to believe it was important. After all, we dedicate 60 to 70 percent of our waking hours to this thing called work. It would be terrible if we didn’t believe that what we were doing made a difference. So we spent some time and thought, and came up with a compelling vision that they could believe in.
MAKE YOUR CREW THINK “WE CAN DO ANYTHING.”
Like any other workforce, mine appreciated hearing from top management. That communication is another thing missing from many organizations today—managerial silence seems to be growing just when fierce competition is forcing companies to reinvent themselves constantly. Change frightens workers, and their fears thrive in silence. The antidote is obvious: Keep talking. Tell everyone personally what’s in store for him or her—new
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.
When people saw me opening myself to criticism, they opened themselves up. That’s how we made dramatic improvements.
when you let people out of prison, you have no idea how they will respond to their newfound freedom. I kept looking for clues: Was I really just creating anarchy? But quite the opposite happened. To my continued amazement, discipline actually improved under my regime.
freedom does not weaken discipline—it strengthens it. Free people have a powerful incentive not to screw up.
The best way to keep a ship—or any organization—on course for success is to give the troops all the responsibility they can handle and then stand back. Trust is a human marvel—it
more often than not, bureaucracies create rules and then forget why they were needed in the first place, or fail to see that the reasons for them no longer exist. When it comes to purging outdated regulations, bureaucracies are sclerotic. In today’s fast-paced world, rules should be treated as guidelines, not as immutable laws, unless they truly are critical. If the rules weren’t critical, I believed that my boss would want me to use my best judgment and do the right thing,
Rigidity gets in the way of creativity. Instead of salutes, I wanted results, which to me meant achieving combat readiness. The way to accomplish this was not to order it from the top, which is demoralizing and squashes initiative. I wanted sailors to open their minds, use their imaginations, and find better ways of doing everything. I wanted officers to understand that ideas and initiative could emerge from the lower deck as well as muscle and blind obedience. And I wanted everyone on the ship to see one another as people
I had to encourage the crew to take initiative—and make sure the officers welcomed it. And that meant they would have to get to know one another as people. They would have to respect one another, and from that would come trust.
Empower your people, and at the same time give them guidelines within which they are allowed to roam. I called it my line in the sand: I had to be in on any decision that could kill someone, injure someone, waste taxpayers’ money, or damage the ship. But short of that, anyone on my ship should try to solve any problem that came up.
All managers should nurture the freedom to fail.
INNOVATION KNOWS NO RANK.
an organization that aims to stay alive and strong should make sure to praise and promote risk-takers, even if they fail once in a while.
Show me someone who has never made a mistake, and I will show you someone who is not doing anything to improve your organization.
Each danger I ran was a calculated part of my campaign to create change without asking permission from higher authority. I took only the risks that I thought my boss would want me to take, risks I could defend within my job description and authority. For the most part, they produced beneficial results, and my boss got the credit for that, so he didn’t object.
BET ON THE PEOPLE WHO THINK FOR THEMSELVES.
no ship or company can rely on just one person for a critical procedure. That makes the whole ship hostage to a single individual who may get hurt or sick, leaving you in big trouble.
If all you give are orders, then all you will get are order-takers.
The message raced through the ship: This captain doesn’t want parrots—he wants people who think for themselves. That was my first opportunity to demonstrate a new style, and it paid off handsomely. Trusting a neophyte to perform this tricky maneuver was a powerful metaphor as well as the reality of my way of leading.
IF A RULE DOESN’T MAKE SENSE, BREAK IT.
Innovation and progress are achieved only by those who venture beyond standard operating procedure.
You have to look for new ways to handle old tasks and fresh approaches to new problems. As my friends at NASA would say, you have to push the envelope. And it’s never easy.
There is no downside to having employees who know how every division of an organization functions. The challenge is finding incentives to motivate them to want to do so.
Unlike some leaders, I prefer to build myself up by strengthening others and helping them feel good about their jobs and themselves. When that happens, their work improves, and my own morale leaps.
Instead of tearing people down to make them into robots, I tried to show them that I trusted and believed in them. Show me a manager who ignores the power of praise, and I will show you a lousy manager. Praise is infinitely more productive than punishment—could anything be clearer? But how many managers give this fact more than lip service? How many really live it? Not enough.
The more I thanked them for hard work, the harder they worked. The payoff in morale was palpable. I’m absolutely convinced that positive, personal reinforcement is the essence of effective leadership.
People seem to think that if you send somebody a compliment online, it’s as good as the human touch. It is not. It’s easier, but much less effective. Social interaction is getting lost in a digital world that trades more in abstractions than in face-to-face relations. It’s more than a shame—it’s a bottom-line mistake.
As it turned out, the third- and second-class petty officers were so honored to be chosen that they worked hard enough for several of their teams to outshine those supervised by senior people. The search-and-seizure team was particularly impressive. We assigned it to one of the ship’s most junior sailors because we suspected he had the ability to honcho it.
