Koliko puta ste do sada čuli “Ne možemo to promijeniti, zbog ovog ili onog”? Ili “To smo uvijek tako radili, zašto mijenjati”. Ili “Ne možemo tako jer nam brani netko ili nešto”. Vjerujem puno puta. Previše.

If I had a dime every time someone told me that – I’d be rich.

Ali… Može se. Ako netko, tko dobije na upravljanje nuklearnu podmornicu, naoružanu nuklearnim projektilima, vrijednu dvije milijarde dolara, s 200 članova posade kojima je doslovno svaki dan i svaka greška opasna po život, u organizaciji toliko striktnoj, hijerarhijskoj i tradicionalnoj poput Američke Mornarica – može – onda svatko može. Onda nema izgovara za niti jednu organizaciju.

Autor ove knjige, David Marquet, dobio je na upravljanje najlošiju podmornicu u floti. I metodama iz ove knjige stvorio je najbolju posadu u floti. Posadu koja je godinama kasnije dobivala najviša odličja za svoje uspjehe. Posadu koja je stvorila najveći postotak časnika u povijesti Američke Mornarice. “Slomio” je tradicionalnu, ne-lomljivu, organizaciju. Nema izgovora. Nema nemogućeg.

Naši poslovi, u velikoj većini, ne utječu na potencijalan gubitak života. Rizici promjena koje mi želimo postići neće tragično završiti za 200 članova posade. Niti ćemo izazvati nuklearni rat. I koje je onda vaš izgovor da ne promijenite nešto?

Ovo je uvjerljivo najbolja knjiga koju sam pročitao u 2023 godini. I sigurno je u prvih 5 knjiga, ove tematike, koje sam do sada pročitao.

Introduction

“The leader-leader structure is fundamentally different from the leader-follower structure. At its core is the belief that we can all be leaders, and, in fact, it’s best when we all are leaders”

Part I – Starting Over

“To promote long term success, I had to ignore the short-term reward systems”

“If you walk about your organization talking to people, I’d suggest you be as curious as possible”

“You are destined to fail. No matter how good you get to avoiding mistakes, you will always have errors on something as complex as a submarine”

“Focusing on avoiding mistakes takes our focus away from becoming truly exceptional”

Part II – Control

“I call this organizational clarity, or just clarity. You tackle it by being honest about what you intend to achieve and communicating that all the time, at every level”

“How to Embed a Cultural Change in Your Organization Starting Condition: you’ve had a discussion with your leadership group and identified some sort of cultural change the group mostly agrees to”

“When you are trying to change employees’ behavior, you basically have to approaches to choose from: change you own thinking and hope this leads to new behavior, or change your behavior and hope this leads to new thinking”

“Acting your way to new thinking is a mechanism for control”

“Subordinates generally desire to present the boss with a perfect product the first time. Unfortunately, this gets in the way of efficiency because significant effort can be wasted”

“A little rudder far from the rocks is a lot better than a lot rudder close to the rocks”

“Short, early conversations is a mechanism for control”

“If we were excellent and prepared, the drills and inspections would take care of themselves”

” ‘I intend to..’ was an incredibly powerful mechanism for control”

“In effect, by articulating their intentions, the officers and crew were acting their way into the higher level of command”

“Mechanism: Resist the Urge to Provide Solutions”

“Resist the Urge to Provide Solutions is a mechanism for Control. When you follow the leader-leader model, you must take time to let others react to the situation as well”

“Mechanism: Eliminate Top-Down Monitoring System”

“Don’t preach and hope for the ownership; implement mechanism that actually give ownership”

“When it comes to processes, adherence to the process frequently becomes the objective, as opposed to achieving the objective that the process was put in place to achieve”

“Thinking out loud is a mechanism for control because when I heard what my watch officers were thinking, it made it much easier for me to keep my mouth shut and let them execute their plans”

Part III – Competence

“Control without competence is chaos”

“Continually repeat the message is a mechanism for competence. Repeat the same message day after day, meeting after meeting, event after event”

“Mechanism: Specify Goals, not Methods”

“Specify Goals, not Methods is a mechanism for competence”

“Provide your people with objectives and let them figure out the method”

Part IV – Clarity

“Clarity means people at all levels of organization clearly and completely understand what the organization is about”

“Building trust and taking care of your people is a mechanism for clarity”

“Taking care of your people does not mean protecting them from the consequences of their own responsibility. That’s the path for irresponsibility”

“Use your legacy for inspiration is a mechanism for clarity”

“Initiative means we take the action without direction form above to improve knowledge as submariners, prepare the command for its mission, and come up with solutions to problems”

“Innovation means looking at new ways of doing the same thing”

“Intimate technical knowledge means that each of us responsible for learning our area of responsibility”

“Courage means we choose to do the right thing, even if it may be uncomfortable”

“Commitment means we are present when we come to work”

“Continuous improvement is how we get better. We continually seek ways to learn from processes and improve them and ourselves”

“Integrity means we tell the truth to each other and to ourselves”

“We encourage those below us to take action and support them if they make mistakes”

“We exercise participative openness: freedom to speak one’s mind”

“Mechanism: Use Immediate Recognition to Reinforce Desired Behaviors”

“The rule for the mentoring meeting was that we could talk only about long-term issues, and primarily people issues”

“As you work with individuals in your organization to develop their vision for the future, it is crucial that you establish specific, measurable goals”

“Encourage a questioning attitude over blind obedience is a mechanism for clarity”

“The core of the leader-leader model is giving employees control over what they work on and how they work”