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Reviews
Leadership is Language: The Hidden Power of What You Say – and What You Don't by L. David Marquet
simplestyle's review against another edition
5.0
A bit repetitive but hammers on important concepts: red vs blue work, outdated management playbooks that we're unwittingly still employing, and better plays for today's workplace.
jrc2011's review against another edition
4.0
This is a fantastic book - I really enjoy Marquet's books. I want to get this as an e-book so I can mark it up for a better review.
rberenguel's review against another edition
3.0
I found it worse than Turn the Ship Around. At points it seemed to be just a rehashing of Agile development principles but applied to other areas. If you are doubtful between this and TtSA, go for the other one.
jmltgu's review against another edition
5.0
This book is incredible, combining the best parts of “Turn the Ship Around” with ideas from self-determination theory and agile project management in a powerful, story-driven lesson valuable for anyone who cares about leadership. Highly recommend.
kettlepot's review against another edition
4.0
The notion that we're operating using Industrial Age methods and words is spot on, and I see it in my workplace almost every day. Although our consequences are less dire, I see the story of El Faro playing out on a number of projects where we're so focused on "red work" to get it done, we don't stop to do "blue work" and ask whether it's worth it to keep going. The book includes a nice selection of "Now that you've read this, here are some situations and how you might apply the techniques" at the back, as well.
Like most books on the subject, this is all great in theory but the culture of the organization and the leadership of the top committed to the old playbook may resist anything other than business as usual, but I can see this being useful in some areas where I have more influence.
Like most books on the subject, this is all great in theory but the culture of the organization and the leadership of the top committed to the old playbook may resist anything other than business as usual, but I can see this being useful in some areas where I have more influence.
dash_dash's review against another edition
3.0
Reiteration of familiar ideas about action and reflection using a dichotomous allegory of 'red' and 'blue' work. Some interesting tools and approaches for teamwork, but the book itself is overly drawn out and the implementation example scenarios are awkward and exaggerated. Some of the ideas I will take from this book are:
1. Asking open-ended questions (Wh-, how)
2. Asking the team as a whole to justify the minority's perspective (What are they seeing that we aren't? Let's adopt their perspective and justify the opposite of what we believe).
3. Creating more equal levels of power - no exclusive spaces for 'more important' or executive staff
4. Giving each team member equal responsibility and accountability
5. Fostering a trusting environment where it is safe to report errors, admit mistakes and ask for help
6. Importance of balancing 'red work', action, with 'blue work', reflection and introspection
.... And some more which I will need to retrieve from Libby... All are great ideas, but they are drawn from books which discuss each in greater depth. In particular, I recommend 'Black Box Thinking', 'Nonviolent Communication', 'Scrum', Covey's '7 Habits', and Kotter's 'Leading Change'.
Concerning the audiobook narration - not too bad, but he sometimes spits out stressed words as though they are venom, which is pretty hilarious, especially when listening at 1.5 or 1.7 speed. At least I had something bringing my attention back to the often boring contents!
1. Asking open-ended questions (Wh-, how)
2. Asking the team as a whole to justify the minority's perspective (What are they seeing that we aren't? Let's adopt their perspective and justify the opposite of what we believe).
3. Creating more equal levels of power - no exclusive spaces for 'more important' or executive staff
4. Giving each team member equal responsibility and accountability
5. Fostering a trusting environment where it is safe to report errors, admit mistakes and ask for help
6. Importance of balancing 'red work', action, with 'blue work', reflection and introspection
.... And some more which I will need to retrieve from Libby... All are great ideas, but they are drawn from books which discuss each in greater depth. In particular, I recommend 'Black Box Thinking', 'Nonviolent Communication', 'Scrum', Covey's '7 Habits', and Kotter's 'Leading Change'.
Concerning the audiobook narration - not too bad, but he sometimes spits out stressed words as though they are venom, which is pretty hilarious, especially when listening at 1.5 or 1.7 speed. At least I had something bringing my attention back to the often boring contents!
rosiek1288's review against another edition
challenging
informative
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
4.0