Creating Leaders: L. David Marquet

YC: Well thank you so much for joining me on the podcast today.

LDM: Yeah, it's my pleasure. Thanks for joining you and your listeners.

YC: And I have so many questions for you in regards of the concept of leadership and your career, and I'm sure with my listeners, particularly who a lot of them are in the military, I'm very excited to hear from you. What usually ask my guests in terms of what, uh, why did you decided on your particular career path, why did you decide to join, uh, the military specifically? The Navy?

LDM: Yeah. Um, well I grew up in the seventies in America, and the Cold War was a big thing. There were a lot other problems with the seventies. We had inflation and whatnot. But for me, this, this contest with the Soviet Union really was, uh, very important. And I wanted to do my part. I was a unlikely candidate because I was a left-handed kid born in Berkeley, California. My dad was a scientist, so I really was never supposed to be in the military. But, uh, and I was a, I was kind of a geek, so I was on the math team and the chess club. Well, if you're wanna make a commitment to the military and that's kind of your personality, submarines are the way to go because they hide from people. And that was perfect for me. So I wanted to be, um, it was like my first thing was, oh, I wanna be a submarine commander. And then I was like, oh, I guess I needed to join the military. I mean, it really was, um, I had no idea what I was getting into.

YC: And that what a career that you've had, um, in, in the Navy, and particularly as a, uh, could you describe in terms of what you did, um, in terms of the day-to-day of being, uh, particularly on a submarine, um, and specifically describe the type of work environment that you walked into. Because you described a lot of that in your book, turning the ship around. Um, how was it before? Like a little bit of the before of what you were usually, um, used to, and then how do you, your role in in turning things around?

LDM: Yeah. Well, I was, uh, really good at giving orders and telling people what to do and making decisions. And I really viewed this as the bread and butter of, of my job. Uh, in fact, the book they gave us at the Naval Academy says, leadership can be defined as directing the thoughts, plans, and actions of others. Not plans, not actions, but thoughts, plans and actions of others. And I think this is a very limited view of leadership. In fact, I wouldn't even call it leadership anymore. I would, I, we call that achievement. If you make a good decision, great, good on you, bully on you. Uh, but the difference is leaders embed thinking. Leaders get the whole organization thinking and thinking of themselves as leaders, not followers. And I hear this all the time, well, the only thing a leader needs a bunch of followers.

No, the only thing a dictator needs is a bunch of followers. Leaders build more leaders. And I'd always sort of had that aspiration, but of course, um, it got snuffed out by the realities of my life coming up through the ranks as a junior officer on board submarines. But, you know, hey, I did my job. I one where I was told I wasn't particularly proactive in my, didn't know people could be, uh, in, in, in like where I was gonna go next. I always said, I'll just do the hardest thing that the Navy sends me to do. And then, uh, I guess like to be a submarine commander at the very last minute I got transferred from, from one ship to another. I hadn't even taken over yet, but I'd finished all the schooling and, uh, it was the ship I was going to take over.

I'd spent 12 months learning about, and then they sent me to Santa Fe where the captain quit a year early. And so there was a gap and the Navy needed someone. And I just finished, I was eligible and I was in Pearl Harbor and I got tagged. But the Santa Fe was a different kind of ship. And uh, the reactor plant was different. And the shot, uh, we had missile tubes, which I never had before, and not on the ship that I was supposed to go to. So all these things about the ship were different than, uh, what I knew. So in the past, I was always very comfortable in the fact that I would know the right answer and tell people what to do. And now I didn't know the right answer. I knew the concepts of fighting a submarine at sea, but I didn't know which buttons to push to make that happen.

So we talk about empowerment and we would always talk about empowerment in the Navy and we'd say, oh, thou shall be empowered. And we thought we were doing something good, but really it, we, we really weren't. And it was, um, what I call happy talk. It was like, cotton candy tastes good, ends up on your hips, <laugh>. And now I really needed empowerment. The fallacy that I had was, the reason I need to keep giving orders is because these people won't come and with their initiative to me. And so I could draw them, I, I always would say, well, hey, you know, what's your idea? Blah, blah, blah. Okay, whatever.

The, the key turning point was when I decided I was gonna focus on my own behavior, which was to stop giving orders even though I was a submarine commander. So I challenge you to watch a movie, find a movie where the submarine commander or the unit commander, squadron commander, whatever,  a crime boss does not tell people what to do. I think, I don't think there's one out there be, because the fundamental premise of a movie is we gotta make it dramatic. And to make it dramatic, we need a center of action. And that tends to be the leader who's barking orders and saving the day and whatever it happens to be. And that's the construct that we have in our heads, in our picture, in the picture, which is really a very limiting construct because it doesn't respect the contribution of the other 158,000, 50,000 people in the organization. They're just sort of extras in the movie script. And this is how we run companies. And it's no good because people don't come to work to be an extra, they come to work to make a contribution and to feel valuable.

YC: And what made you shift that mindset? Was it the fact that you needed the expertise of the others in order to be able to, to lead?

LDM: Uh, it was that and the fact that our habits were still, like, they, they were beaten down and they, people told me, oh, the problem is insufficient leadership on the ship. But like, I, I had two weeks to take over. So I met with my boss and my other people really quickly, and senior officers in the Navy. And they all told me the same thing. Oh, the problem on Santa Fe is not, not enough leader, it's a leadership problem. Well, in a sense it was, was the wrong kind of leadership, but it wasn't the way they were thinking about it. They were thinking of it as, oh, you just need more of this top down leadership. And I was like, that is not, and for me, it takes a year to learn a submarine. That's why you spent a year at school learning your particular ship.

There's no way, like in a year we are gonna be safe, we'd be dead by them. We were supposed to go on deployment. So, and again, there was a, you have a concept in your head, and I'd always had it where, oh, it'd be great if people participated more and they're more empowered and I really need to understand what they're thinking. And these are all these kind of nebulous things. But then when you actually don't know the answer and your life depends on doing the right thing, it all changes. And you figure you really, now you really figure out what empowerment means at that moment.

YC: In the book as well, you described how bad things were in the Santa Fe in terms of the, the rate of, uh, I guess not right satisfaction, but I guess a lot of, uh, people did not, uh, reenlist it or, um, yeah, things were, it was one of the worst categorized, one of the worst. And then, um, you took over and established implementing things and kind of, it switched the things around. Um, in terms of the level of, of of, uh, I guess, uh, performance in the, of the ship and, and the crew. And, um, how would you describe in terms of that particular transformation, uh, what was the, a couple of the key things that you implemented, um, in regards to making that transformation from, from followers to, um, I guess empowering or giving more, uh, control to the others?

LDM: Well, the, the number one most important thing was I, I decided to not issue an order, not tell 'em what to do. And our normal practice in the military at the time was to get permission. I request permission to submerge the ship, request permission to, um, deploy from the helicopter, request permission to whatever, send a team to this location, um, which would then requires the commander or the boss to then repeat the order cuz or to give the order request permission to submerge the ship. And then I would give the order submerge the ship. So I'm still giving an order. So I wanted to get out of that. So we changed the language to intent. So the officer would say, I intend to submerge the ship. And then I didn't have to give any orders, I didn't have to say anything. Now I would, especially at the beginning, I, I could, I could ask questions.

And it started with, hey, so convince me it's safe, and have we met all those safety requirements and that kind of thing? Well, they very quickly learned. I was always gonna ask two kinds of questions, which were the technical things and then the, uh, we call it clarity. Like why are we doing this organizational clarity, the purpose thing? So we have the technical things we call competence, and then the organizational things, the purpose or the why we call clarity. So I said, well, why are you submerge? So the officer would say, captain, I attended this EShip, I picked those location this time because of the following reason. Here's our mission, ba, ba, ba. And, and then he would go through all personnel below. The ship is prepared to dive. I've checked the water depth and all those sort of safety things. And now I'm gaining insight into the person's thinking.

I'm learning something. And we are inviting feedback. Giving feedback is worthless. Is that is actually not quite worthless. It's, it's worth something for the person who gives it <laugh>. But it, but study after study shows that basically giving someone else feedback has ver no or very minute impact their behavior. What you want is a culture where people invite feedback. Now that is very powerful. So, so don't teach people how to give feedback, teach people how to invite feedback and to, and build a culture where people want feedback. So they're saying, Hey, how, like, how am I doing? How, how would you think about this? And the key here is that it comes before the action. So in other words, we don't say, oh, I submerged the ship 10 minutes ago. Um, I hope it wasn't the right place, blah, blah, blah. Uh, that's not a good way to run a nuclear submarine or a company or anything.

We would say, Hey, in 10 minutes I'm planning on submerging the ship, everyone come. And they would expose their thinking. That was the phrase we used then. And so we all got smarter and we all got smarter quite quickly. And we didn't, we left our egos behind. And it wasn't about, oh, you know, let me prove that I'm so smart. It's like, no, I'm willing to show that I'm an idiot in order to get smarter. But well, we call this the don't be good, get better. It is like, I don't care how good you are. I mean, literally, I do not care if you, we would start when we, when organize, lots of organizations do a retrospective and they waste the first 10 minutes trying to say, oh, well, you know, everyone tried their best and blah blah, blah. Like, I don't care. Of course you tried your best.
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Let's just see what we can do to get, to get better. And so in organizations that are high trust and are moving quickly, you just go right on to, um, how do we get better? Getting better should focus on the future. Uh, the, we learn from the past, but the actions are focused. We on the future and others, we don't say, Hey, what should we have done? We would say something like, what do we wish the next team knows about this? Also, we tend to, we, you wanna focus it on somebody else externally, you wanna think like, I'm advising my best friend on how to do what I just did. What would I want them to know? Uh, because then again, a de all these tools are to ge decouple it from our own egos. We also never used people's names.
We would say, oh, the officer of the deck should, we don't say Lieutenant Jones should, or Lieutenant Jones made a decision. And so the, uh, so I learned all these little tricks to get people's egos out of the way. So we were just really focused on learning and getting better and communicating in a way that made us all smarter and, and all able to ask each other questions. Another trick we had was to add a probability. So let's say you have a situation where, so I just learned about this today in Spain, they just spent 275 million building rail cars, which do not fit through the tunnels.

YC: Wow. Yeah. <laugh>, that's terrible.

LDM: Can you, so how this happen, well, we know because it happens at Boeing, it happened at, well Fargo, it happens at Volkswagen and it happens in the military, and it happens in my, in my submarine is we have a command and control structure and the leader gives an order and then we say, someone might think, I mean this is a knowable thing, it's not, I just look up specifications and I would know it. But maybe they're thinking, oh, these train cars are only gonna go in the south of Spain, but then now I have a scheduling and logistics nightmare. But whatever they rationalize not speaking up. They don't raise their hand and say, Hey, Mr. Secretary of Transportation, are you really sure <laugh>, how sure are you that you want train cars that can only use half the tracks in Spain? And so when people see a problem, if you give them permission to add a percentage, so he said, so a person says, push the button or just makes a comment in a meeting, Hey, I'm not sure that Boeing 7 37 max is ready, that we should launch it as a product because we're gonna kill people.

And then you give probability, I'm only 5% sure that anyone's gonna die in the next two years, but that's a big enough number that I'm gonna raise it. And, and, and in the world where we don't add probabilities, I was a physics major, so quantum mechanics, which is all probability, it's a probabilistic way of looking at reality. Um, so that's kind of how I think. And in a world where we're, we need binary certainty and we ask binary questions, are you sure? Is it safe? Will it work? All bad questions. How safe is it? How sure are you, how likely is it to work? Ask the question away. That invites the probability. And then we, and then some people say, oh, um, hey, I think we're about to shoot the cruise ship not to Chinese destroyer. I'm 0.1% sure, but it just was important, <laugh>, okay, great.

So it turns out we stop, check it. You know what, we actually got the right target. We then we don't say the person's wrong cause they weren't wrong. They said, yeah, it was 85%, 99.9% sure doesn't matter. So that's holding people back. And that's about, that's our job as leaders, is to think about the language and the structures and make 'em so that people can speak up. Well we, what do I see instead? Oh, you need to man up or courage up or get some steel or you need to be vulnerable. Come on, tell us what you think that's on you. Like that's a totally wrong approach. You can only control your own behavior. Yeah, that was that, that was a pretty long rant there. 

YC: Oh no, it's a lot of good information in terms of the power of language that you, um, implemented, not necessarily just these measures and these tweaks that you talked about were pretty powerful. And I see, uh, a lot of that particular leadership in the military, um, who I work with. And it's a, it, it may be, is there a lot of, um, fear on appearing incompetent? What do you think that persists and what can happen to help shift that mindset of, of a leader that doesn't want it seem incompetent in front of the team?

LDM: I, I, I do. It's not maybe necessarily feeling, I, I do think a lot of people have a fear of appearing incompetent and that holds them back from actually becoming competent. Because you have to admit you don't know something before you, it's worth like really learning about it. Like, oh, teach me more about this. Oh, let's look it up. And since the leaders act this way, then it infects the whole organization and the whole organization is just dumb and doesn't learn. And it's learning. And a learning organization isn't a bunch of structures and principles and a poster on the wall. It's leaders who are willing to say, Hey, I don't know, or I'm not sure. Let's look that up and, and then that cast, that cascades throughout the organization. So I do, I do think, um, that holds us back. Now, I had a thing in my head.

All I wanted to be was a submarine commander. So I had what I later called a care don't care attitude. So I, I was really deeply passionately cared about being the best submarine commander I could be, which meant serving the country with the mission of the submarine and serving the people, getting them promoted, making sure they had successful lives that were assigned to me. I didn't care about my evaluations or what my boss thought, because to me that was all gonna come out in the wash. And I didn't really care what happened next. I was free. If you think you need your job, you're a slave. You're, you're not, you have no freedom of movement, then you have to play the game. You have to say what you think people want to hear. You can't just say what's true. You can't be the best version of yourself cause you're always saying, well, this is what I really would like to do, but I really have to say it this way and I don't wanna irritate these three people cause they're gonna have the keys to my future.

And, and it's terrible way to live your life in my opinion. So when I do executive coaching, I, I have to spend three to six months basically just convincing this person and all these people, they make a lot of money. We charge a lot. You gotta be able to pay a lot. So these people make a lot of money. So we gotta convince them they don't need their job, that they'll be fine, they've saved enough or they'll get another job or whatever it is. And so once it's great, you have your job. The other way to think about it is, I'm definitely I'll be fired. So one of the things he says is, imagine in one year you're gonna be fired, you're, you're not gonna have your job. Maybe you're promoted, maybe you're fired, but you're in a different job. You have one year to embed everything, you know, in the team as opposed to what we see happening right now, for example, at Disney where we have to call Bob Iger back cuz he is the only person out of 80,000 people that can run Disney, not even his handpicked successor seems to, you know, could pass the test.

And so they stage a palace coup even though he's been there essentially since he was the president, president in two, like 2000 and then five years later became CEO. And so he is CEO. So he is been there running the place for 20 years and he can't, he hasn't trained the successor. What a dismal failure. But we think, oh, that's so great. That's, I mean, that's the Jack Welsh method. Everyone hinges on me. I am the one, only one who can make decisions. I'm the only one smart enough, blah, blah, blah. It's terrible. It's terrible leadership. Now imagine, what's the morale in Disney and all the suit, all top ranks for all idiots. None of us can run the place. Mm-hmm.

Only this one guy's been here for 20 over 20 years, but there's no upward mobility. So then all the C-suite, they haven't moved in 20 years. So all the senior vice presidents, they haven't moved in 20 years. So no one's gone anywhere in 20 years. No. The kind of people stay in a place where you don't go anywhere in 20 years. People who are okay not having any kind of increase in like the, the size of their life and the decision that may make. So they're gonna have problems in my prediction.

YC: Yeah. It's uh, and in the case of if we're not the leader and we are a, uh, part, not wanna say the follower, but basically those people who are part of a team or their leader is that way. Sure. Do we have some influence or ways that we can influence, uh, that particular leadership? How can we do that? 

Yeah. So you always have to remember it's about safety. Uh, whether you're the leader trying to invite someone to make a decision or participate in a decision or speak up in a meeting, it, you need to help them feel safe. But when you go to your boss and you say, Hey, you just told me to do this, I think that's stupid. Okay, you just made them not safe. You basically are challenging their authority. So you, and oh, by the way, I did this like 50 times. I didn't say you're stupid, but I would come in and say, oh, I, I think there's a better way. In other words, I'm implying that you made a bad decision. And, and so when people wrap that up in terms of their ego, I am the decisions I make, and that's what defines my value as the job have become very threatening.

So I had to, um, learn, and again, I was, I was not particularly good at this, but you wanna make it safe. So you would say description is the place to start, not don't start with what you should do. Just start with description. So for example, hey, you just told us to do da da da da. Uh, you just told us to turn left. Uh, can I tell you what, how we see it? What we see at our station? Um, so I got this list. This, okay. And then the, and then say, and so you want me to still turn left? Yes. Okay, great. Turn left. So descriptions should feel safe. You're not challenging authority. And feel free to say, look, would a, you give 'em choice and you agree to do it, you're gonna be a loyal lieutenant unless it's some moral issue, you agree to do it.

Say, yeah, whatever you di it's your decision. Well, a lot of times you try and say, oh, it's us, it's, we, I don't think that works in a number of reasons. It, it, it spreads the fear. So if you go to your boss and say, oh no, I get to participate in this decision, it's like, no, you don't. That's my decision <laugh>. And when you're the boss, you say, oh, we're all in this together. Again, the impact is, oh, you're saying that because you can blame us. So either make the decision that the other persons or it's yours. And so I would say, look, this is my call. If it goes south, it's on me, but I need your help to make this decision. Now, in general, I tried not to be the final decision maker, especially as the submarine commander. Cause there was no one else who tell me I was all screwed up.

And we know from statistics of flight crews and hospital hierarchy where there's the surgeon, for example, then the head nurse and nurses in an operating theater that the senior person is much more likely to correct a junior person than a junior person to correct a senior person. So you don't wanna be the final person, you don't wanna be the most senior person and making decisions, you can approve and evaluate the decisions that other people make. Yeah. But you don't wanna be the, you don't want your ego invested in the decisions. And as soon as you make the decision, your ego's invested and your brain will then distort reality so that it looks like it's a good decision, even if it's not interesting. 

YC: Well, certainly I appreciate all your expertise and I, before we go, I wanted to ask you in terms of for the leader who, the current manager who's listening to this and they feel that they want, they wonder, am I that type of leader? I think, am I capable? Can I trust my people? What is the first step that they should do? Is it ask others? Is it what, what is the first step to get towards the right direction of becoming the right type of leader that doesn't tell others what to do?

LDM: I would say the very, the very first thing is ask better questions. And, and ask, always ask. If someone comes and they come into you with tell me what to do, unless it's truly a, a fire or some emergency situation that truly demands an immediate response, I would try to resist telling 'em what to do and ask better questions. And the better questions are gonna start with the word what or how, because then they will not be binary questions. So, uh, what do I, what should I know about this or what do you know about this that would surprise me or tell me more about it? Or, uh, how confident are you in this? Again, all questions which will elicit a big and then, and then make. See if you can get them to say more words than you're saying back to them. So if you say, are you sure? Yes, mm-hmm. <affirmative>, the score is three to one, you're losing <laugh>. So, um, start small practice. And here's the other thing. Uh, the next 10 times you go to a restaurant, see you can get the server to choose your meal.

YC: Interesting.

LDM: So when we talk about empowerment again, uh, no one ever did this to me. Every empowerment quote lesson I got was purely conceptual. It was just the theory. Uh, I, that's not the way we do our training. Our training is, is practical because that's how you actually learn. You don't learn to be a better swimmer or a golfer by the theory of golfing. You do barely enough theory. Okay, hold grip, hold the grip this way. Now go try take a hundred swings, see what happens. So this is what I want you to do. So when the server comes, I want you to get to the point where you say, Hey, you choose, and I don't even wanna know what it is until it comes on and you put it in front of me. Now a whole bunch of, there's gonna be a lot of repercussions from that.

And I could talk about all the things I've learned, but it doesn't really matter. Uh, if you start practicing this, you'll feel what I feel as a submarine commander. And you'll go through all the things, you'll learn everything. And then when you go to work, you'll know the right feelings, you know, when it was too much too broad, you know, when it's too narrow and you know when it's just about right. And then you practice winning. I don't, I don't care whether the win is big or the win is little or the win is minute. Um, just practice winnings for ex. So I've started trying to do pullups again. And uh, so I, I belonged to the Y and I showed up at the, I, uh, swim there, um, with the master's group. So after swimming, I went to the Pullup bar. I couldn't, I could barely hang on the bar.

My, my hand grip is so, has atrophied, and I, I could barely hang on the bar, so I just said, okay, fine, that's what I do. I'm gonna hang on the bar and I set my timer to 30 seconds. I'm see if I can hang here for 30 seconds and then can I do two 30 seconds and can I do 30 seconds with 30 seconds? Anyway, it's not about going in there and trying to rip off 10 pull-ups and then hurting my shoulder, which is what'll happen to me, <laugh>, even if I could, it is winning. Okay, I'm gonna win, I'm gonna hang, I'm gonna win. I'm hanging. Okay, now I'm hanging twice as long. Now I'm hanging from three minute now. Okay, now I can do a pullup. Okay, I can hang into a pullup. What? So win, win, win, just win, practice winning, and, uh, winning will build, build. It will build a habit. It will build a lifestyle of winning, winning being, doing what you are trying to achieve in your life.

YC: Well, that's pretty powerful. Thank you so much for, for sharing your knowledge with us and for your service to the country as well. What's the best way for people to reach out to you if they have any questions?

LDM: Yeah, well, I'd say reach out to me on LinkedIn. I'm l that stands for Louis L. David Marque on LinkedIn. And um, I am, I give myself like a C minus grade and like I, I eventually kind of get to everything but <laugh>, um, if I don't respond right away, I, I kind of do 'em in batches, like on the weekends. So don't, don't get too despondent. Uh, there's also, you, we have a YouTube channel called Leadership Nudges and we'll give you a link. 

YC: <laugh>, thank you so much.