It's Your Ship
by D. Michael Abrashoff · first published 2002
64% recommend36% neutral
Why HN recommends it
Practical leadership book by a former Navy captain who turned around a struggling warship; its concrete lessons on leading teams and working with superiors are useful for new managers and product people.
Summarised by Claude from recommending comments
The story of Captain D. Michael Abrashoff and his command of USS Benfold has become legendary inside and outside the Navy. Now Abrashoff offers this fascinating tale of top-down change for anyone trying to navigate today's uncertain business seas. When Captain Abrashoff took over as commander of USS Benfold, a ship armed with every cutting-edge system available, it was like a business that had all the latest technology but only some of the productivity. Knowing that responsibility for improving performance rested with him, he realized he had to improve his own leadership skills before he could
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…people would disagree about their value but here they are, for what they are worth: Management: - High output management (Grove, 1995) - Leading Up: How to Lead Your Boss So You Both Win (Useem) - It’s your Ship (Abrashoff) - The score takes care of itself (Walsh) - The Hard Thing About Hard Things (Horowitz) - Where good ideas come from (Johnson) - Extreme Ownership (Navy Seals) — (Willink) - Work…
on “CTO Mentor Network – A virtual peer-to-peer network of CTOs” ↗…pipelines, for a manager it's really valuable because it teaches you what's expected of you by your superiors, and common pitfalls - and how to avoid them. one of my favorite early books on leadership was "It's Your Ship" by D. Michael Abrashoff, a former navy captain. tons of great stuff in there that dovetails with the above well. these are just some of the things i've read and shared with people over the years, and…
on “Ask HN: What was the hardest part about being a first time manager?” ↗…Leader, John C. Maxwell 2) Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us, Daniel H. Pink 3) The Alliance: Managing Talent in the Networked Age, Reid Hoffman & Ben Casnocha & Chris Yeh [!] 4) It's Your Ship: Management Techniques from the Best Damn Ship in the Navy, Michael Abrashoff 5) Reinventing Organizations: A Guide to Creating Organizations Inspired by the Next Stage of Human Consciousness, Frederic…
on “Ask HN: Where can I find practical, no-fluff management advice?” ↗It’s Your Ship by Abrashoff is really good too.
on “Growing Independence” ↗"It's Your Ship"[1] is more directly applicable. That's by a captain who turned around a troubled US Navy surface warship. I'm amazed that serving naval officers flunked a quiz on the Rules of the Road, and even more…
on “Problems plagued U.S. Navy destroyer Fitzgerald before fatal collision” ↗…was noteworthy when someone wrote that they DIDN'T like it, I should check it out. -Salt, fat, acid heat / A no-nonsense approach to cooking that's made me feel a lot more confident in the kitchen -It's your ship / Required reading for a PM class
on “Ask HN: 2018 Summer Reading List?” ↗Reading this article I was reminded of the book It's Your Ship, the motto used by one navy captain to empower the crew to turn around a poorly performing ship. Then I see that part of the inspiration for this post was... a book about a different navy ship. I often…
on “An Engineering Team Where Everyone Is a Leader” ↗I was only familiar with "Turn the Ship Around", so I just looked it up. Apparently there are 2 books on this topic from different captains. "It's Your Ship", Captain D. Michael Abrashoff "Turn the Ship Around", (Captain) L. David Marquet I'd actually be curious how much the advice overlaps.
on “Way to Deal with a Micromanaging Boss” ↗…follow the expectations, then they need another job. Micromanagement will just repress those employees further where they'll be too afraid to make their own decisions. Humorously, the book is called "It's your Ship", by a navy captain who turned the worst ship in the navy into the top ship
on “Way to Deal with a Micromanaging Boss” ↗Side note: Turn the Ship Around is about a submarine and It's Your Ship is about a surface vessel.
on “Way to Deal with a Micromanaging Boss” ↗…leadership[1]. Even the military (in some branches?) is aiming for sharing goals instead of orders and promoting self-organizing teams because hierarchies don’t scale. At least according to books like It’s Your Ship and Extreme Ownership. The realization in management science of the past ~20 years has been that people only do things when they understand the goal and agree with the plan. They also need leeway to…
on “On Becoming a VP of Engineering” ↗