This article is an excerpt from the Shortform book guide to "Turn the Ship Around" by L. David Marquet. Shortform has the world's best summaries and analyses of books you should be reading.
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Building a team where everyone can make decisions sounds great in theory. But it works only when people have the skills and judgment to back up those choices. L. David Marquet discovered this firsthand as a submarine commander, and his observations reveal how leaders can systematically improve competence in their teams.
Continue reading to learn how to develop the kind of competence that makes distributed authority powerful instead of risky.
How to Improve Competence
In his book Turn the Ship Around!, L. David Marquet argues that, as people gain decision-making authority, they must also develop the technical knowledge and the judgment to use that authority wisely. Without this foundation, distributed control becomes dangerous rather than empowering. To mitigate this risk, Marquet makes several recommendations that can improve competence in others.
#1: Pause, and Then Act Deliberately
Marquet recommends teaching people to take deliberate action by pausing before acting, which consciously engages their minds. He instituted this procedure after a crew member violated a safety rule because they were operating on autopilot, requiring each person to pause and state what they intended to do. If someone said, “I’m about to turn the valve to the right,” saying it out loud required them to consciously confirm this was correct.
#2: Be Active, Not Passive
Importantly, Marquet found that, to increase their competence, workers’ learning must be active, not passive. The Navy traditionally uses briefings where someone reads procedures aloud and everyone listens. On the Santa Fe, Marquet replaced these by having the team leader ask members questions about their roles, the operation, and potential problems. The team had to demonstrate their readiness for an operation, and only if the team leader was satisfied would they proceed.
#3: Expect to Learn
Building competence also requires making learning a core expectation. Marquet found that this expectation creates a reinforcing cycle: Greater competence enabled more delegation, which required more learning, which built more competence.
#4: Engage in Problem Solving
Marquet argues that, to help workers build the competence to use decision-making authority wisely, leaders should specify goals but let people determine the methods they’ll use to achieve them. When Marquet set an objective on the Santa Fe—such as extinguishing a simulated fire as quickly as possible—he didn’t prescribe how to do it. The crew organized themselves and found the most effective approach. This developed competence because people had to actively problem-solve rather than follow prescribed steps.
| Competence Develops in Stages Research on how medical students actively build the competencies Marquet refers to—both technical knowledge and good judgment—suggests these abilities develop in stages. Students start with analytical thinking, move to intuitive thinking, and then they learn to operate under pressure. Let’s look at these stages in detail. Stage 1: Analytical thinking—Early in their training, students use slow, deliberate analysis for every decision, consciously working through diagnostic steps and treatment options. Stage 2: Intuitive thinking—As students gain experience, they build a library of “illness scripts”—saved patterns they can quickly compare to new cases. Expert physicians rely heavily on this fast, intuitive pattern recognition, which lets them make efficient and confident decisions about their patients’ care. This progression from analytical to intuitive thinking requires psychological safety. Medical students report that, although they understand that medical uncertainty exists in theory, during clinical training they fear appearing unknowledgeable, which prevents them from asking questions or admitting gaps in their knowledge. Research shows that students can better develop competence when they can practice in “low stakes” environments, where they’re expected to learn and to make mistakes. Marquet’s emphasis on creating a learning culture reflects this need—people must feel comfortable admitting uncertainty and asking questions to move from analytical novice to intuitive expert. Stage 3: Operating under pressure—Finally, students must build the competence to perform under realistic workplace pressures. Even medical students who can reason through problems successfully when focused on one issue struggle when interrupted or managing multiple demands. Many students report they’ve never been trained to maintain good judgment while juggling competing priorities, despite this being constant in actual practice. This explains why Marquet’s approach of gradually increasing responsibility works: People need time to develop not just decision-making ability, but the capacity to maintain that ability under pressure. |
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Here's what you'll find in our full Turn the Ship Around summary :
- How a captain turned the U.S. Navy’s worst-performing nuclear submarine crew into one of the best
- The principles for developing leaders at all levels to create a passionate, high-performing workforce
- Why the "leader-leader" model works better than the "leader-follower" model
