Corporate Rebels: Make Work More Fun by Joost Minnaar & Pim de Morree

Author:Joost Minnaar & Pim de Morree [Minnaar, Joost & Morree, Pim de]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9789083004808
Google: rtsyzQEACAAJ
Amazon: B083QGX9DT
Publisher: Corporate Rebels Nederland B.v.
Published: 2020-02-01T23:00:00+00:00

 H. Kroft and P. Venema, “Arbobalans 2018,” TNO, Leiden, 2019.

 A. A. Roy, “Work less, get more: New Zealand firm’s four-day week an ‘unmitigated success’,” The Guardian, 2018.

Chapter 6

From

Centralised

to Distributed

Authority

Towards the end of the 1990s, American Navy submarine commander David Marquet made the decision to give as few orders as possible. His approach was as determined as it was radical, and he followed through, making just a tiny percentage of decisions on board the nuclear-powered vessel. One might have expected such a move to result in chaos, and potentially dangerous chaos at that. Instead came some fascinating developments. Marquet’s submarine became more functional, with his crew performing better than ever. Few would have expected that such a radical delegation of authority would prove successful within the rigid hierarchy of the military — or that it would even be possible. How did the commander pull this off, and what can we learn from it? Time for a Corporate Rebels investigation…

When we got in touch with Marquet, he informed us that he would soon be sharing his story at a Danish convention. It didn’t take much time for us to decide that we were going to tag along, and once again we found ourselves on a plane, this time bound for Copenhagen. The plan was to kill a few birds with the same stone and use the trip to carry out other Bucket List investigations. We would spend some time with Alexander Kjerulf, author of Happy Hour is 9-to-5, and Lars Kolind, the former CEO of hearing aid manufacturer Oticon. Kolind is another pioneer of note who broke with workplace tradition.

KEYS TO THE SUB

We arrive in Copenhagen on a sunny Spring day. We quickly spot Marquet, casually attired in jeans, blue shirt and black jacket. Not exactly the dress code we would have expected from a former navy commander, but the intensity of his gaze lets you know you’re dealing with a military man, and a mariner. On stage at the event, Marquet shares his special approach — described in his autobiographical book Turn The Ship Around: A True Story of Turning Followers into Leaders31. During the presentation, and later in conversation, he makes it clear that his breakthrough was (as so often) born of necessity, and not a tale of sunshine and rainbows.

“When I was a young man, I decided I was going to be the captain of a nuclear submarine,” he begins, “and I ended up being the captain of ... a nuclear submarine. I was ordered to take command of the USS Olympia, with 135 souls aboard, a vessel able to stay at sea for months at a time.” But before he was handed the keys, so to speak, he had to take a year to learn the specifics of the vessel. “I was excited to take command, and I wanted to have a great ship. All I could think of during that year was that I wanted to be able to give great orders to my crew. I thought that if I gave good instructions, I would have a good submarine.

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