It's Your Ship: Management Techniques from the Best Damn Ship in the Navy

Rating:
Summary: Great Tone, Excellent Advice
Review: This book is an excellent resource for managers and leaders within organizations. It takes the lessons of a Navy captain learned during his first command, and puts the advice in ways that are commutable to your work situation. I loved the book, felt it had great information, and found the tone exceptional.

Captain Abrashoff's writing style was clear and conversational. He wrote with a tone that kept me feeling on board. It was a great blend of informative and chatty, which matters to me in learning new things. Too dry means I might not be able to suffer through. This book was just right.

I recommend this book to anyone within an organization, not just leaders and managers. If you present your superiors with the information in this book, you're bound to get something good back for your efforts. And that would be right in tune with the author's intentions to boot.

Rating:
Summary: It's Your Ship, a floating leadership benchmark.
Review: Whether your organization is on dry land or floating somewhere in the Pacific Ocean, if your performance levels rely on human beings, "It's Your Ship" is a must read.

In business, all too often the human element is overlooked. Human relations is generally reguarded as soft skills, which organizations do not value. However, it is my opinion and apparently Mike Abrashoff's also, that organizations have alot to gain by successfully implementing these so-called soft skills.

The author, Captain D. Michael Abrashoff, teaches what he refers to as grassroots leadership. He uses behavior modification, empowerment, and team building techniques to transform a mediocre performing group into the best damn ship in the navy.

A billion dollar naval warship is not the typical organizational setting. However, the author uses his experience as commander of the U.S.S. Benfold (a nuclear powered naval destroyer) to teach effective management skills to all who lead organizations on dry land.

Abrashoff also teaches the importance of putting the needs of your subordinates before your own. Throughout the book Mike continually challenges the status quo for the good of his group.
The author describes a practical but all too uncommon leadership style that decentralizes authority and empowers people to make their own decisions.

D. Michael Abrashoff is the kind of leader that we all want to have and to be. However, a lack of courage, resistance to change, and status quo keep many of us from attaining Abrashoff's level of leadership greatness.

"It's Your Ship" offers the answers to the valuable managerial question of, how do you motivate employees to achieve high levels of performance.

"It's Your Ship" is a truly inspirational story of how effective leadership can transform any organization into a high powered and high performing team.

Rating:
Summary: It's Your Ship - great read
Review: I heard Michael Abrashoff speak and then read his book. It's a quick and easy read, but it's not fluff. I highly recommend this book and if you get a chance to hear him speak you won't be disappointed.

Rating:
Summary: Fantastic management book.
Review: Abrashoff is an amazing man with an incredible record of results and unorthodox thinking in, of all place, the Navy. His focus on treating people with integrity is a breath of fresh air.

Rating:
Summary: Your Ship, My Story
Review: This book and its author have received a lot of media exposure, so I decided to check it out. While Abrashoff espouses proven leadership techniques, the only really new learning is how one man applied the principles on a Navy ship with a complement of 311 sailors. This is more a story of one man's awakening to how leadership is considerably more effective than management; how getting out of people's way is wiser than micromanaging them.

Leadership is emphasized in the book, and in every endorsement quote on the back cover. Yet, the subtitle says "management techniques," not "leadership techniques." Leadership did not come easy to Abrashoff; he had a lot of learning to do...and undo. As he moves through the chapters, this retired Navy Captain talks about his experiences in leading by example, listening, communicating purpose and meaning, creating a climate of trust, focusing on results, taking calculated risks, building people and unity, and strengthening quality of life.

Good leaders can tell you all about these concepts and how they are applied in their organization. Aspiring leaders and those who have not yet seen the light will be awe-struck by what Abrashoff accomplished. Solid, experienced leaders will see this book as more of a case study and a reinforcement of what they're already doing. As I have observed today's military leaders-as a citizen and as a consultant who has had the privilege of working with military leaders, the "system" is not as counterproductive as the author would lead us to believe. Bureaucracy is still bureaucracy, but Abrashoff is not alone in his practice of leadership skills.

Abrashoff applied leadership skills on his ship to achieve significant measurable results. I'm glad he documented his achievements so others might be inspired. I noted that he compared and linked his military experiences and perspectives to civilian applications. Through relationships with Fast Company magazine and other organizations, this author is now giving speeches and probably consulting. This book and the attendant publicity could be viewed as effective tools to position him as a sought-after speaker.

In all fairness, while the leadership principles and anecdotes from the USS Benfold are certainly present, this book struck me as more of an autobiography of the growth of a leader. For a treatise about leadership and considering the title, I was surprised to see such heavy use of first person pronouns in the writing.

Company owners and senior executives will find the book valuable as a case study of one man's experience. Managers will learn principles and techniques that can substantially improve their performance. Some readers will feel reinforced; others will feel discomforted by the heavy sense of ego and rationalization. It's a shame that Abrashoff did not choose to stay in the Navy to effect those changes he says are so needed; instead he left the service to write a book focused on two years of his work and hit the lecture circuit.

Rating:
Summary: Its Your Ship: Management Techniques from the Best Damn
Review: One of the best books I have read. Helps you understand how to lead a group of very diverse people. Buy the book - It is worth every penny!!!

Rating:
Summary: A great read on beating back bureaucracy
Review: This book is easy to read and hits key points on staying focused on getting the most from your people. I both enjoyed and learned from this book. It reminded me of "From Worst to First : Behind the Scenes of Continental's Remarkable Comeback" although Abrashoff's book is less repetitive.

Rating:
Summary: Not new, rediscovering the old wisdom
Review: As Yogi said... De ja vu all over again. D. Abrashoff graduated the USN Academy in 1982, I graduated the USAF Academy in 1983, a comtemporary of mine then. Reading his book reminded me of all the things I suffered through my tour of active duty. It also reminded me of the basics I was taught at MY academy. On a theoretical level, nothing new here. On a practical level, this book is a gem, and I have just recommended it to my process improvement team.

The book is packed full of some ones learning on how to implement what a lot of other books explain in theory. The author doesn't plot out checklists, but gives meaningful anecdotes to explain his experience and point he is making. His key points are the chapter headings:
Take Command
Lead by Example
Listen Agressively
Communicate Purpose and Meaning
Create a Climate of Trust
Look for Results, Not Salutes
Take Calculated Risks
Go Beyond Standard Procedure
Build Up Your People
Generate Unity
Improve Your People's Quality of Life

A key take away for me, and in my experience, it is one thing to "COPY EXACTLY" (stealing an Intel term), it is another to understand the principle. By his examples, he indicates that other ships copied techniques (benchmarking) and improved specific areas of performance (all good), but failed to understand the principles involved. This allowed them to not extend improvements to other areas of their processes. This has been mimiced in business by all the failed initiatives that litter the highway, all good if you pay attention to their design, key assumptions, and core principles.

I though the book was well written, to the point, well illustrated with examples, all expressing key truths (though not new, well done). You can find other books that take each aspect (check the chapters) and dive deep into theory, but if you want a practitioners guide to how to get it done, this is a great book.

Rating:
Summary: Great Advice, But It's No One Man Show
Review: I enjoyed reading CDR Abrashoff's book, but as a fellow naval officer I must protest. The Commander's book leaves the impression that the Navy lacks positive, transformational leadership; that naval officers are consumed with careerism, looking out only for themselves. That's just not the case. As a career naval officer, I can tell you that today's naval officers - from the Chief of Naval Operations to the newest Ensigns - are giving their all to make the United States Navy better everyday. Many of the transformational ideas for which CDR Abrashoff receives credit did not orginate with him. He may have put these ideas in place, but so have many other fine naval officers. The book is worth the read, but, please, don't think for a minute that CDR Abrashoff's ship is the single "best damn ship" in the Navy.

Rating:
Summary: Thumbs Up
Review: If you read management books, you'll have read some of this book's type advice before, but it's presented here in comprehensible and entertaining fashion. Just from an "historical" viewpoint, this book shows, I think, why democratic countries continually defeat tyrannical countries (in WW II, most notably, of course). Democracies more likely bring out the best in everyone. Anyway, I really recommend this book because, even though I've read some of the same management guidelines elsewhere, this book is among the best at making those points "stick to my ribs." Abrashoff does admit to being "insanely jealous" when the next captain was awarded a higher medal than him, but at least he admits to the initial jealousy. Some overly critical comments below by other military folks are disguised jealousy, methinks. As H.G. Wells said, "Moral outrage is jealousy with a halo."