Leadership is Language: Red Work & Jam Writing

These are notes from L. David Marquet’s book: Leadership is Language. The first set of notes start at understanding Red & Blue.

One tool I love using to help me dig deep inside myself is jam writing. I initially found this tool to help me write better essays for tests.

While great for tests, gaining personal insight through jam writing is phenomenal.

How does this relate to Leadership is Language?

The red work/blue work aspect.

I found the key to jam writing is avoiding the “editing” part of writing. The moment my words are on the page, what happens?

I edit them.

I consider this to as red work, where it is necessary to clean up the sentence, make it clearer, better structure, etc.

Narrowing down the possibilities, adding precision.

All necessary things in writing well.

Next, how does jam writing keep me in blue work mode?