Choosing Sailors with the “Right Stuff”
s to avoid hard decisions regarding manpower in their assigned units and gained unprecedented control over individual sailors through force-management programs such as Perform-to-Serve (PTS). The resulting unsynchronized and, in some cases, contradictory policies have confused sailors and increased the already significant level of uncertainty and stress among Navy families. Commanding officers must exercise their moral obligation to adequately document sailors’ performance and have the courage not to recommend retention when warranted, to improve the efficiency of our commands, and return some measure of predictability to the lives of sailors and their families left in our charge.The Navy’s Retention Honor Roll is a good example of the current institutional manpower doublespeak prevalent in the service. This unit-level award recognizes commands that meet or exceed “all-Navy” retention goals in zones “A, B, and C” (these zones group sailors by years of service). While the program was revamped in 2010 to include PTS submission timelines, command-mentorship, and professional development programs, the main problem lies in the view that retention is a zero-sum game, much like win/loss records in the National Football League. For every command exceeding the retention goal, there must be another that falls short of the same goal if the Navy is to reach its stated target for the year.
Making Tough Calls
Let us assume for a moment, however, that there are no unit-level upward limits on retention, and that maximum retention is encouraged and rewarded, regardless of desired Navy end-strength. The logical result of such a policy would include excess retention driven simultaneously by local commanders looking past quality to quantity and in the current instance by a national economic slump. Aside from the obvious cases (and easier command decisions) of gross misconduct, in which administrative separations or punitive discharges are clearly warranted, the Navy would find itself with too many sailors. Such is the current reality.
The present misplaced retention incentives have created significant inefficiencies for our service, allowing commands to avoid responsibility for accurate performance assessment. These past failures to make difficult manpower decisions for the long-term betterment of the Navy have led to a vicious cycle of promoting ineptitude and dead weight. In many ways, the PTS program is the inevitable byproduct of a generation of well-intentioned but narrow-minded leaders unwilling or unable to make those tough calls but more than willing to force their goat lockers to waste the proverbial 90 percent of their time on the bottom 10 percent of their people. Such valuable chief mentorship time and expertise is better spent on making good sailors great, rather than bringing the “bottom-blowers” up to a barely passable standard. Yet PTS and our retention programs incentivize exactly the opposite.
As sailors and units find themselves competing for shrinking PTS quotas, the result has been an inflation of personal awards and insincere local recommendations for retention as COs advocate for not just the deserving, but sometimes less qualified, sailors. A 1-of-1 must-promote detaching evaluation for a first-class petty officer unready for the challenges of the goat locker ranks is more difficult to debrief, but infinitely more appropriate, than the now nearly ubiquitous 1-of-1 early-promote “kiss.” Excessive numbers of Navy Achievement Medals (NAMs), given by some commands now as standard end-of-cruise or end-of-tour awards for average or slightly above-average performance, feed the perceived need for other COs to match the new standard to enable his or her sailors to properly compete in PTS and to advance in paygrade. These hard conversations and decisions remain a prime obligation of all current, and especially future, commanding officers.
Poor decisions have a way of coming home to roost, if not on one specific command, then certainly on our service. Through our very actions, commanding officers unwittingly exacerbate the need for the PTS program to manage the force. The Bureau of Naval Personnel is then forced to determine whom to keep and whom to separate, a power that should (and does) squarely rest with the commanding officer corps.
Reining in Centralized Control
PTS provides Big Navy unprecedented control over our service end strength. While there are clear benefits to this increased control, especially with dwindling resources and expanding operational commitments, this new unbridled ability to essentially fire sailors based on constantly shifting “needs of the Navy” and career reenlistment objective ratings-du-jour has significant drawbacks. While PTS does honor the commanding officer’s retention recommendation to begin the PTS process, the sailor’s leading petty officer, chief, division officer, department head, and unit CO are better positioned to make PTS approval decisions over the PTS computer algorithm. Deckplate leaders need to take back their authority.
As commanding officers, our attention is often too narrowly focused on the unit or individual sailor. We should instead balance what is best for the sailor and the unit with what is best for the Navy, writ large. All retained sailors will eventually transfer to another unit, and all COs have at some time in their tours received sailors from other units who never should have been allowed to reenlist, but were kept on the books and shuffled internally to an out-of-rate position under the “at least it’s a body” logic.
Allowing these sailors to limp along in our units disrespects the remaining 90 or 95 percent who hunger for greater challenges and who thrive on an elevated quality standard in a command. In this sense, eliminating the worst from our ranks allows quality to transcend the “zero-sum game” which always defines the bounds of quantity-based decision-making. Unfortunately, because we have been unwilling to place quality over quantity, either due to chasing the Retention Honor Roll, or because of queasy stomachs in dealing directly with substandard performance, commanding officers have allowed Big Navy to usurp, institutionalize, and centralize quality control through PTS.
A few simple actions and policy changes can help reverse the quantity based trend toward manpower decision-making. These would include returning to limiting the number of NAMs each command can issue annually. There will be short-term pain, as the generation of sailors with six, seven, even eight or more NAMs ages out, but the service must maintain the long view of rebalancing the awards process.
Another quick improvement would address the Retention Honor Roll. The Navy should recognize, through a revised program, commands that most closely match a retention target. Thus, a command achieving 58 percent retention for Zone B (2010 all-Navy target was 60 percent) might receive appropriate recognition over one achieving 100 percent. Such a construct would also send the message that Big Navy tacitly recognizes and supports commands making difficult decisions as opposed to simply sending all sailors to the BUPERS clearinghouse to sort the wheat from the chaff.
A better solution to the automated PTS approval process would involve more direct and active unit participation. For example, consider naval aviation and the electronic-attack squadron (VAQ) community, and a hypothetical case in which the Navy requires the separation of 100 aviation structural mechanics in the E-4 and below paygrade this year. This requirement should be fair-shared among the various type commands across naval aviation. Then, if the VAQ allocation is 15 of the original 100, those 15 should pass to the individual units for determining whom to fire, with the necessary arbitration and productive debate among the various VAQ squadrons. In this way, the Navy requirement would be met while making the hard decision at the appropriate—local—level. Instead of the sailor receiving an impersonal message announcing his PTS disapproval, the command would have honest and candid mentoring and counseling of the member, providing the sailor and his family the personal touch every service member deserves. Not all sailors deserve to keep their jobs, and local commanders are in the best position to properly make those difficult decisions.
Commanding officers recognize that the warfighting capabilities of their units are achieved with the right—not simply more—people. Operational success depends not on the technology of the weapon system or platform, nor on the number of people with whom a unit deploys, but instead on the fighting spirit of each individual sailor, soldier, and Marine. Deploying-unit COs must ensure that only those able to contribute to the team in meaningful ways are retained. We owe it to all personnel entrusted to our care.
The “Uncoachable Moment”
Naval service, whether in the Coast Guard or Navy, is an apprenticed profession. Every officer career path and enlisted rating has formal schools to teach detailed and technical materials. A successful officer, warrant, chief, or petty officer, however, can synthesize technical information with practical experience to carry out his or her duties. Whether a helicopter pilot conducts a rescue hoist, a strike-team member contains a hazardous material spill, or small-boat coxswain enforces a security zone, our missions demand a strong grounding in fundamental skills, keen situational awareness, and rapid on-scene decision making—attributes Coast Guardsmen and sailors develop through time and experience.
A successful career in the cutterman or surface-warfare-officer community is no less demanding of these attributes, particularly in the area of shiphandling. But how does a junior deck-watch officer gain enough experience to become a confident shiphandler? Chalk talks, observation, and even time in a simulator only go so far; to become proficient in maneuvering, conning officers must handle ships in both routine and challenging situations.
Opportunities for close-in maneuvering, mooring, and anchoring are often quite limited; thus, every shiphandling evolution is a key learning experience for apprentice conning officers, and preferably a positive one. That’s where a conning coach comes into the picture.
No Such Thing as a Conning Coach
Oddly enough, as important as a conning coach would seem for developing shiphandling skills among junior personnel, the authors are unable to find such a position in official directives. A few COs’ standing orders make mention, but Coast Guard regulations—which discuss the relationship between the officer of the deck and the conning officer—only briefly direct the CO to “afford frequent opportunity to other officers to acquire and improve their skill in ship handling.” There is no explicit provision for a billet to guide and assist the conning officer.
Nonetheless, the need for a coach is obvious. Novice conning officers require considerable oversight as they assimilate various information streams including navigation, shipping, and environmental factors into their planned maneuvers. This oversight can divert the attention of the CO, executive officer, or others with positions specified by regulation from performing their overarching roles. Limiting direct interaction with the conning officer to a designated individual frees the chain of command to focus on safety and navigation. Moreover, correct use of the coaching concept greatly reduces confusion from “information overload” or conflicting ideas.
The chance to successfully handle a ship is a powerful “hook” for an officer to decide on continued service and to seek follow-on at-sea assignments. But with little established guidance, how can the sea services be assured of proficient mariners in the future?
The Coaching Continuum
All too often junior officers depart the bridge after a stressful evolution feeling as if the entire shiphandling process was fed to them, only to be “regurgitated” with little thought or hesitation. While there is a place for such parroting, its overuse would surely dampen anyone’s enthusiasm for shiphandling and, by extension, sea duty.
The dynamic complexity of close-in maneuvering, mooring, and anchoring ideally drives an ongoing dialogue between coach and conning officer that generally flows into three distinct levels: mentoring, advising, and directing.
Mentoring. Properly facilitated, mentoring enables a conning officer to openly exchange observations and contemplated actions with the coach. A continuous dialogue throughout the evolution allows the coach to validate the apprentice’s thought process, bring up alternatives (for example, twisting vs. casting), and discuss the strengths and shortcomings of each possible approach. Further, this exchange recognizes the apprentice as a seagoing professional, helping to build self-confidence.
Advising. The coach may detect when the conning officer is falling behind in commands, losing sense of the ship’s motion, or taking too much time to formulate a maneuver. Specifying the required outcome or pointing out what’s happening may be all that’s needed to correct the situation. Advising is frequently the best method of breaking “tunnel vision”—failing either to look abeam to judge headway or to check the motion of the stern close aboard a pier.
Directing. The most transactional type of coaching resorts to directing. A coach specifies the action to meet a desired outcome and expects the conning officer to relay the commands.
Shiphandling includes changing environmental conditions, interactions with other vessels, and unanticipated actions by tugs. Skill in balancing controlled forces (propellers, rudders, and thrusters) with wind, currents, and tugs is often extremely complex. Because an apprentice conning officer can easily be overwhelmed, the coach must be fluent in working at all three levels of interaction and agile in shifting between them to keep the maneuvering of the ship progressing safely.
Mentoring Is the ‘Sweet Spot’
Mentoring begins well before actual shiphandling. Establishing a command climate in which junior personnel feel comfortable gathering in small groups with experienced shiphandlers is the key to building effective coaching relationships. Commands must invest time in routine seminar-based sessions to review fundamentals and discuss case studies and chalk-talks. The coach and conning officer should discuss the predicted environmental factors, available tools, and individual abilities. On the bridge, conning officers should go over intended actions, and coaches follow up with questions. Questions such as “do you agree with the navigator’s time-to-turn recommendation?” allow conning officers to determine their subsequent actions. This exchange enables the conning officer to synthesize new courses of action based on shiphandling theory, experience, and coaching feedback.
A conning coach should act primarily as a mentor. In practice, however, the balance between mentoring, advising, and directing for any given evolution will be driven by the complexity of the evolution; the skill level of the conning officer; and the coach’s skill level, both in shiphandling and coaching.
In each case, safety remains paramount; it is incumbent on command cadre that coaching is properly structured and fully understood by the entire bridge team. This is inextricably tied to effective bridge-resource management.
The CO’s Role
Coast Guard regulations state: “The CO shall be responsible for all maneuvers of the vessel and shall, if necessary, direct the officer handling the vessel. The CO shall, if it is deemed necessary or desirable, personally handle the ship.”
It is perhaps this point of directing action that is the most crucial to a successful shiphandling program—essentially, the point at which the CO determines a shiphandling evolution has reached the “Uncoachable Moment.” If the CO’s threshold is low for where this point is reached, there will likely be too much direction and too few opportunities for conning officers to truly practice shiphandling. Conversely, if the CO’s threshold for intervening is too high, he or she may not be able to regain control of the evolution effectively, risking damage to the ship and personnel safety.
While the CO can mentor or advise either the coach or the conning officer to correct a situation or make a point, the CO should direct only the conning officer to reduce the possibility of delay or confusion in carrying out a maneuvering command. Finding the right point at which to intervene is not easy or formulaic, but it’s worth the careful circumspection it requires.
Conning Officer Development Basics
Prior to shiphandling evolutions:
• Teach shiphandling theory whenever possible, including graphic chalk talks and simulator time.
• Give apprentices an opportunity to observe and discuss evolutions on the bridge before serving as conning officer.
• Conduct a thorough navigation brief—including operational risk management (ORM)—that assesses the skills and experience of the entire team, including break-in positions.
• Assign the specific conning officer, coach, and safety observer (usually executive officer or operations officer). Ensure the coach and conning officer develop their mooring/unmooring plan and brief it to the CO and safety observer. Discuss pertinent lessons from recent evolutions.
• Have the coach and conning officer assess actual environmental conditions, and review and modify the plan and ORM assessment with the CO and safety observer as necessary.
During shiphandling evolutions, encourage the conning officer to “think aloud” as the evolution progresses, so that the coach can mentor and provide observations of the ship’s movement and options to best execute the next maneuver. The coach and CO also should constantly watch for signs that the conning officer is becoming overwhelmed or missing undesired movement of the ship. The CO should monitor the interactions between the coach and conning officer and the coach’s level of confidence. Finally, the safety observer should assess the effectiveness of the entire bridge team in the safe navigation and maneuvering of the ship and call any issues of concern to the attention of the CO.
After evolutions all shiphandlers should debrief the evolution, including the validation of ORM assessments and to identify lessons learned. If any occurred, discuss the coach’s and CO’s shifts to advising/directing, cover what you were seeing, what was happening, and the required action, and keep the debrief positive. Conduct a separate command cadre debrief of coaching programs, to discuss the coach’s performance in interacting with the conning officer; revisit any interventions by the CO or safety observer; and note comments and observations raised at conning debrief, especially recurring issues.
Captain Gimple currently commands the 378-foot USCGC Boutwell (WHEC-719). Both are career Coast Guard cuttermen.
Temporal Balance
How many hours do you work each week? How much time do you need to work? These questions plague our society in the form of a well-addressed disease and addiction we call “workaholism.” Nowadays we are all required to accomplish more with less. But how do we achieve the delicate balance between work and everything else that is not work? The inspiration for this article came from my own time-management issues while battling cancer for the third time in 2010 and meeting a program milestone. I was also inspired by discussions with Engineering Duty Officer Mary Townsend-Manning, and The Why of Work: How Great Leaders Build Abundant Organizations that Win by David and Wendy Ulrich (McGraw-Hill, 2010).
Work expands to fill the time allotted for it. If leaders work 12-hour days on a regular basis, they will find work to fill those hours. If, however, they choose to go home after eight hours, they will do their most important eight hours of work. Modifying your work hours will discipline you to do what’s required and to set better priorities. If you set a goal to leave on time, you will be more motivated and ultimately waste less time. The time you give yourself to refresh your mind and body and to maintain relationships in your life will reduce stress and afford you the opportunity to live longer. Don’t misunderstand; there is a time for working beyond normal hours. But this should be a temporal anomaly rather than the norm.
While the number of hours one works is a personal choice, leaders and mentors should carefully consider how long they work because we are all watching and emulating them. Surprisingly, many leaders typically work a 12- to 14-hour day. What kind of message does this send to the ones being mentored? One commanding officer and mentor cautioned me, “Joe, if I look miserable and work long, hard hours all the time, what would make you want to do my job one day?” I try to take those words to heart now that I am a commander. Another mentor remarked, “If you can’t get your job done in eight hours a day, you are not doing your job right.”
Working Principles
Delegate more. This empowers and teaches subordinates so you can “dig the well” deeper for talent. Delegating also improves office productivity by ensuring that no single person becomes a bottleneck in the decision-making process. A tenet of military leadership requires leaders to train subordinates so that if the leader falls the troops can carry on. Delegation allows leaders to take regular time off and vacations to recharge their batteries and give their people a chance to exercise what they have learned.
Physical-fitness breaks are a critical part of productivity. The most effective people work in short bursts. The Chief of Navy Operations has said, “Physical fitness is a crucial element of mission performance and must be a part of every sailor’s life.” He gave clear direction that physical readiness activities shall include a minimum of three sessions per week devoted to moderate and moderately high-intensity physical conditioning. Government civilians also have a policy allowing them to participate in one hour of physical activity three times per week. A regular fitness program not only improves focus but reduces stress and can extend one’s life. Fitness must be programmed into your day much like work.
Lean principles will increase productivity. As effective managers, we implement “lean” in our production models, assembly lines, and blue-collar work environments, but we leave out our own office or work space. Try to handle a piece of paper or email once. Superior managers check email two to three times per day and deal with what needs to be dealt with. If you have a full inbox and set your priorities off of that inbox, you may need to delegate better. As any lean green belt will tell you, you should have all things in their place so you do not waste time looking for the tools you need to do your job.
Success comes from hard work, not long hours. Productivity isn’t about working all the time; it is about efficiency. As the acquisition executive at Special Operations Command says, “It is OK to go home.” Going home may even increase your overall productivity. It’s important to be able to recognize when your attention and energy are waning.
Our mothers and fathers worked hard. We grew up thinking we have to work harder. They may have gone to college, but we had to go to college, carry a full course load, and have a full-time job. Becoming more “grounded” leads to being more focused and productive. Increased productivity allows people to gain confidence that stimulates the creative process and leads to greater opportunity to excel. This temporal outlook becomes a cycle of ever-increasing productivity.
Children suffer from parents’ long work hours. As CNN reported on 24 March 2011, with the declining economy, more households require both parents to work—and to work longer hours. If families are to have dinner together, late dinners mean late bedtimes and deprive children of much-needed sleep. They are also linked to weight gain in young children who have little activity after their meals. Studies show that parental involvement is critical to success in school, but parents who work longer hours also tend to be less involved in their children’s education.
Relationships suffer from long work hours. Hard-working people are often considered above reproach. Experts suggest that the real reason for half of the long hours people work has shifted from enhancing careers or providing for families to dodging the greater challenge of working on relationships. The reported facts are that if you are a workaholic, not only are you less likely to be as productive as a disciplined worker, but you are 40 percent more likely to end up in a divorce (Men’s Health, November 2010). When you are sleep-deprived, overworked, and spent, you tend not to have the energy to be put in the work required for building or maintaining a relationship.
Efficient leaders strive for balance and equilibrium. As I foraged for life’s meaning last year I faced all of these compelling issues. I have adopted these tenets as part of my daily routine. It was difficult in the beginning. Sometimes I forget and fall back to my old ways, but this is a process of refinement. The people in my life serve as a continual reminder for me to remain balanced.
Change involves risk and loss. You risk implementing an unsuccessful strategy and having to give up one that gets the job done. We justify it by saying “Of course the current behaviors might not be optimal, but they may be preferable to change.” If leaders are risk-averse, unwilling or unable to adapt, and refuse to evolve, they will likely go by the way of the dinosaur.
Change is wonderful when it is for a good reason and worthwhile goal. It is probably the hardest thing you will ever do, but it is worth the effort. When work is done, you have only your family, relationships, and the memories you shaped during your life. For those of you working long hard hours, please reconsider your options. If you work longer than nine hours a day, perhaps you can benefit from better delegation. Participating in a fitness program will improve your overall health as well as your productivity. Set a departure time and have the discipline to stick to it. Work and family must coexist. In hindsight, we may be awestruck by the amount of time we chose work over the rest of our lives.
Of the life lessons I try to teach my children, the first is “balance.” We can all benefit from a little more balance between work—and the rest of life.