There is perception within the Navy of a “zero-defect mentality” that causes too-frequent relief of commanding officers in an unforgiving, counterproductive, and unfair process that ruins officers of great promise.
Fear of the zero-defect mentality is nothing new. My peers and I agonized over it 40 years ago. Some of those peers are now in the Navy’s highest positions, accused by today’s junior officers of engaging in the same unforgiving behavior they once condemned.
Are they—and were we—right?
I made a lot of mistakes in the Navy, including in command. Self-doubt and a short temper during my first command did not make me the poster child for a good commanding officer. In addition, I can recall at least one situation in which a problem occurred because of a lack of oversight. If uncorrected, my ship could not get underway and would miss a commitment—and I almost certainly would be relieved for cause. If, on the other hand, we found a solution and met our operational commitment, it was likely all would be forgiven.1
When I called my immediate superior in command to inform him of the problem and our intended course of action, he replied simply, “Okay, keep me informed.” Then he left me alone. We did not speak again until I called to say we had fixed the problem and were underway.
My commodore never held the incident against me, and I never heard about it again or saw it in a fitness report. He recognized that bad things happen to good people. The standard he—and every other superior officer for whom I worked—held me to was “accomplish the mission and bring the crew home safe.” It also was the standard to which I held myself. If I failed to meet it, I felt I should be fired to make room for someone who could.
Admittedly, I am relying on personal anecdotes to make a case, something Navy Lieutenant Commander Andrew Odell rightly criticizes in his article, “The Navy Still Punishes Talented Risk-Takers.”2 However, the important question is why certain acts are subject to relief while others are not.
For example, Lieutenant Commander Odell writes that “the Navy has replaced a professional set of military ethics with a system grounded in compliance with rules and regulations, one that treats all incidents the same, whether sexual harassment or a ship grounding.”3 If by “the same,” he means that the outcomes of reported incidents of each are the same, he is right. Both can result in relief for cause—and I believe they should.
If one accepts the premise that a commanding officer’s primary duty is to accomplish the mission and bring the crew home safe, then both acts are failures of duty: Grounding impedes mission accomplishment while sexual harassment greatly harms one or more of the crew.
Most if not all actions leading to a commanding officer’s relief have a negative impact on mission or people. Far from representing a zero-defect mentality, relief for such actions is justified because of the bad outcomes.
Clearly, I do not believe in the zero-defect mentality. I do believe the Navy is a demanding profession that holds commanding officers accountable to a degree equivalent to the failure, reserving relief for cause for the most serious failures. That appears to be a reasonable approach to personnel management.
I would advise officers to focus on accomplishing the mission and bringing the crew home safe. If you can do that, you will have that second chance.
1. Because relieving a commanding officer for cause is more difficult and time-consuming than it seems.
2. LCDR Andrew Odell, USN, “The Navy Still Punishes Talented Risk-Takers,” U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings 148, no. 5 (May 2022).
3. Odell, “The Navy Still Punishes Risk-Takers.”
