The U. S. Navy has a finite number of men, money, and machines. Also, it is overcommitted with respect to those limited resources. The result is that impossible requirements have been placed on nearly every activity, leading to all sorts of misallocations of time and personnel, and many unfulfilled requirements.
“Commodore, when you were a ship’s captain, what did you do with all your spare time?”
“As I recall we were pretty damn busy in those days. We had a rugged tempo of operations, about as stiff as you have today. What makes you ask that question, anyway?”
“Well, sir, it’s just that I can name 20 things right off the top of my head that I am personally required to do as a commanding officer for which there was no such requirement when you had command. If I think about it awhile, I could come up with a lot more than 20 and, for the life of me, I can’t name any requirements that have been removed during this same period. Can you?”
A conversation similar to the foregoing actually took place not long ago. Is the proliferation of requirements indicative of a Navy-wide condition? Do all officers, not just COs, feel that more and more is being asked of them as years go by? In search of the answer, more than 20 officers of varied rank and background were interviewed. The group cannot be classed as representative, nor were the interviews conducted skillfully enough to imply sufficient objectivity to allow for statistical inference. Owing to the broad experience represented and the unanimity of their responses, however, their collective wisdom merits our attention. The following statements summarize their remarks:
► The officers and men of the Navy are severely over-committed (there are just too many requirements).
► In 1960, the resources of our Navy (men and material) were fully engaged (some said overcommitted, because of some trivial requirements). During this past decade, the expansion of resources, particularly time, has not kept pace with the escalation of requirements.
► The requirements—particularly administrative requirements—are so many and come from such a variety of sources that each newly-assigned officer finds that it takes months before he is aware of all the requirements associated with his job.
►The only area mentioned where a reduction of requirements has occurred has been within units preparing for and participating in Vietnam combat operations, wherein superfluous requirements gave way to mission oriented requirements.
If we are overcommitted, is it good or bad? After all, the Navy accomplished a great deal in the 1960s.
Let us first view what might be regarded as the credit side of the ledger. The payoffs of overcommitment could include the following:
Strength. There has developed within the Navy, a cadre of officers and men accustomed to hard work and personal sacrifice, which is a continuing source of strength.
Capable Leadership. In those who have done well in this environment, we have a group of leaders who are capable of difficult decisions under severe pressure, men who can recognize, sort out, and accomplish the important tasks, even when they are disguised in the mass of less-important requirements.
Pride. There is pride of accomplishment in the face of many obstacles.
Let us now examine the debit column of overcommitment. The following is a list of problems we are experiencing today in the Navy which have resulted or could have resulted from severe overcommitment.
Requirements Ignored. Each year more pages—some say volumes—are added to the mountains of directives issued at all management levels from leading chief of a shipboard division to the Secretary of the Navy. Some pages contain new and revised rules and requirements. Some, although directive in nature, contain information which, if read, could be helpful, especially to inexperienced Navy personnel in doing their jobs safely and effectively—the first time. Some even contain directions for the reduction of paperwork. The sum of all this is bewildering even to the most experienced Navymen. Moreover, the fastest readers can’t find time to read it all. If there are requirements which go unread, then there certainly are rules that are not being followed. Through direct supervision, the chief petty officer and division officer can ensure for the most part that their orders are carried out. What about directives from outside the ship, particularly those about which the chief and officer know nothing? Commanders at all levels must wonder which of their requirements at this very moment are being ignored.
Marred record. Along with the successes of the 1960s have been the Thresher loss, the Forrestal fire, the Pueblo and Evans incidents. Could the permanent or temporary loss of men and machines through accidents and incidents be the results of overcommitment? Commanders must wonder whether a major contributing factor to these and other problems could have been the misinterpretation of vast, often ambiguous requirements, or because subordinates chose the wrong requirement to ignore or perhaps were unaware that such requirements even existed. Perhaps fatigue from trying to do everything well, played a part. It is possible that our better judgment and more alert hours were wasted on unnecessary commitments, leaving little in reserve for the real crisis that eventually faces all those who are involved in vital missions.
Waning Professionalism. Whether we are more or less professional today than ten years ago is difficult to establish to the satisfaction of all. The word “professionalism” itself is subject to interpretation. Certainly, there is less time to broaden horizons through study, except perhaps in fields directly related to our present assignment. However, many officers are unaware that professional reading lists and recommended correspondence courses for professional development are the subject of directives originated by the Secretary of the Navy and the Chief of Naval Personnel.
Most of us have little time for reflective thinking and writing unless, of course, it is part of our primary duty, such as when we are assigned as students. The majority of officers are exhausting themselves trying to make two hours out of one, three dollars out of two and ten men out of five. Professionalism, along with many other things, is being sacrificed to overcommitment. Senior officers no longer have time to counsel and guide junior officers. Officers in general no longer have time for personal study and reflection. The ultimate cost of all this will not be fully apparent until we have become a second-rate seapower.
Retention. Increased commitments mean longer at-sea periods, longer work days, and more “midnight oil.” Most people understand the necessity for increased working hours and unexpected deployments when associated with a real crisis. But, for many, the call for sacrifice has become routine and long-term, and the reasons are not always apparent. To work the civilian overtime, the price is paid in increased wages (doubletime, time-and-a-half, etc.), but not so with the sailor. Yet, here again, the price is paid in the long run. One price is the lack of adequate retention, officer and enlisted.
Furthermore, correction of our retention problem is aggravated by the problem itself. Shortages mean more work and worse rotation schedules, making for further and worse shortages. These shortages, coupled with overcommitment, make impossible the correction of the problem.
Lack of Planning. Overcommitment, to many, results in “management by crisis” or “putting out one fire at a time to the exclusion of everything else.” Thus, careful planning is inhibited or rejected, further multiplying the high costs of overcommitment. With each day of inaction in wrestling with policies of overcommitment, opportunities to correct these growing problems are removed further from the realm of the possible. There is no way of measuring the long-term effects of “crisis management” and a failure to plan constructively.
What seems to be clear, as the Navy plunges into the 1970s, is that more is being required than can be accomplished. The inevitable result is low quality performance, unfulfilled requirements, or both—and both are unacceptable. The situation is being aggravated further by continuing reductions in force levels and other economy measures invoked without equally compensating reductions in missions and requirements.
What is the answer to this dilemma? Obviously, we in the Navy cannot control national commitments. We cannot effect [sic] the technological gains of our potential enemies, nor would we wish to slow down the pace of our own technical growth. Yet, all these things contribute to escalating commitments and requirements. We must find ways to deal imaginatively with these problems and to harness our technology to serve us in a way that reduces, not increases, individual effort. We need a “key” to unlock our dilemma.
The majority of requirements which affect each level of command are principally the result of “in-house” decisions. These decisions are born of a desire to improve control, safety, efficiency, and effectiveness. We hardly have to look past the leading chief or division officer to find the first of many layers of escalating requirements. In the way we plan everything, from out daily work to a weekend off, most of us can see our natural tendency to overcommit ourselves and those who work for us. We generally decide among alternatives on the basis of what seems worthwhile and we select ways of doing things based on which method will achieve the best possible performance.
Using a desirability criterion as an approach to decision-making is laudable but one-sided. To do something because it has merit or benefit alone, has led us to our present dilemma. Before making a decision, we must look at more than the potential gains. The relevant question is, what will this decision cost? What is the price? Are gains in the short run offset by losses in the long run? Are there indirect or hidden costs? These are pertinent questions which cry out for answers.
Someone in BuPers, deciding on a new reporting requirement, might figure the cost by multiplying the number of reports by the payscale and hours required of the individual filling out and handling the report This would provide some idea of the dollar cost of a particular decision. For personnel already overcommitted, however, this is hardly a satisfactory costing device. After all, if the report were not required, the cost would be paid anyway, while the individuals concerned would be involved in other activities. So what is the cost? The relevant cost, then, is the activity which will be given up in order to fill out and submit the report. If Lieutenant Jones is filling out a report, he is not inspecting divisional work, training his men, reading for professional development, or even sleeping. He is giving up the “opportunity” of accomplishing perhaps a more worthwhile task than the one assigned.
Thus, one of the important aspects of a decision is evaluating its opportunity cost or determining what worthwhile task is being given up in order to do whatever it is. Thinking along these lines requires some means of evaluating the “worthwhileness” of foregone opportunities. In order to evaluate opportunity costs, we need to know the capability of the enlisted men (the various rates and ratings), the officers, the crews, the ships, the squadrons or whatever elements are affected by our decisions. We need to know their capacities for alternate tasks, but more than this, we must know the marginal productivity for these alternatives or what gains or losses will accrue from adding one hour, one man, one ship, or one plane to a particular mission at a particular time. On the other hand, what are the effects of reducing a mission by one hour, one man, one ship, or one plane? The marginal productivity as used in this context is the increase or decrease in output resulting from an incremental change in input.
Still, marginal productivity means different things to different people. As used in this essay, a simple example would be: The MPA desires to clean the lower level engineroom. One man might take 40 hours to do it, two men 19 hours, three men six hours. Up to a point, each additional man means higher productivity per man than the previous man, since they divide the work and specialize their function (work as a team). One of them might be a supervisor as well as worker. Yet, there comes a time when adding another man causes a leveling off in output-per-man, then a reduction of output-per-man and finally, when there are so many men that they get in each other’s way, a reduction in total output results, or the time required to complete the job actually increases. In this example the marginal productivity for a particular-size group is the change in output-per-man, accrued by adding the last man to that group.
For an individual working alone, marginal productivity could be measured in results-per-unit-time. Marginal productivity would be high the first hour, since he is fresh and enthusiastic; perhaps even higher the second hour as he finds the “rhythm” of the task, then leveling and falling as he tires.
Similarly, an awareness of margins regarding all aspects of human capabilities and behavior as well as margins associated with the operation of vital machinery has always been and will always be mandatory for safe and efficient operations at sea. When must a piece of equipment be taken off the line for preventive maintenance or at what point does its marginal operation approach an unsafe or unreliable limit? While navigating in restricted waters for extended periods—e.g., transit up the Chesapeake Bay or the St. Lawrence Seaway—is the marginal productivity of the ship’s best navigational officer equal to the marginal productivity of the next best or the worst. In the first instance, the 3M program (PMS) comes to the rescue, setting recommended preventive maintenance schedules (timing), but in the latter case, it becomes a human judgment; both are vital to the ship’s safety. The opportunity cost of the decision not to send the navigator to bed and not to replace him on a navigational watchbill with another, but less-skilled, ship’s officer could be the price of a new ship and a new crew. This price has been paid before in naval experience, perhaps not for this precise reason but for one like it.
What is the marginal productivity of adding one more unit to an ASW screen, versus its marginal productivity as an additional plane guard? What is the marginal productivity of conducting a third fire drill versus one flooding drill or an all hands lecture, etc.?
What is the marginal productivity of adding one more bomber to a mission versus its use in a different mission or grounding it for preventive maintenance? How is marginal productivity of a change to an instruction versus no change or perhaps no instruction at all?
Two things should be obvious at this point. One is that, if precise values for the marginal productivity of all possible alternatives were known, decisions such as these could be accurately made and efficiency and effectiveness would benefit. At the same time, it is realized that these facts are not precisely known. Nevertheless, each manager has a feel for this sort of information, and to consider it in decision-making along with all the other associated factors would be to add an important dimension to decisions and would be to make more realistic the requirements on subordinates.
Implications. The comparing of the marginal productivity which might result from an impending decision and the marginal productivity of what must be given up because of this decision has interesting if not profound implications both in personal as well as organizational decisions. The exact implications would vary with the individual and the organization. It might be worthwhile to discuss the tools further as they could apply in a few sample areas.
► The concepts are particularly useful in examining administrative production. In some commands, great store is placed on the quality of paperwork, not only the quality of appearance, but also the quality of content. Characteristically (disregarding the case where JOs are being taught an English lesson by “trial and error”), letters are rewritten several times, and are proofed and retyped at each of several levels of review.
Consider the marginal productivity of the originator of a document. His marginal productivity increases as he warms up to the task of writing (gets thoughts organized, outlines, etc.) and, about midway through the first draft, his marginal productivity peaks and holds at a fairly high level. Then marginal productivity falls off as he reviews, corrects, and rewrites various passages. If it then goes to a typewritten rough, any future contact with it for proofing, etc., will involve extremely low marginal productivity and therefore high opportunity cost.
For the typist, a similar rise and fall of marginal productivity takes place. Obviously, retyping is negative marginal productivity since it reduces his output/time period as regards a paper he has typed already. The more reviewing and retyping that occurs, the more significantly marginal productivity and average productivity of all concerned falls.
About 50% of an officer’s letter-writing time seems to be spent in achieving 90% of the standard (did not consider perfection since it is unobtainable), the other 50% is spent in achieving the last 10% of the standard. So, the cost of gaining the last 10% is clear: it is doubling the effort and time of those involved. How else might he be using his time? Is it worth it? That becomes a personal decision, but one for which we may now have better information.
► Another field where the application of these tools might be of interest is in the study and evaluation of “good” naval leadership. In so many cases the “textbook criterion” of a good leader is whether he gets the job done. On several occasions, when comparisons were being made between two markedly different leadership styles, it was suggested that leadership was equal since they both reached the goal. The only question is “at what cost?” This, of course, is difficult to evaluate.
Nevertheless, if two ships have superlative operating records but in one morale and retention are low, and after a couple of years the wear-and-tear on the equipment causes it to be placed in a reduced status or requires an early yard availability, then cost analysis of leadership could be applicable. What is the opportunity cost of setting operational records and winning awards in peacetime if at the same time, wartime mission readiness is sacrificed, or the future of the Navy is jeopardized by the resignation or early retirement of outstanding men?
► This brings us to the famous “can-do” spirit, which many consider to be the chief accomplice of the crime of overcommitment. A misdirected “can-do” spirit can have, and, in my opinion, does have, serious repercussions. For example, the commanding officer who directs the jury-rig repair of a piece of vital equipment in order to meet a peacetime commitment (sailing date), when facilities are available to do the job correctly but involve more time and a missed commitment, is chancing a serious opportunity cost. In this example, the opportunity cost is the sacrifice of the ship’s primary wartime mission and possibly the safety of the ship and her crew, and for what?
One young officer confided that his CO would not send a casualty report while deployed unless the nature of the casualty forced its own report (i.e., if it forced curtailment of an operation). Another young officer told me of a serious fire in the ship’s main propulsion equipment, which was nor reported, forcing the crew to operate in a hazardous emergency mode simply in order to complete a routine peacetime mission. What is the opportunity cost of holding the Fleet together with “baling wire” in peacetime? The costs would be grimly apparent should a state of national emergency be declared. Furthermore, the impression made on subordinates, even when the baling wire holds, is a serious indirect cost, but a cost nevertheless.
► A fourth area where these tools might suggest fruitful review is the naval directives system. What is the opportunity cost of rephrasing and republishing the same directive at all command levels, or quoting the same words from U. S. Navy Regulations in Fleet, Type, Squadron, Ship, Department and Division Organization and Regulations Manuals, or maintaining separately the manuals of ships of the same class, or republishing instructions to include a new signature and date, or publishing standard manuals for the ships at the Type level and individualized manuals at the unit level? Somewhere in our rewards system there appears to be an incentive for certain officers to feel productive only when signing directives. This particular area was the one cited as the worst offender by the officers interviewed on the subject of overcommitment.
The opportunity cost of issuing only a small change, to just one directive in this multi-layered directives system, is fantastic. A small change initiated at the highest management level operates like a pebble striking quiet water, causing expanding waves of effort down to the unit level. It is possible that in the rephrasing at each level along the way, the actual intent could be lost. Is it not possible for units to use certain directives as they are written rather than revising them? The signature of a vice admiral should carry as much weight in a ship’s directives file as that of a former commanding officer.
Before taking command of the Atlantic Fleet, Admiral Charles K. Duncan penned the challenge of the 1970s when he wrote, “Now that we have a more compact Navy, we must give serious consideration to the utilization of our personnel. One of the most challenging tasks that we have is to obtain the maximum effectiveness from each person in the Navy.”
Can this be done by stretching each man until he is “paper thin” and exhausted? Or is there some optimum level at which each man produces at a maximum for his ability and where his capability grows at some optimum rate to reach his maximum capacity for work, a level which can be maintained for 20, 30 or even 40 years? There is such a point, and it is the point where his marginal productivity and that of the Navy is maximized. Only as marginal productivity is maximized will the opportunity costs of all requirements be minimized and the Navy operated effectively.
Postscript. If you have read this far, you are either not one of the overcommitted people, or you are so hopelessly behind in your work that you can spare me five more minutes. I have tried to say that we are overcommitted; that it is bad; that it is crippling our readiness; that it has contributed to the malfunction of equipment and men; that it destroys morale, and that it makes difficult a logical recovery program. If you agree, let’s shout it together: “I wish they would do something about it!” But, who are “they”? One of them, of course, is me and, chances are, another one is you. Very often we make decisions without considering the cost, the opportunity cost. Each of us, at whatever level, makes decisions which affect ourselves and others. Should I work all night on this project? Should I hold up liberty until the radar is fixed? Should I start liberty at 1500 or 1700? Should I call the men in at 0600 for an 0700 underway or should it be 0500? Should I route this report to the entire wardroom and require everyone to read it? Should I hold a four-hour field day or a six-hour one?
Should I have a meeting of the entire wardroom or just the department heads? Should I hold it once a week or every morning? Should the report be retyped or will a corrected copy be O.K.? Do we need to rewrite all the squadron instructions? Should I send a message or a speedletter? Should the entire port side be painted for the change of command?
Do we need to conduct that particular exercise again this year? Do we need all ten ships to participate? Should we keep them at sea an extra day? Should we provide a period for independent ship exercise? Should we hold the inspection during the upkeep? Should I tell him that no more ships are available, or should I take the USS Wornout out of upkeep? Should I keep all units in commission, but undermanned, or keep only half, but fully ready?
Should I keep Jones at sea or transfer him to shore duty? Should I let Smith resign or let him go into the intelligence field? Should I overtour Johnson or give his relief 30 days leave?
Should I create a new staff to do this job or can the old staff handle it? Should I publish a new instruction or include this as a page-change to the regulation manual? Should I keep Yeoman Perfect on shore duty with me or is there a yeoman on sea duty who could do as well? Should we build the new attack plane now, or wait and include the new missile when it is developed? Should I go home and eat or keep writing at my desk?
We have a great Navy, and it could be a lot better. There are as many different answers as there are different people and questions. Which answers will reward us with the greatest gain? What about the cost? Who? Me?
__________
Lieutenant Commander Brainerd is a graduate of the U. S. Naval Academy with the Class of 1957; he received a Master of Science Degree in Management from the Naval Postgraduate School in June 1970. Following commissioning, Lieutenant Commander Brainerd served on board the USS Waller (DD-466) in Task Group Alfa. The remainder of his professional experience has been in submarines including USS Sterlet (SS-392), USS George Washington (SSBN-598), and USS Theodore Roosevelt (SSBN-600). Since August 1970, he has been serving as Executive Officer of USS Skipjack (SSN-585).
_________________________________________________________________________________
Signal Understood
The Navy general signal book was an enormous tome and the flag hoists listed therein were supposed to cover every situation, which they did—almost. However, in fleet maneuvers, when a ship suddenly fouled up the whole formation, many flag officers would hoist, “Church Pennant, Interrogatory.”
This was not in the signal book, but everyone in the old Navy knew it meant, “For Christ’s sake, what’s the matter?”
—Contributed by Capt. Blaine Hunter, (SC) USN (Ret.)
One of the Elect
While serving as Information Officer for the 1st Marine Division in Korea, I assigned my driver, a corporal, to take a missionary-turned-reporter to cover a Billy Graham appearance. At the end of the meeting, the ex-missionary urged the corporal to step forward and be “saved.” To which the corporal replied firmly:
“Mister, I don’t need saving. I’m in the Marines.”
—Contributed by Bern Price
(The Naval Institute will pay $10.00 for each anecdote published in the Proceedings.)