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By Captain P. T. Deutermann, U.S. Navy (Retired)
The captain and the exec form a management team that must free the CO for the intensely personal exercise of command face-to-face, every day, down in the working spaces.
There are many theories about the relationship between command and management in the Navy. Some say that management is a subset of command; others claim that it is a distinct function that should never be confused with command. Still others define the two by who executes each function: the executive officer manages and the captain commands. I believe that the relationship between command and management is embodied in the relationship between the commanding officer (CO) and the executive officer (XO).
The exercise of command is intensely personal. Commanding officers are, by definition, on their own. They are singular entities who exercise ultimate authority in a ship, while bearing unlimited accountability for their commands. A commanding officer is provided a wardroom, a chiefs’ mess, and a crew through which to exercise command. But the commanding officer alone is expected to set the standards of performance, discipline, and competence in the ship. All the others follow that lead. From a theoretical management perspective, command in the Navy is the simplest of organizational concepts: it is a clear hierarchy of individuals, and an even clearer line of command authority.
But the exercise of command is far from simple. There are several evident reasons for this. First, Navy ships, as contrasted with merchant ships, are tasked with an extremely wide variety of functions. The U.S. Navy favors multipurpose ships, which can play across the largest spectrum of warfare mission per dollar expended to build the ship.
Destroyers, the ultimate in multipurpose ships, operate in so many mission areas that their training and readiness exercise manuals are the size of metropolitan phone books. Even replenishment ships are multiproduct,
though, and amphibious ships are used for everything from amphibious assault to humanitarian relief missions’ Harbor tugs double as fireboats. So the first complication ^ for command is the fact that the commanding officer an the people in the ship have to be expert in as many differ ent kinds of things as the ship is expected to do.
Second, within every ship there is a host of manage' ment programs, such as the standard Navy maintenance and material management system (3M), personnel qualify cation standards, general military training, advancement, environmental quality, electrical safety, lube-oil manage' ment, human relations, welfare and recreation, sports an physical fitness, general safety, and hazardous-material8 control. The purpose of these programs is to impose con' sistent Navy-wide standards. Their execution require8 management, and the incentive for successful execution requires command involvement. None of these manage' ment programs would be difficult to execute individually* the trick comes in executing all of them, correctly an concurrently.
A third complication involves the mix of competence’ We expect everyone, at a minimum, to do his or her duty' But everyone does not. The truth is that there is a limite pool of top talent in the Navy, or, for that matter, any' where. Below that limited pool of top talent are successive bands of really good, pretty good, good, not so good, an unsatisfactory talent. All commanders wish for nothin? less than pretty good, but the reality is that they must make do with what they get. From the commanding officer o’1 down, the range of talent has a bearing on command. Jn8 as there are commanding officers and executive office^8 who are only good, and sometimes even not so good, ofn cers, chiefs, and enlisted personnel tend to be distribute to the fleet in a similar spectrum. .
Fourth is the problem of personnel instability. Annua personnel turnover in the U.S. fleet is 45%. The Nava Military Personnel Command tries hard to mitigate tin problem, and it has put in place a fairly good system for a least letting the CO and the XO know who is going t0 move when. But in terms of building teams within tl>« ship, this turbulence defeats even the best-planned training programs.
The final reason for command complexity is the opera'
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Proceedings / April
. The difference between these problems in the Navy and Sltnilar ones in the civilian world is in the concept of com- J^and. In industry, there is a chief executive officer, per- Ps a president, and many vice presidents, directors,
ards, executive committees, and stockholders.. In the
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^'onal schedule. In theory, the employment schedule is ^ell defined on both an annual and a quarterly basis. But Anyone who has been in the fleet knows that if you do not 'ke your operating schedule, just wait a minute and it will charige. Changes to one ship’s schedule are driven by optional contingencies, dramatic and often remote politiCal developments, weather, accidents, and sometimes by 7^ failure of command and management in some other Sa'P- Some elements of the fleet expect the schedule to be ^namic, and others do not. Destroyers pile up dozens of Schedule changes every year. Destroyer tenders expect to ’Ve a more sedate life, but they too get jerked around, service Force ships probably face more schedule changes an even destroyers.
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Navy, there is the captain. In industry, when one talks ab°ut management, one is referring to a group. In the avY, when an admiral casts a jaundiced eye at the performance of a ship and talks about management, he is refer- rm§ to the commanding officer and maybe the executive officer.
Herein lies one solution to the problem of combining management and command. Successful command at sea in e Navy requires that the captain and the executive offiCer> acting as a team, achieve a good management pro- mani in order that the captain may exercise command.
• is an unusual team, because there is a distinct inequal- IY built into the relationship; the XO is the subordinate.
, nt when dealing with management, the objective should e fo effectively put to use the unique abilities, interests, Criergies, and competencies of the two individuals, CO ml XO. While it is often prescribed, it is nonsense to mk that a commanding officer can cover all facets of
management in a ship at all times. Nor is it possible to supervise an executive officer who might try to undertake the task. The two of them together, however, have a fighting chance. The trick is to divide the labor according to who is best positioned for it.
The first step is to quantify the problem. There are many more than the 13 management programs mentioned previously. The CO and the XO have to sit down together and list them all, and try to estimate the amount of top management (CO/XO) intervention needed for each one. Initially, the captain should decide which programs to drive, and the XO should drive all the rest. This will provide a somewhat lopsided division of the list (but the XO is already better off). The next step is to let the XO express a division of the list based on personal confidence, experience, desires, or any other criterion. This second iteration will probably change the division of labor, because it will be based on an appraisal of both members of the management team’s abilities, competencies, and interests.
The third step is to identify the nominal boss of each management program. The executive officer is already designated as the boss of some of the programs by type commander regulations. In the surface force, the XO is tasked to be the boss of the 3M program. But every ship has a 3M coordinator; some as collateral, some as fulltime duty. This is the individual who runs the program, and who is to be identified in the third step. Here the management team has a choice. They can designate on the list the 3M coordinator as the boss of the 3M program, or they can designate the department head of each line and staff department. If the XO is going to keep the 3M program, he or she may want to drive it through the coordinator, because 3M has a complex administration system, and one manager may be the best answer. But suppose the captain decides to drive the ship’s safety program. It there is an ensign or lieutenant (junior grade) designated as the safety officer, it might make more sense for the CO to drive the department heads than to try to drive the department heads via the ensign. In any event, the program bosses have to be identified and listed, because neither the CO nor the XO is going to take over the day-to-day details of running any particular program; they will, however, be driving particular programs.
It is important to keep the division of labor a private matter between the CO and the XO. The reasons for this are, first, that the initial division will probably be amended several times until the team gets it right. The CO has more to do than the XO, because the CO must also command and apportion time between program management and command. Second, if the management team posts which programs they will each drive, the department heads and others in the ship will make choices as to which programs to “sweat” and which ones to “spot.” This puts the XO’s programs at an immediate disadvantage. If the labor division is not posted, the management team will have a chance to develop while the organization will know only that both the CO and the XO have their hands on every program in the ship.
Therefore, they will do what they are supposed to do; and this reasoning, in the wardroom, the chief’s mess, and
hour or more.
But by doing it just once, the CO sends a powerful set of messages:
- There are procedures, and they must be followed. (Do » right.)
- The procedures are there to protect you. (I care about
your safety.) .
- The procedures are there because people and machinery have been hurt in the past. (The program is credible. I am credible.)
By doing it again the next day, the captain sends another message: I mean it. You might as well start doing 'I for all maintenance, because I’m going to come see. Every day.
The safety program gets an enormous boost, because the CO is in the game. And the CO gets to exercise some command, showing that he has standards, that they must be obeyed, that he cares for his people, and that he lS willing to take time out of the day to see that the safety program is running. .
The initial division of labor might involve the captain taking just 1 or 2 programs and the executive officer the other 30. But even that is progress, because the exercise has forced the CO and the XO to scope the problem of the management programs. They now know how many there are, and they have a sense of hierarchy, that is, whic programs absolutely must run. By identifying who the program bosses are, the CO and the XO can see if some officers are perhaps overloaded and others underloaded- They have to make a frank appraisal of the competence mix—can this boss run that program? By doing a litue time programming, they can see how the personnel assign' ment problem will affect things—are some key bosses about to leave? And by going through the process of a division of labor, they enhance the overall ship’s manage' ment, because top management has a coherent, and mutually agreed upon, plan of action.
But the principal benefit is that the captain can begin 4° really exercise command and his own personal leadership- The relationship between command and managementlS built upon solving the management problem. This permit the exercise of command in the traditional sense: the C can have an impact on leadership, initiative, professions growth, professional standards, and accountability; short, on doing things right. The Navy puts one officer if command of every ship in the expectation that that officef' at least, will do things right. It is hoped that the CO cal1 inspire the officers and enlisted personnel to do the sarn^. The division of management labor is a tool by which tn CO and the XO can jointly get things running right.
The factors that make command complex are not goiff to go away. Only by tackling the management prograi^ head-on does the CO/XO team stand a chance of allows the senior member of the team to experience the profes' sional satisfaction of command at sea.
Proceedings / April
the crew, highlights the purpose of dividing management labor in the first place. Unless the ship is managed well, that is, unless all the management programs are run well and executed thoroughly, realistically, and honestly, the captain will never get the chance to really exercise command. The CO will, instead, spend a great deal of time explaining to the bosses why accidents, equipment casualties, operational propulsion plant examination failures, audit discrepancies, or poor advancement rates are the norm in the ship. Admirals and their staff keep lists too, it is not easy to get off of one of these lists.
The kind of program the captain might take on in this management treaty with the XO could include lube-oil management, whether or not the CO has ever been an engineer. This is a highly leveraged management tool for keeping rotating machinery alive and well. If the engineers did nothing other than the lube-oil management program, perfectly, as spelled out in the tech manuals, most engineers would agree that the great bulk of machinery problems could be prevented. The program does not take much time to supervise, once it is running well. Initially, as the CO dropped down into a main machinery space and asked the appropriate questions, there would be some investment of time. But the captain would only have to do that a few times before word got out. After that, a daily intervention of 20 minutes could ensure that the program was running properly. Programs that the CO takes on should involve minimal, albeit daily, allotments of time.
A second criterion might be the consequences of a failed program such as the safety program. Ships are not safe places to live and work, but some are safer than others because the command (the management) is hot on safety programs. The Navy Safety Center can prove that organizations that take a proactive role in driving a safety program are safer; there are fewer accidents, less-severe accidents, fewer injuries, fewer dollars lost, fewer working hours lost. And because it can be quantified, the safety program is often chosen by even higher management as an indicator of how well a ship is run.
All too typically, however, a junior officer is the collateral duty safety officer, and goes around putting up posters, haranguing sailors for not wearing hard hats, or complaining to chiefs about unpinned ladders. If the junior officer is really conscientious, he or she has seen the Navy’s safety manual, which, because of its very size, often deters good safety programs. Each 3M maintenance person’s card begins with a line stating that the bearer will, first of all, comply with the applicable safety procedures. The reality is that many maintenance persons will simply unbolt the valve and hope there is no pressure on it.
But suppose the CO took on the safety program, and appeared in the space where the booster pump valve was going to be worked. The CO would ask the maintenance person and supervisor what the first line meant. After a moment of embarrassed silence, the CO could call for the technical manual and the Navy safety manual, or perhaps the tagout book, and ask more questions. If there were still blank faces, the CO could shift gears and explain. Together, if necessary, they could find the sections that pertain to a steam valve. The first time, this might take an
Captain Deutermann, a frequent contributor to Proceedings, recently tired from active duty after 26 years’ service in cruisers and destroyer- including command of a gunboat in Vietnam, a guided-missile destroy for three years, and a squadron of destroyers in Pearl Harbor.
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