Turn the Ship Around!: A True Story of Turning Followers into Leaders

by David Marquet

  First, the XO who was on Santa Fe when I arrived would be transferring to spend time with his father, who was ill.

  Lieutenant Commander Tom Stanley, his replacement, would have to be transferred aboard and would now be the XO for the deployment. This was an unusual personnel transfer because Tom was coming from a staff job in Pearl Harbor, had not attended the Prospective Executive Officer course, and hadn’t spent any time doing the workup with the ship. I needed to justify this highly unusual move. The argument we made went like this: where would he learn more, on deployment on an operational submarine or back in the classroom in New London? The answer, of course, was on the submarine. The question we had neither asked nor answered, however, was how would the submarine cope with an XO who needed training from day one?

  The second decision had to do with my engineer, Rick Panlilio. Rick’s wife was pregnant and would likely have their baby in the next couple of weeks. I sorely wanted to transfer Rick off in Okinawa. It’s hard enough to justify transferring the engineer at any time during deployment, but with the simultaneous transfer of the XO, I thought it was going to be a tough sell. Still, I had missed my daughter’s birth in 1989 because my command (the Will Rogers again) wouldn’t let me go in time. I wanted to fix past wrongs.

  I gathered the leadership team and we discussed it. I wasn’t sure how to convince our operational boss to approve the plan. All communication would have to go through standard Navy message traffic, no face-to-face, no video, no phone call. Like so many times, my not knowing the answer ahead of time helped me. Instead of a scripted meeting where I pretended to solicit ideas, we had an honest conversation. At the end, we thought that if we presented a well-thought-out plan to Rear Admiral Joseph Krol, who as Commander, Submarine Group Seven, in Japan, was our operational commander, it would be approved. Lieutenant Commander Bill Greene went off to draft the message we would send. In the end, it looked like this:

  From: USS Santa Fe

  To: SUBGRU Seven

  Subj: Personnel transfer

  1. Admiral, my engineer’s wife is due to have their baby at any moment . . . although sending two of the ship’s most senior officers (the xo and engineer) off just prior to . . . transit . . . would be imprudent for most ships, my wardroom is so rife with talented jo’s [junior officers] that it affords me the opportunity to do this. Lt. Brooks will be acting eng, and as I have stated, he is a superb naval officer . . . additionally, I have two top-notch navigation supervisors in addition to the nav. The eng is a dedicated professional and is not pushing for this; however, I know he would be disappointed not to be there and I feel I can safely put him on leave.

  It worked! The plan was approved. This was possible only because the ship had demonstrated superior skills, and through our implementation of the leader-leader structure we had developed an extensive pool of talent. Here is where it all paid off—one officer was with his father at a critical time and another officer was there for his child’s birth. (Rick got there in time.)

  • • •

  Our efforts to improve the petty officers’ performance on the advancement exams were rewarded as well. Months later, the COB walked in with a smile. He handed me the advancement results. I scanned down the sheet and was happy to see that YN2 Scott Dillon was now YN1 Scott Dillon. His next step would be to compete for chief. We had done significantly better than the previous year. Overall in 1999, we advanced forty-eight enlisted men, 40 percent of the enlisted crew. By explaining the process to the crew and giving them the tools to improve their performance, we empowered them to determine their own success. We would do even better in 2000 and 2001.

  There were not a lot of things I could do for the crew to get them more money other than ensuring that they had the best opportunity for advancement. I worked hard on that. Because the crew was convinced that I was “on their team” there were never any issues with negative responses to constructive criticism. It was never a “me versus you” issue. Had they not believed I was doing everything I could for them, it would have been a lot tougher when I asked them to work so hard.

  BUILDING TRUST AND TAKING CARE OF YOUR PEOPLE is a mechanism for CLARITY.

  I worked hard to overcome my natural intolerance of inadequacies and my blunt speaking, but I didn’t always succeed. I found, over time, that when I blurted out criticism people didn’t mind. They didn’t take it personally because they knew that two weeks previously I had been doing everything possible to get them promoted.

  It’s hard to find a leadership book that doesn’t encourage us to “take care of our people.” What I learned is this: Taking care of your people does not mean protecting them from the consequences of their own behavior. That’s the path to irresponsibility. What it does mean is giving them every available tool and advantage to achieve their aims in life, beyond the specifics of the job. In some cases that meant further education; in other cases crewmen’s goals were incompatible with Navy life and they separated on good terms.

  QUESTIONS TO CONSIDER

  What would you and your team like to accomplish?

  How can you as a leader help your people accomplish it?

  Are you doing everything you can to make tools available to your employees to achieve both professional and personal goals?

  Are you unintentionally protecting people from the consequences of their own behavior?

  A Remembrance of War

  Do you have a rich organizational legacy? We did, but we weren’t using it.

  July 2, 1999: Western Pacific Ocean (in command)

  “580 feet, 23 down, 18 knots.”

  Santa Fe was pitching rapidly toward the ocean bottom. Just because we were certified and deployed didn’t mean we stopped running casualty drills. This was a jam dive from high speed. It simulates a failure of the stern planes in the maximum downward position. At high speeds, it is a dangerous condition because the submarine rapidly pitches downward.

  We had taken the appropriate immediate actions. All back emergency, full rise on the bow planes, emergency blowing the forward ballast tanks.

  “600 feet, 25 down, 14 knots.”

  “6-1-0 feet, 2-6 down, 1-2 knots.” Still going down but at a slower rate. The diving officer of the watch (DOOW) was calling out the depth, down angle, and speed so everyone in the control room would know it. He sat just behind the planesman and had the clearest sight of the panel indicating what was happening with ship control. He slowed down his voice as the rate of change slowed. Now that the immediate actions had been taken, he was waiting for the officer of the deck (OOD) to order supplemental actions.

  Now, now, I thought. The downward pitch had essentially been arrested, the speed was coming off smartly, and the downward depth rate was minimal. Now was the time to vent the forward ballast tanks and go to “all stop” on the main engines. If the backing bell were left on too long, the ship would actually start going backward through the water, which was undesirable.

  The OOD was looking around nervously. This wasn’t a good sign. During casualties, I would watch the eyes of the watch officer. If they went down, bad. If they went to a written procedure, bad. If they looked unfocused, bad. If they were focused on the indications that would provide the necessary information for him to make the next decision, good.

  Inexperienced officers almost always waited too long right at this point in the emergency. They wanted to see an upward depth rate before venting. By that time it would be too late; the expanding air would create more and more positive buoyancy forward that couldn’t be vented out fast enough, and we’d be pitching up at a steep angle, still out of control.

  If the OOD didn’t order the venting within the next few seconds, the drill monitor would step in and the drill would be a failure. I was sorely tempted to shine my flashlight on the vent switches to help out, but resisted.

  The chief of the watch (COW), YN1 Scott Dillon, placed his hand on the forward vent switch. The OOD noticed the movement. . . .

  “COW, vent the forward group, helm, al
l stop.”

  “Vent the forward group.”

  “All stop.”

  “Forward vents open.”

  “Maneuvering answers all stop.”

  Yes, that was it. Perfect. The ship slowed to a near hover and leveled out.

  The COW’s action to point to the vent switch, the next key action, was critical to this success.

  I asked Dillon, “Why did you do that?”

  Well, he explained, he knew it was the next action to take, and with deliberate action, he wanted to be ready for the order.

  Yes, and at the same time he signaled to the OOD in a tense time, without injecting more words, what the OOD needed to order.

  In this way, we learned another powerful aspect of deliberate action: think about it as anticipatory deliberate action. With the movements of watch standers indicating the next action they anticipate taking, they signal fellow team members and supervisors what they should be thinking about. It was powerful and helpful.

  Thereafter, whenever we talked about deliberate action, we talked about multiple benefits. Not only did it minimize the chance of a mistake by a person by himself and provide an opportunity for drill team intervention; it was also a critical aspect of teamwork. It worked in a couple ways. It was a bottom-up way of signaling action. It also worked because adjacent watch standers could correct potential mistakes before they happened. This was an excellent example of putting our mechanism of deliberate action into practice.

  Mechanism: Use Your Legacy for Inspiration

  After recovering from the drill, Santa Fe continued transiting south through the South China Sea. We were being vectored toward the Arabian Sea through the Strait of Malacca. I headed back to the engine room to work out on the exercise bike. (After all, I had my own personal goals like everyone else.)

  A few minutes later I heard “Attention to port.” It was the OOD, Lieutenant Dave Adams, on the 1MC.

  That was highly unusual. I’d never heard “attention to port,” starboard, or anything on the 1MC before. I got off the bike.

  “We are now passing the approximate location of where the USS Grayling was sunk in September 1943.”

  A few moments later, “Carry on.”

  Wow, what a great idea. Grayling was one of the fifty-two American submarines that were sunk in World War II. As we operated in the western Pacific, we would occasionally chance past the location of one of those lost submarines. Some of the locations were known precisely, but in some cases, like the Grayling, the exact date and location remain a mystery. What we do know is that Grayling delivered supplies to guerrilla fighters at Pandan Bay, Panay, on the west coast of the Philippines on August 23, 1943. After that it departed to hunt for Japanese merchant ships off Manila. The Navy estimated the time and location of its sinking based on postwar Japanese records and radio communications.7

  As submariners, we have a tremendous legacy, but no formal program for inspiring a crew with that legacy. On board Santa Fe, we adopted several practices that would connect us to this rich legacy and educate the new members of the crew about what the submarine force had accomplished during World War II. We’d post notes in the Plan of the Day (POD) and read Medal of Honor or battle citations whenever we qualified a member of Santa Fe in submarines. We would make announcements when passing sunken submarines. Back in Pearl Harbor, we visited the USS Bowfin submarine museum and called it officer training.

  I was worried that the crew would think some of these things tacky, but that wasn’t the case. It helped provide organizational clarity into what we were about—the why for our service.

  USE YOUR LEGACY FOR INSPIRATION is a mechanism for CLARITY.

  Many organizations have inspiring early starts and somehow “lose their way” at some later point. I urge you to tap into the sense of purpose and urgency that developed during those early days or during some crisis. The trick is to find real ways to keep those alive as the organization grows. One of the easiest is simply to talk about them. Embed them into your guiding principles and use those words in efficiency reports and personnel awards.

  In the submarine force, we had an obvious, unselfish, and rich legacy of service to the country, but we were almost embarrassed to talk about it. I’m not espousing an unthinking “kill bad guys” culture, but that wasn’t what happened. We just needed to resurrect the true legacy of our predecessors.

  Later, Rear Admiral Al Konetzni invited me to Washington, D.C., to represent the Pacific Submarine Force at a large convention with the Department of Defense and submarine industry leaders. A significant number of retired admirals were in the audience. I decided to use this theme and titled the speech “The Spirit Is Alive.” I simply talked about how the young sailors in today’s Navy understood and appreciated what had happened before us, and in our way, we were doing our best to be true to that legacy. It was a great success and brought the crowd to a standing ovation that lasted a long time.

  QUESTIONS TO CONSIDER

  What is the legacy of your organization?

  How does that legacy shed light on your organization’s purpose?

  What kind of actions can you take to bring this legacy alive for individuals in your organization?

  Leadership at Every Level

  Do your guiding principles help people in your organization make decisions? We figured out a way to do just that.

  1998 (a year before taking command of Santa Fe), Newport, Rhode Island, Command Leadership School

  “Commander Marquet, could you come see me?” I was being summoned for counseling.

  Command Leadership School had been a welcome two-week sabbatical during the yearlong PCO training. There were readings, discussions, and a couple of exercises. One of the exercises had been for everyone to write the guiding principles for their command to implement upon their arrival. I turned in a blank piece of paper.

  “Are you aware that you turned in a blank sheet?”

  “Yes sir, I am.”

  “Well, don’t you think that you as the commander have an obligation to create a vision for your command?” It was more of a statement than a question.

  “No, I feel that my job as the commander is to tap into the existing energy of the command, discover the strengths, and remove barriers to further progress.”

  The class supervisor looked at me as if I had three heads, but I knew he wasn’t going to fail me.

  • • •

  When I first got to Santa Fe, I sent out a survey asking the officers and chiefs what they thought the strengths of the command were and what our guiding principles should be. We then had a couple of meetings to select the few we wanted to keep (constraint: they all had to fit on one page) and what they meant. We were so busy, however, getting the ship out for the first underway and inspection and then the repair period, we hadn’t done much other than collect the initial inputs.

  Now, on deployment, we had the time to finish the job of defining our guiding principles.

  The chiefs gathered in the wardroom one evening and the officers the next. I wanted to make the guiding principles real, not something that just hung on the wall somewhere. When thinking about the principles and their utility, I used this question: If I were a crew member and faced with deciding between two different courses of action, would these principles provide me with the right criteria against which to select the appropriate course of action?

  The guiding principles needed to do just that: provide guidance on decisions.

  USS Santa Fe Guiding Principles

  Initiative

  Initiative means we take action without direction from above to improve our knowledge as submariners, prepare the command for its mission, and come up with solutions to problems. With each member of the command taking initiative, the leverage is immense. Initiative has been a hallmark of the American fighting man and a key reason for our success. Initiative places an obligation on the chain of command not to stifle initiative in subordinates.

  Innovation

  Innovation means looking
at new ways of doing the same thing. It also means knowing which areas are “above the waterline” and appropriate to innovation, having the courage to change, and tolerating failures.

  Intimate Technical Knowledge

  Modern submarines are extremely complex. Intimate technical knowledge means that each of us is responsible for learning our area of responsibility. We make decisions based on technical reasons, not hope. We understand the details of our watch stations and the interrelationship of systems. We diligently study.

  Courage

  Courage means we choose to do the right thing, even if it may be uncomfortable. It means not just doing or saying what subordinates, peers, or superiors want to see or hear. It means admitting mistakes, even if ugly.

  Commitment

  Commitment means we are present when we come to work. We give it our best. We choose to be here.

  Continuous Improvement

  Continuous improvement is how we get better. We continually seek ways to learn from processes and improve them and ourselves. The chain of command has the obligation to develop and institute mechanisms (such as conducting debriefs) to achieve continuous improvement.

  Integrity

  Integrity means we tell the truth to each other and to ourselves. It means we have a grounded base of reality and see things as they are, not as we want them to be. Integrity means we participate fully in debriefs, allowing improvements to be based on facts.