I consider myself a patriot, but I've never had any real contact with the armed services. I read about it in the paper while I sit on my sofa.
It only took a single day and night on an aircraft carrier to open my eyes. What I learned:
This is a really hard, nasty, grueling job. 18-hour shifts, deafening noise, noxious fumes, no privacy, no real time off, rough living conditions, and days without sunlight.
You are risking your life. This is not just about getting wounded in battle. Every day is dangerous. Five died in a helicopter crash a few days before we got there; someone fell overboard (and was fortunately rescued) while we were there. The ship-board hospital was full, even in peacetime. Bottom line: There is no safe way to stand 5 feet from an F-18's engine or to spend your day building bombs. But they do it every day.
Family sacrifices are immense. I will never again complain about being away from my kids for a few days on a business trip. These folks are gone for 6-8 months at a time. I met so many people who missed the birth of their children. To me, this is the hardest thing I can imagine. You can be a tough-as-nails fighter pilot, but no one can really handle missing their kids' life moments.
They are doing it for us.
This isn't about war. This is about peace. The world is full of nasty people with bombs and guns. They want to hurt us, and they want to hurt everyone. Our service to the world is that we have this massive Navy that we donate to keep the peace, for everyone.
The world is safer because when a bad person starts playing with nuclear rockets or killing innocents, we can park this incredibly dangerous war machine in their front yard and remind them to calm the fuck down.
This is about raising the quality of life for everyone. Our economy depends on seaborne commerce. When you walk into any store, remember that 80% of what you see came there by ship. The current problems with piracy are nothing compared to what would happen if the world's navies weren't out there to keep the peace. Are you really ready to only eat and wear what is made within driving distance?
We owe them.
I could never do this job. I would never want to do this job. I doubt you would either, for 50 cents more than minimum wage. Actually, it comes out to about $2/hour when you realize that they are working 24/7.
But I'm deeply grateful and respectful of those who do. We need them, and we owe them. You wouldn't live the life you do if our friends in the military weren't making these sacrifices for you.
For anyone who serves their country for us, who risks death for us, they should be taken care of. Health care, money, education — whatever they need, for the rest of their lives.
In the words of Stephen Colbert, broadcasting from Iraq:
I am rarely at a loss for words, but when I think of all you've sacrificed for your country, it really seems insufficient to say "Thank You" and really inappropriate to say "Holy Shit" — so I'll just say what I hope you can all say soon, "Honey, I'm coming home."
The Navy gave us free reign to run around the U.S.S. Nimitz — during an actual battle exercise — and we were free to talk to anyone we wanted. We could go anywhere except the nuclear reactor room (which was fine with me). After hours, our guides went to bed and let us hang out with the crew unsupervised. Most surprising, Rear Admiral John W. Miller, who commands the entire carrier strike group gave us 1 1/2 hours of open Q&A, and Captain Michael C. Manazir was dropping by throughout the visit.
What would happen at your company if you let 16 bloggers talk to anyone they wanted, including the CEO? (Besides needing to send an EMT to resuscitate the panicked PR team?)
Do you have a culture of openness and trust?
Do you have something to hide?
Do you trust your people to know what topics aren't appropriate to talk about publicly?
Most important: Do your employees have the pride in their work necessary to happily represent you to the world?
Time and again, when companies open the door to bloggers they get good exposure, positive feelings, and open support. When companies shut the door, they create a suspicion that there is something fishy going on.
You should have a blogger day. Open the door and let them tour. Make new friends. The results will be all good.
If you want to radically reduce negative word of mouth, invite people in. Show your critics what you do and why you do it. Next time something goes wrong, you'll have folks asking you questions and asking for your perspective instead of attacking.
Life on an aircraft carrier is hard. You're away from home, it's loud, it's stressful, you work constantly, it's dangerous, and there is never a moment of privacy — and bad guys might be trying to hurt you.
But it was interesting to see how 50 years of experience has taught the Navy how to make it work seamlessly. From videos like this (from Jennifer Van Grove), you'd think it would be total chaos.
But actually, it's surprisingly calm. 5,000 people work in total harmony. Even though they are living inside a floating airport that can launch and land 25 airplanes in 20 minutes, while being chased by submarines (we were there during a simulated battle).
Everyone used the same phrase: Ballet. It really was like that. Everything happened just like it should, with a surprising amount of cool and order.
Consider that the average age on the ship is 25, and the majority of people are 19 or 20. They have astonishing levels of competence and confidence.
How do they do it? Here are four lessons I learned on how to keep your cool from the U.S. Navy:
1. Details matter. Everything has a process and a plan. Each little step is there for a reason. There wasn't a speck of dirt or a pencil out of place. Lots of little things done well adds up to big things done well. You saw this in how they cleaned, but you also saw it in how we were briefed, how the safety measures worked, how everyone triple-checked everything. No loose ends, ever.
2. Everyone knows their jobs. People know what to do and how to do it. Whether they are building bombs or making 18,000 meals a day. Everyone has the training and confidence to do something well — and it gets done well. Everyone has clear objectives and standards to judge themselves by. (If you want people to succeed, they need to know what success is.) On top of that, you can relax a little when you know everyone else has taken care of their piece, and you can focus on your job.
3. Special places matter. In an environment with very little personal space, people found a place to call home. An office, a special table in the mess, a corner of the hangar bay. You need to give people space to get settled. (I never understood companies that don't give you a good permanent desk — you can't make someone a nomad and expect them to put down roots.) You have to have a place to put a picture of your family.
4. Proven is better than newer. The Nimitz has been sailing since 1975. It works — really well. My wife wasn't thrilled that we were dropping from the sky to be caught by a wire on a moving football field. Until we realized that this is proven, solid, and well tested. After 35 years, I'm comfortable with it. I don't want to be the guy to debug whatever they invent next. (In 20 years, I'll be ready to trust Lasik.) A video from Guy:
One of my favorite lessons from the USS Nimitz was KEEP IT SIMPLE.
The entire flight deck is organized by a simple table-top diagram called the Ouija Board. It looks like this:
This is an incredibly important job. His job is to make sure every plane is in the right place, fueled, and ready to take off, while making sure the runway is clear, and no one gets run over, during war, at sea. Imagine trying to park 60 semi-trailers on a 4-way freeway intersection, during a pre-school soccer game, in a thunderstorm, during a Harley rally, and never block traffic. Except they’re airplanes, on a boat, full of bombs.
Look closely and you’ll see that he uses metal models, washers, bolts, and thumbtacks. (photo by Robert Scoble)
Why? Because it never breaks.
He told us he was offered a multi-million-dollar touch-screen computer system to replace it. His answer? (paraphrased): How do I fix it in the Persian Gulf under attack, or during a typhoon? I’ve got everything I need for $10 from Home Depot. And a spare set in a tackle-box under my desk.
Another example: The location of every bomb on the ship is tracked, in real time, on these whiteboards (photo by Guy Kawasaki). Thousand of bombs have to move across dozens of decks and find the plane to get loaded. You only have minutes to get it right.
And the biggest one of all: All of the action on the flight deck is controlled by hand signals, in a coordinated series of motions. Why? 1. It’s insanely loud and no one could hear you on the radio. 2. You don’t want to use radios to tell enemies that you are about to launch an attack. 3. Hand signals always work. Watch this clip to see how it works:
We have had a lot of success implementing this in our office. It’s hardly a comparable environment, but simplicity has improved office-wide clarity and communications. We’re replaced a lot of our software-based project management systems with these:
We spend a lot less time managing the software, and everyone can look at the wall to know what is going on. You walk down the hall and instantly know the score.
Lesson: Technology isn’t the answer to everything. Simple solutions often work better.
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