Another Quick Post

I forgot to say in my last post that I had an article published in PROCEEDINGS on decomissioning the USS SAN FRANCISCO. I didn't want to put the text of it here until after it was published, but since it's been published, I'll post it. Here it is in its entirety:

Decommission the San Francisco (SSN 711)
Proceedings of the US Naval Institute February, 2005

While listening to the news, I heard the most horrifying thing an officer in the sea services could hear, “naval submarine runs aground.” The USS San Francisco (SSN 711) ran aground off the coast of Guam. Twenty three sailors were injured and one sailor died. I cringed as I heard the news, wondering how it would affect the future. As I thought more about it, I realized that the effect didn’t have to be a horrible future. Instead, we can take this tragic accident and make something good come of it. We can take the San Francisco and decommission her. Die-hard submariners and scores of Naval Officers are probably hissing as they read this, but in this day and age of transformation, reducing costs and getting more bang for our buck, this is the only feasible solution.

I have not heard any estimates of how much it will cost to fix San Francisco, but I can only imagine that it will be in the tens of millions of dollars. A submarine going 30+ knots running head-on into an underwater mountain is sure to cause a lot of damage. If we spend the money to fix her and put her back into service, how long will it be before we are ready to decommission her? San Francisco was commissioned 23 years ago. She’s done her service for her country and should be retired. The money we would save by not fixing her, sending her back to sea, and then decommissioning her in the future is money that can be used for other revolutions in the Navy—potentially even for developing the future generations of submarines and submarine weapons/sensor systems.

Leadership requires that we make tough decisions. The Navy has been backed into a corner by “transformation” and is being forced to make those tough decisions that in the past we would have thrown money at. We are scaling down our forces and pressing forward towards a leaner more effective—and less costly—fighting force. We have no choice but to make decisions such as the decision to decommission the San Francisco. By failing to make these decisions, we tie up money crucial to transformation in attempting to salvage a past that we are trying to move away from.

It’s time we start contemplating our future in the Navy and stop living in a past that we can’t afford. Decommission the San Francisco and start the Navy down the path of the future.
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I hope someone reads it and says to him/herself, you know, maybe we should decomission her and save that money for something more productive. We'll see--hard to tell what the future holds.

Lamentations

Another 3 day weekend is upon us, and is now nearly over. I'm sitting at my computer lamenting that fact as I type this. I'm somewhat disappointed because I would really like to be home, doing things that I like to do as opposed to being in school in RI. I guess we all do what we have to do, and as Deb says, there are reasons for it. I will have to admit that I have grown since I've been in RI, so I can't complain too much about that. I'm just to the point now of not being able to stand it anymore and am ready to go home. I think I'm ready to go to my ship. I don't know, I really do need to do the Engineering stuff before I get to my ship so I have a clue when I get there, but it doesn't mean that I have to like the fact that I have to remain in RI until May, I just have to accept that fact.

Not too much has been going on. Greg is deployed away and wants me to file his taxes for him. He signed a power of attorney for me to be able to do them for him. I have all of his tax paperwork now, so I'll take care of it for him. I have to file mine, too, now that I have all of my tax paperwork. Get them filed and get the money back and put it to good use. Mine is all going to be sucked up paying off my credit card (again--ended up spending some money on it when establishing two residences, one in VA and one in RI). I guess it's the price we pay to keep/do our jobs.

I'm posting an article here that I found very interesting--interesting to the point that I think anyone who is going to be--or already is--a leader should read it. I'll post the entire text, but for those of you who want to go to the actual source it is: http://www.d-n-i.net/fcs/aristotle.htm

Here's the article:

Aristotle’s Rhetoric as a Handbook of Leadership[1]
Summary by Jonathan Shay, M.D., Ph.D.
© 2000 Jonathan Shay All Rights Reserved

Character is a living thing that flourishes or wilts according to the ways that those who hold power use power. Specifically, character has cognitive/cultural content—a person’s ideals, ambitions, and affiliations, and the emotional energy that infuses them—what Homer called thumos. The leader’s own thumos is critical to his or her capacity to lead others.
How does a leader get the troops— soldiers, sailors, marines, airmen—to commit themselves to a mission? Aristotle offers a mix of empirical and normative observations in the Rhetoric that apply wonderfully to the military situation.

For starters, we must understand the context that he thinks his remarks apply to, what it means for a leader to seek trust: It’s about dealing with fellow-citizens, where each looks the other in the eye and says, "you are part of my future, no matter how this turns out." Some might scoff, and say, "an infantry company, or a ship, or a squadron is not a deliberative assembly, and decisions are not arrived at by majority vote." But many of you want a picture of leading without undue reliance on coercion and will see that Aristotle has real food for thought here.

A leader who mentally and in the heart constantly walks away from those he or she is leading and says "I’m never going to see these jerks again after this assignment is over," is just faking it from Aristotle’s point of view—a sophist for hire, not a true leader, a rhêtor.

So having established that the leader and led are part of each other’s future, they now have to arrive at a shared, binding commitment to mission in the face of:
-conflicting, incommensurable goods
-uncertainty.

Real military situations requiring real leadership invariably have these two elements. If everything can be done by formula, by the book, what’s needed is a supervisor, not a leader. Even in war, many of the things that need to be done preparing for battle can be done by the book (even von Clausewitz acknowledged that). And even in peacetime, many critical decisions cannot be solved by the book, because they involve competing, incommensurable goods and uncertainty. The Rhetoric has no Philosopher’s Stone that enables you to harmonize conflicting goods or to know what is not known. It provides a descriptive and normative framework for leading one’s fellow citizens under these conditions.

Aristotle shows us that leader has three interrelated means of achieving his fellow citizens’ trust:
-Appeal to their character (éthos)[2]
-Appeal to their reason (lógos)
-Appeal to their emotions (páthos)

These three are interrelated, not separate, because the goals of action arise from the troops’ ideals, ambitions, and affiliations—their character. Reason concerns the means to reach those goals. And the emotions arise primarily from their cognitive assessments of the real-world improvement or deterioration of their ideals, ambitions, affiliations, and how fast they are changing in the world.

Aristotle has useful comments on the leader’s need to build trust through appeal to the troops’ character and emotion. He even explains how it is possible to be "too rational," losing the trust of those you are trying to lead. (See Garver’s, "Making Discourse Ethical: Can I Be Too Rational?")
Aristotle goes on to say what the troops are looking for in a leader. What makes the leader trustworthy in their eyes? Aristotle provides another triad. The troops extend trust to someone whose explanations (what he called "arguments"), training exercises, and decisions provide evidence for :
-Professional competence, spirited personal integrity (aretê)
-Intelligent good sense, practical wisdom (phronêsis)
-Good will and respect for the troops (eúnoiâ)

The centrality of rational explanation ("argument"), rather than coercion or deception, shows the leader’s respect for the troops, who are his or her fellow citizens. You can’t separate respect from good will. What reasons, examples, and maxims the leader chooses from the infinity available, provide evidence for phronêsis and aretê. The persuasive power that comes when a leader appeals to reason comes more from the degree to which it provides evidence for the leader’s respect toward the troops than from the power of reason to compel assent, or having compelled assent, to guide or restrain behavior.

So as Aristotle famously says in Rhetoric I.ii.3, it is the ethos, the character of the leader that is most compelling to the troops. I want to connect the old Homeric word thumos to what I now want to say about character. This word is most often translated by the single word "spirit." In modern times this has become rarified and if you forgive the play on words, spiritualized, so that we lose the sense that is still preserved when we speak of a horse as spirited or an argument as spirited. Professor Rorty at Brandeis gave me her best shot at translating the word as "the energy of spirited honor." I want you to listen to Aristotle’s explanation of thumos in Politics VII.6.1327b39ff. He says, "Thymos is the faculty of our souls which issues in love and friendship….It is also the source … of any power of commanding and any feeling for freedom."

The spirited self-respect that Homer called thumós becomes particularly critical to leadership in a combat situation. To trust the leader, the troops need to feel that the leader is his or her "own person," not a slave. In combat, trust goes to the leaders who give critical obedience, rather than blind obedience, to their own bosses.[3] A leader giving blind obedience to a militarily irrational or illegal order gets the troops killed without purpose ["wasted"] or irretrievably tainted by commission of atrocities.

1. Eugene Garver, Aristotle's Rhetoric: An Art of Character, U. Chicago Press, 1994

2. Phenomenology of Spirit Aristotle fans may balk at this as flying in the face of Rh. I.ii.3, but it can be justified from the practice Aristotle shows us. It should be evident that I do not dispute the importance of the leader’s character.

3. U. F. Zwygart, “How Much Obedience Does an Officer Need?” U.S. Army Command and General Staff College pamphlet, 1993

I thought this was a very interesting take on leadership. So much so that I printed out a few copies and passed them out to people in my class. Hopefully we can all learn something from it.

I've been talking to one of my friends in my class who is going to the USS ELROD (FFG 55), my old ship as the OPS. He and I have been talking about sharing knowledge amongst ourselves as we go out to sea as department heads. I recommended (as I've posted about in previous blogs) that we start a little monthly email newsletter. People send their comments to me via email, I'll consolidate them into a little journal for us, put it in pamphlet form, convert it to PDF and then email it out to everyone so they will be able to have it for reference. It's a sharing of information amongst ourselves. What better way to learn to deal with problems than by sharing information on how we overcame certain problems. Megher and I both think it is a great idea, so I think we're going to spearhead something along that lines to help ourselves out, and to help out our fellow department heads.

Other than that, I don't really have much to say right now. Not much going on except lamentations, but I'm working my way through them (like I have a choice ;)

Non nobis, Domine, non nobis sed Nominii tua Da gloriam.