· It is in turbulent times when personal integrity and commitment to vows of loyalty are tested.
· It is through turbulent times that relationships are cemented or destroyed, whether in life, in marriage or in organizational experience.
· Let us not be weary in well doing; for in due season we shall reap if we faint not.” (Galatians 6:9)
There are always restless seas in one’s life. Everyone will encounter stormy seas. Some are more frightening than others. In troubled times, in one’s professional and personal life, security is being affected by evil outside forces of heathen competition or decisions of government. Under any turbulent circumstances the one in command must stand resolute in the face of adversity and in the presence of those who report and take charge. This is no time to abandon ship.
The cold hard facts of command: If you are correct someone else will get the credit. If you are wrong, there is no doubt where the blame will land. But any process worth going through will almost always get tougher before it gets easier. One engaged in any worthwhile process must have the will to overcome and persevere.
Command is one thing, but responsibility, the duty to those who depend on you, is the greater burden. It is a burden that only a captain can bare, a burden that must be felt not just dealt with. A burden one must take personally.
In any organization, there is never a question as to whether we should take risks. In order to grow and develop or in order to maintain our present position we must make decisions and take action to make some change that makes something happen. We cannot avoid risks. Avoiding risks is like not making a decision to handle some situation, the lack of a decision is a decision we have no control over. The same is true with risk taking. There are small risks, there are great risks and there are life or death risks.
As managers of managers who have responsibility for the health and stability of an organization and the people employed in it we have to know how to take reasonable risks. How the executive handles the risk affects one’s career professional and personal growth.
On high stakes situations, you cannot let the situation get you. You cannot lose your composure. You call on your experience and the experiences of your crew to identify as many possible contingencies as possible. You prepare your crew to handle those contingencies. There is never a guarantee situations will occur as you expect, but if your people are “in the game” they will step up and apply the knowledge and training they have and perform at the level necessary regardless of the actual event.
In any organization, there is never a question as to whether we should take risks. In order to grow and develop or in order to maintain our present position we must make decisions and take action to make some change that makes something happen. We cannot avoid risks. Avoiding risks is like not making a decision to handle some situation, the lack of a decision is a decision we have no control over. The same is true with risk taking. There are small risks, there are great risks and there are life or death risks.
Mariners have organizations that constantly survey conditions that will affect maritime travel and send Notice to Mariners regularly. Air travel has their own organization that sends constant Notice to Airmen reports. There are many organizations that monitor the conditions of each commercial industry. Executives would do well to subscribe to these reporting agencies and include their information in their strategic and tactical planning.
No matter how many safety programs you conduct, somebody is going to do something stupid. Sometimes damage to equipment or an injury occurs even when good people are doing the right thing. There needs to be a well-designed and well-rehearsed action plan for handling those incidents. Specific people should be assigned to specific tasks, for which they have technical ability, and have no operational tethers to prevent them from responding at a minute’s notice. Whether a personal injury or unfortunate incident, horrendous or routine, there must be a plan and that plan must be executed without delay. An after-action report should be made and based on that report, future action is to be determined.
Even during peacetime underway cruising there is a potential for bad things to hit you from the blind side. One must always be vigilant and keep a weather eye out for situations that may appear to be mundane at first but if not watched can go dreadfully wrong.
We spend more than a third of our lives in the workplace. It should be enjoyable most of the time, if not we are in the wrong job. When a person is in a job for which they are well suited, they can be trained to reach levels of performance that will bring great satisfaction. There are elements of every job that is not enjoyable, but the one who is enjoying a feeling of contribution will step up and do what needs to be done. What is even more remarkable is their ability to see what needs to be done, why, when and how to do it.
Sometimes bad things happen in clusters. At such times, you must have your own experts on board who have been trained, and tested to know how to handle those contingencies, and you must be able to rely on them to do it. Each department head and resident employee experts will mean the difference between defeating the adversaries (Whatever that may be) and being sunk or so critically injured reparations drain time and assists needed to hold your position in the marketplace. When there are too many crucial enemies attacking, you may need more expertise than is available on staff. That means the team needs to be supplemented by contract personnel. Executive management would be well advised to contract with professional consultants, financial experts and the like.
Faith is trust, and that trust must be earned by consistent performance to that standard, whatever that standard may be.
Just as a military unit in a combat situation, an organization facing turbulent times faces an enemy. That enemy or enemies are a reality and an intangible, difficult to identify sometimes, unpredictable and potentially hazardous to the organization’s existence and the continued employment of those in the organization. The enemy is any force that opposes the efforts of the organization to reach its long, and short-term objectives. The organization exists for specific purpose and an enemy is any deliberate and consistent force that threatens the effective continuation of that purpose.
The normal daily operations of any organization consists of groups of people working together to accomplish worthwhile objectives for the benefit of that organization. Whether unusual major operations or daily routine operations those groups of people must function as a team. An ops team is made up of individuals each with a special set of skills honed to excellence.
The effectiveness of those teams depends on how well each individual applies those skills in a team setting.
One does not surrender person hood or individual pride in their skills when they become part of a team. On the contrary their personality, their person hood and their skills are employed in concert with others on the team as each individual person and skill is focused on the accomplishment of the objective.
We explored the S.W.O.T. analysis earlier. It is difficult to identify all the threats before your engagement. You can expect unidentified or newly introduced threats during the engagement. When your executive team discovers a possible threat, pull the team together to determine how each department head should pro-act toward it.
Executives make mistakes of course, and sometimes they make several in succession. While those mistakes can cost the company money, lost market share or some other missed opportunity and of course embarrassment to the one who made the error this is not usually the most memorable, or hurtful outcomes of a mistake. Consider those time when you or colleague made a public mistake or failed, either for wrong action or inaction in some way that affected the organization. What was that most difficult issue to bear? Their failure to live up to the obligation to others and filed to meet the expectations of subordinates and peer executives. We should also mention the despair of not performing for their boss.
Other situations will come up in times of turbulence. Some are just minor annoyances, like attendance or discipline problems. Others are major situations such as the loss of essential personnel or materiel. Frustration is usually the emotion of the day and these other unforeseen or blindsided events only add to those frustrations. They must be dealt with dispatch and clear heads.
Senior executives would do well to develop their own systems, their own barometers and their own internal experts who are constantly taking the readings and recommending a proper course. Each department head must have systems for reading the operational climate and make weekly or monthly reports to the senior executive or to an executive committee, with predictions and recommendations based on evidence they can point to, and supported by historical records.
The organization is the entity that provides the jobs for the crew. It is the entity that offers the prospect for a future for all concerned, both now and in the future. The organization must be preserved and must weather the storms and the turbulent times. When the storms are abated the organizations that made it through will once again provide products for customers and jobs for the community.
There are times when an hourly employee makes a better P.R. person because they can communicate with those who are actually doing the job on the floor. A manufacturing firm was experiencing problems getting the color right on the product. As much as they tried technician and managers were not able to get the supplier to understand the problem they were experiencing. The company flew a team of hourly employees who worked with the product to meet with the hourly personnel who were actually making the color to resolve the issue. They were successful. AGAIN: If hourly employees are well trained and authorized to do what is needed productivity is assured.
Constant training and testing for a successful outcome can be monotonous when a continuous operation is required and or when they must train and test for contingencies that may or may not occur. However, those being trained and tested will appreciate it when they are called on to perform.
A plan is a programmed course of action, made to implement programmed decisions. Plans made during times where favorable conditions allow for more careful planning will almost always be more effective than plans made under hostile or turbulent times. A plan is only as good as its effect on a desired outcome. Plans are tested and tweaked under controlled conditions. When the plan works in trial, we have more faith in it, and those implementing it when the time comes to employ it. As far as possible management must be prepared for interruptions in normal operation and not allow Fate to dictate our response.
Pay attention to the meeting the captain had with the officers and chiefs on the mess deck. His analysis was actually a system geared toward the assessment of the probability of the Card’s success in the combat exercises.
The captain was unofficially conducting a SWOT analysis SWOT is a structured planning method used to evaluate the Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats when considering some new or unique business activity. The technique is credited to Albert Humphrey, of the Stanford Research Institute (now SRI International).
The plans for identifying and managing in turbulent times were complete and drills were scheduled to test them.
The captain was unofficially conducting a SWOT analysis. SWOT is a structured planning method used to evaluate the Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats when considering some new or unique business activity. The technique is credited to Albert Humphrey, of the Stanford Research Institute (now SRI International).
The SWOT system identifies the internal and external factors that are favorable and unfavorable to achieving that objective. SWOT analysis is a powerful model for many different situations. The SWOT tool is not just for business and marketing. It can be used to assess the possibilities or the probabilities of almost any unknown objective.To reiterate - SWOT analysis may be used in any decision-making situation when a desired end-state (objective) has been defined. SWOT analysis may also be used in pre-crisis planning and preventive crises management.
A plan is a programmed course of action, made for a programmed decision. Plans made for turbulent times during times where favorable conditions allow for more careful planning will almost always be more effective than plans made under hostile or turbulent times.
As far as possible management must be prepared for interruptions in normal operation and not allow fate to dictate the response.
Plans for managing in turbulent times, or in times of crises should not determine the basic culture of the operation. The organization’s leaders (both formal and informal) need to operate in an atmosphere of optimism and innovation, with no fear of taking risks for the benefit of the organization and its people. Abraham Lincoln once said; “We live in the midst of alarms, anxiety beclouds the future; we expect some new disaster with each newspaper we read.”
Given the Card’s history, one bad situation after another will take some great faith in the ship’s executive team to keep a positive attitude, especially at sea.
Fate makes demands on flesh and blood and what is most often the demand is flesh and blood.
