It’s The Environment, Never The People…..
I listen to a story from Simon Sinek who spoke about a submarine captain named David Marquet who became the leader of the worse performing naval crew in history. However, what made this story so fascinating is the change that took place with this crew.
Marquet was selected to captain the USS Olympia, a nuclear-powered attack submarine. He studied for over a year to take command of this sub, understanding on a deep level every detail of how that submarine operated. Captain Marquet made it his business to know everything about his submarine and his crew. When I mean everything, I mean everything. He knew his submarine inside out.
Unexpectedly, Captain Marquet was transferred to a next sub and took command of the USS Santa Fe when its captain quit. Santa Fe was the worst performing submarine in the fleet and a different type of sub that he knew little about.
Less than a month later the Santa Fe was running a simple drill to simulate a fault with the reactor. The captain ordered, “ahead two-thirds.” The officer on deck repeated the order, “ahead two-thirds.”
Nothing happened.
Captain Marquet noticed the helmsman who was to execute the order looked unsettled. When asked what the problem was, the helmsman pointed out that there were no two-thirds in the electric propulsion mode, unlike all his previous submarines. The officer was asked, did you know there were no two-thirds, the officer responded "yes" but repeated the command knowing it was wrong.
Now Captain Marquet did not have the luxury of changing his staff, firing everyone and start a fresh with a new crew, unlike what typically takes place in a business organization. Captain Marquet realized that the leader-follower environment meant his crew would do anything he said—even if it was wrong and he went about to change the environment.
He changed the environment. Captain Marquet began treating his crew as leaders, not followers, and giving control, not taking control. It wasn’t long before the Santa Fe went from the worst submarine to best navel sub in the history of the Navy.
It is never the people, its the environment.
When things are not going well, we change the staff, replace employees or transfer individuals with the hope that the situation will improve. In many instances, that same situation remains the same. One CEO once said, “my staff is not performing, we are not achieving our objectives, and as a result, we must change if the company have any chance of generating any profit.” Sounds familiar.
The CEO further indicated, “Oh no, the problem is not me, the problem is the staff.” When all is said and done, new personnel was brought in, but you know what, surprise, surprise, the status quo prevail, and the company went right back to square one. Why! The environment remained the same.
According to Mike Manes, one of our contributors at leadership First, it’s the environment, stupid. Many leaders fall victim to this kind of thinking; we are not meeting our projection, it must be the staff; we are under performing, it must be the staff. So we make all kind of changes without really looking at the root cause of the problem. I am 99% sure if you change the leader, those same under-performing people will become world class. When your basketball team or football team or your favorite sports team is losing, what typically happen, the coach is gone, and a new leader is brought in.
When Allan Mulally, one of my favorite CEO of all time, took the helm at Ford. One of the very first things Allan set out to do was to change the environment. Allan took the company back to its original purpose, change the culture of the organizations by making the environment safe and the funny thing is, he did not change his management team.
Mulally took a company from the brink of bankruptcy back to profitability within 5-6 years with the same executive crew everyone dubbed one of the worse in Ford history. Sounds familiar.
Leadership is all about inspiring and having the courage of one's conviction to make the right decision, but more importantly, leadership is about recognizing that your people are your most prized asset. When the fundamentals of leadership are embedded in the organization DNA, and everyone is singing from the same hymnbook, your organization will find its pulse of existence. It is never the people, its the environment.
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Gifford is the founder of Leadership First, a rapidly growing leadership community with active users from over 15 countries inspired to make every organization great. Join our fantastic team of contributors who are inspired to change the leadership status quo and influence other leaders into making their organization great. Help us achieve our purpose.