Readiness and Soft Skills
Soft people don't build and operate warships - or do they? I was speaking with my great colleague and former Marine, John Sumner , about his experience working with the US Navy and a particular Naval shipyard and fast-attack submarine crew. Once upon a time I served in Hawaii and had the chance to explore the Pearl Harbor shipyard and tour a few operational vessels. Nothing about that experience - especially the re-building of war-fighting vessels would strike me as an environment of soft people. Even the post-work drinks were hard. ;)
But among such 'hard' people is an incredible story - of how a fast-attack submarine crew transforms itself, shows up for a refit with an amazingly different culture, and inspires a shipyard. You can read more about it in the Navy's Shipyard Log publication, but here's the short version:
When the sub commander took over it looked like this: "During the first nine months of 2018, his crew experienced 12 Captain’s Mast proceedings (disciplinary actions), encountered 31 near-miss events requiring command-level attention, and formally declared 17 test program problems due to watch standing errors."
Then the commander partnered with Arbinger. "...over the following year period, only one Captain’s Mast proceeding was conducted... liberty incidents decreased by 70%, only six test program problems due to watch standing errors occurred, and near-miss events requiring command-level critique decreased by 80%."
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That impacts readiness. But like those great Ginsu Knife commercials - there's more.
They inspired the shipyard to work with us and fundamentally change mindset too.
"The crew invited the project team to shift their mindset, putting the project on the fast track to success as the crew and shipyard worked collaboratively to meet and beat the strict maintenance timeline by delivering five days early and saving millions of dollars."
A major combat vessel out to sea 5 days early. That's READINESS!!