Selecting Senior Management with Creative Problem-Solving Skills

Managing Partner, Navguide Solutions LLP [Visit website]

As a Master, I was once on a vessel recently taken under our management.

Now, this was a challenging ship with multiple issues on both deck and engine. As many of us would agree, tough situations bring out the best in people and show their true character. I got to work with two Chief Engineers on that vessel, and the memory is distinct in my mind.

For the first month, the Engine Room was on red alert most of the time. The Chief Engineer had come with experience but was rigid and brutally confrontational. He was brilliant when things were working, but when things did not go as planned, he broke down. The crew was unhappy, and there were times I had to mediate to maintain balance. He signed off after a month, and the new Chief Engineer came with a smile on his face.?

To my surprise, within a week, the Engine room atmosphere was very different. The Chief Engineer was agile, dealt with problems as they came, pivoted as needed and maintained a calm demeanour. I never had to interfere again; we saw smiling faces in the messrooms, and in the next two months, we upgraded the engine room to a standard far higher than we had taken over. The owners had come on board to congratulate us.

Same ship, same problems, very different outcomes.

Selecting Senior Management

Human beings are adaptive but also wired for pattern recognition and survival.?

Leaders in high-stakes environments, such as the maritime industry, must operate under intense pressure, quickly assess complex variables, and anticipate both expected and unforeseen outcomes. This is particularly true for the top four - Master, Chief Officer, Chief Engineer and Second Engineer, whose roles go beyond following procedures—they must make judgment calls, often without a safety net. They are the last line of defence!

In a recent poll that we ran, almost 70% of the participants rated creative problem-solving ability to be the most important criterion for selecting senior management on board.?

Yet, we rarely select on the basis of problem-solving skills. In most cases, the selection criteria to promote or hire someone at a senior rank hover around listing out the years in rank, sifting through appraisal reports or conducting Multiple choice tests that do not indicate how the person would perform on the field.

Creative Problem-Solving Skills

Creative problem-solving is not simply about generating ideas; it’s about finding solutions in constrained and high-stakes environments. A true test of an officer’s suitability for a senior role is their ability to analyze a situation, anticipate complications, and implement effective solutions quickly. Behavioural psychology suggests that creativity in problem-solving often arises from experience and reflective practice rather than formal learning alone.

Senior officers who possess these skills are like shipboard Ninjas - they remain calm and can act decisively in ambiguous situations where standard protocols may not apply.

Think of a Master facing sudden, severe weather conditions or a Chief Engineer dealing with a mechanical failure in remote waters. Using procedural knowledge as a foundation—creative problem-solving becomes the linchpin of success.?

It demands situational assessments, scenario-based testing, and, ideally, simulations that mirror real-world complexities. Maritime Simulators play a big role here, but they are often expensive, less scalable, and require the involvement of several professionals.?

Stakes are too high

We are going to trust this person with a Billion-dollar asset and the lives of people on board.

Experience (years in rank) will always be crucial in the selection process, but that is not all. An MCQ-based selection process does not measure adaptability or resilience. Even though the ripple effects of mismanagement are often not felt ashore because someone handles it on board, I assure you, it is very real. It is happening as we speak on thousands of ships. At its basic stage, it appears as detentions, claims or early signoffs. In extreme cases, it has led to accidents and loss of lives.

But the challenge is twofold.?

• How do you select someone for problem-solving skills? Is it really possible to assess it over an interview? and,
• Even if we find a way to do that, with the global scarcity of suitably qualified senior officers, can we really afford to filter them out with such strict criteria?

I would not attempt to answer the second one. All practicality aside, I believe the stakes of putting an unreliable person at a senior rank are too high to ignore. I have seen it firsthand in my 25-year career at sea.?

However, we have been actively working on the first challenge - a digital, scalable system that could help assess how a person would perform on board, a solution that can be used by owners and operators to assess critical problem-solving skills in senior management.

It does not involve a simulator, is far less resource-intensive and gets the job done.

The Storytelling Approach: How Navguide Paves the Way

In December 2021, we introduced Learning Through Storytelling.

This is a fresh alternative to conventional assessment and training methods. Instead of focusing solely on theoretical questions, we immerse officers in situational narratives that bring complex, real-world scenarios to life. We do this through an animated storyline, where the protagonist faces challenges, and we ask the candidates for a solution.

One of our animated storylines, The Reefcon Riddle, talks about a Chief Engineer who joins the vessel from Singapore, and the vessel sails off with a brief handover from the outgoing Chief Engineer. She comes to Fujairah for Bunkers and Provisions, loads in the Persian Gulf and enters the Arabian Sea heading East.?

One afternoon, the third engineer reported that they were unable to maintain the temperatures in the reefer chambers. There are other contexts given that would help identify the underlying issue (e.g. Provisions from Fujairah in June came with moisture).

At this point, we stopped the story and asked the Chief Engineer for a probable solution. This is not an MCQ; there is a blank space where the candidate must write what he or she thinks could have happened; once we have that, the story goes on to depict what really happened. A little later another problem crops up, and we stop the story again and repeat.

Click here to check it out: The Reefcon Riddle

These scenarios were created with decades of field experience. The technique engages critical thinking, allowing them to practice their decision-making skills in environments that mirror actual situations they could encounter at sea. I remember a second engineer who, in one case, listed out five probable causes of a certain problem. We do not know his experience or what his appraisal reports (which are often biased) say, but we know he will be a champion on board, pivoting as he needs with challenging situations.

Conclusion

Captain Sartaj Gill, the former Global Training Director of the VGroup and Thome, remarked, “Our industry predominantly focuses on assessing knowledge most often via MCQ assessments and, in some cases, the use of simulators and scenarios. Either way, the focus remains on testing knowledge. Then we have some basic use of personality assessments but very little focus on behaviour. This storytelling concept by Navguide is quite an innovative approach. A Behavior demonstrated in the past is most likely to be repeated in the future. This approach could be the closest we can come to predicting behaviour.”

Selecting the right leaders for ships is more than assessing their technical knowledge.

Senior officers should be chosen based on their ability to handle complex situations creatively, make informed decisions under pressure, and learn from real-life challenges. The “Learning through Storytelling” approach reveals a lot. It’s time we raise the bar for selecting shipboard leaders, ensuring that those at the helm are prepared to navigate the unpredictable seas of tomorrow.

A special thanks to Mr AVINASH HEGDE , Capt. Robert Shane Vaz and Mr KARAN SINGH for bringing the concept to life, and David Birwadkar , Capt.Philip Mathews , Maneesh Jha Capt. Ashok Mahapatra Chinna Ruparaju, AFNI , VIRAF CHICHGAR Capt Rahul Negi, AFNI and many others like them for inspiring us.