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Once, sailors couldn’t leave the USS Benfold fast enough. Today, the vessel is the pride of the Pacific fleet, and sailors from other ships are clamoring to join its crew. How did the captain of the ship, Mike Abrashoff, get the Benfold back on course? By breaking bad habits and jettisoning old attitudes—starting with his own.
If employee retention is a headache for business, it’s a migraine for the U.S. Navy. Forty percent of the navy’s new recruits will wash out of the service before their four-year tours are up. That’s not just bad for the military’s effectiveness, it’s expensive: it costs taxpayers about $35,000 to recruit one sailor and send him through nine weeks of boot camp. Of those who make it through their first hitch, only 30% sign on for a second term.
When I took command of the destroyer USS Benfold in June 1997, the navy’s retention problem, which I had observed all through my 16 years in the service, became mine to endure or to solve. Although the USS Benfold is a technological wonder—for instance, its radar system can track a bird-sized object from 50 miles away—virtually all its 310 sailors were deeply demoralized. In fact, they were so unhappy with their lives on board, they literally cheered when my predecessor left the ship for the last time. Watching that scene in shock, I vowed that would never happen to me. I wanted sailors so engaged with their work, they would perform better than ever, willingly stick around for their entire tours, and possibly even respect me in the process. The only problem: I had no idea how to make that dream come true.
Over the next 21 months, I found out. Retaining people sometimes requires redeeming them—changing their lives. But first, I had to redeem myself. I had to become an entirely different type of leader. A different type of person, really. Only then was I able to redeem my sailors, one at a time. Together we learned a different way to think and act. All in all, it was an enormous undertaking; I ran the risk of never getting promoted again. But I realized that the only way to achieve my goals—combat readiness, retention, and trust—was to make my people grow. It worked. The USS Benfold has set all-time records for performance and retention, and the waiting list of officers and enlisted personnel who want to transfer to the USS Benfold is pages long. It’s a long wait because very few aboard the Benfold want to leave.
What made me turn to redemption as a means to retain sailors? Believe me, it wasn’t a career move. In fact, it wasn’t even a preconceived plan. Instead, it was a journey that made increasing sense the longer I stayed on it. It began, as I said, that first day aboard the USS Benfold, as my crew derisively cheered their departing commander. Clearly, his approach to leadership had failed. It was, sadly, an approach that I knew all too well. Command and control to the max. Do exactly what I say, when I say it, no questions, no comments.
My first step, then, was rejecting the 225-year-old U.S. Navy way of running things. That was hard, but I had a strong sense that the time had come. The command-and-control style may have worked when ships and warfare were less complex and technology-intensive. But it wasn’t going to work on an 8,300-ton, 505-foot-long ship like the USS Benfold. Loaded with state-of-the-art computers and radar gear, it can detect and destroy enemy submarines, surface craft, and airplanes while at the same time launching computer-guided missiles at land-based targets. No single person could hope to manage all the information and make all the split-second decisions that those operations entail.
Besides, I had come to realize over the course of my career that no commanding officer has a monopoly on a ship’s skills and brainpower. There’s an astonishing amount of creativity and know-how below decks, just waiting to be unleashed. To set it loose and make it flourish, a leader should neither command nor control; he should provide vision and values and then guide, coach, and even follow his people.
Bolstering my new perspective was the fact that I had actually seen a different kind of leadership work in the military. For two years in the mid-1990s, I served as military assistant to William J. Perry, who was secretary of defense from 1994 to 1997. Watching him interact with people had been a revelation to me. He never barked orders; he listened. Whether he was talking to the president or a maintenance man in the Pentagon, he gave everyone he encountered his full attention. Perry’s listening encouraged people to do their best for him—and for the military. That’s the kind of impact I wanted to have as the USS Benfold’s captain.
So there I was. I had made the intellectual leap, I had the role model, and I had plenty of good intentions. But that’s not enough to change someone’s leadership style. Something bigger has to happen. And it did. I don’t like to admit this, but listening doesn’t come naturally to me. My ex-wife told me as much when we were going through our divorce, and after the anger and hurt feelings faded, I came to agree with her. She and Perry opened my eyes to how I often just pretended to hear people. How many times, I asked myself, had I barely glanced up from my work when a subordinate came in my office? I wasn’t listening. I was marking time until it was my turn to give orders.continue story » |
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