A633.1.2.RB_HallMike

After reading the first two chapters of the book, I find myself anticipating future discussions much more than I have in the past – the author of the text does a great job describing challenging ideas while also sparking my interest in the topic.  I really like the way he begins each chapter with a thought exercise to get you into the correct mindset for the chapter.  In chapter 1, there were 3 relatively simple questions to be answered regarding how leadership has changed in the recent past.  I think the 3 questions themselves could be discussed at great length but instead I will try to summarize my thoughts into 3 paragraphs.

His first question is if my attitude to leaders changed in my life and if so, how.  To answer the first part of the question, a resounding yes is the answer.  I think this is largely in part to 2 key factors.  First is the fact that my life can pretty much be split into 2 different time zones – pre-Navy and the present.  Before the Navy, my only real exposure to leadership and being a leader came from the sports I participated in, specifically swimming.  At the time, I would have followed my swim coach to the end of the earth if he asked me to, but then again I also had a very generic/basic understanding of what it means to be a leader.  Once joining the military, I figured out that being a leader is a daunting task in most situations and that one has to practice in order to get good at it.  This idea of experience leads to the other reason for the change, and the author alluded to it in one of the chapters.  While having knowledge is important, it is not the end all be all – you must couple that knowledge with the wisdom in how to apply it.  Wisdom is something that is learned through experience – as my time in the Navy has increased, my experience and exposure to different leaders and leadership styles has increased.  Coupled with the knowledge I have gained through training and this curriculum, I’d say I have a pretty good understanding of what it is to be a good leader.  As a result, I look back on previous leaders in my life with an analytical eye and am often disappointed in what I find.  From the above, I think one can extrapolate how my attitude towards leaders has changed.  I look at leaders now much more analytically.  I am constantly looking for methods to incorporate into my own style while also looking for things to avoid and am much less likely to get caught up in group thought.  Essentially, leaders nowadays have to earn my respect and don’t necessarily get it just because of their position.

There definitely is a trend with how leaders are viewed as one moves from the older to younger generations.  Just like my own opinions outlined above, I think that many people from the younger generation require their leaders to earn their trust and respect whereas in the past the position was all that was needed.  While not necessarily a completely oligarchic stance, I think that older generations were much more willing to just accept the powers that be in order to make their lives easier. 

The reason for this change is pretty simple in my opinion: they had less access to information, and information is power.  The book Freakonomics is just as much a study on how important it is to have information dominance as it is a study on how fun and bizarre statistics can make the world out to be.  Older generations essentially had the newspaper and the library to figure out what was going on in the world whereas today there is almost unlimited information at your fingertips when you have a smart phone with internet access.  While all this information can be overwhelming (as discussed in chapter 2 and any class on tactical decision making), it prevents leaders from pulling the blinds up and over people’s eyes.  As a result, when a leader messes up, the people see it and want to hold them accountable.  To further prove the point that access to information is what is driving this process, one only needs to look to a regime that has been in the news lately.  North Korea is a totalitarian state ruled by a single guy with all the power.  The people below him are kept in absolute darkness or artificial light created by Kim Jong Un in order to make him appear omnipotent.  People there accept him as the leader because they have no reason to believe he isn’t the greatest thing since sliced bread.  There is no access to the internet and the only news they get is from the state run media.  The people have no information and thus no power.  Move one country north to China.  While still a communist state with a ruling select few, the internet explosion and the growing availability of it within China is causing a deregulation of the state and an increase in the power of the people.  As information awareness increases, the ability of the people in power to remain so just because of their position rapidly decreases.  So, the reason why the attitude towards leaders in the younger generation has changed from what it used to be is because the leaders no longer have a monopoly on the information.

With respect to the leadership gap, I would argue that the gap has always been there, it just was not as apparent due to the lack of information flow.  In the past, bad leaders could cover up their ways so that it wouldn’t filter down to the masses.  In present times, a leader might not even know he has messed up before the internet gets ahold of him.  The presence of information has only highlighted the gap that was always there.  In order to close the gap, I think people need to figure out what type of person they want as a leader and then get that person into the position.  If you want to be part of an ethical business that pushes to do things right while also making a profit, going out and getting someone who has made a career stabbing people in the back might not be a good fit.  Additionally, I think that leaders need to recognize that their ultimate purpose is to create a vision, build a staff that will execute that vision, and then stand back and watch the process work.  As structured as the military is, we still have a process like that with the CO making the policy for the XO to execute.  Additionally, leaders must have trust in their subordinates – the days of the leader being the expert at everything has closed!

A632.9.3.RB_HallMike

It was rather interesting that Prof. Shiv actually used a comparison of military leaders and confidence in their orders as I thought of that almost immediately in the video.  Almost everything I have done in the military has required that I have confidence when I do it.  It started when I was preparing for my first qualification board at Prototype.  We were instructed to be confident in your answer no matter what – if we were even 1% sure it was right, act like you are 100% right.  As someone who has a hard time talking up my own abilities, I had a very hard time not being honest with the qual board if I wasn’t completely sure I was right.  If I knew I was correct, I was confident, but if there was any doubt, my confidence waivered, and I suffered through that board.  As it ended up, I was right more often than not but my lack of confidence made the board think I didn’t know what I was talking about.  This trend continued through my qualification process unabated.  I would be open and honest if asked if I was confident in my answers, so darn near every qaul board I went to was very painful.  It also led to the command being very hesitant in my abilities, all due to my lack of confidence during my qual boards.  With that being said, for whatever reason this lack of confidence disappeared when I was actually standing watch.  In daily operations, drills, and actual casualties I was calm and confident in all of the orders that I gave out and even if I had no idea what I was doing, I made sure I at least looked like I did.  This undoubtedly had a huge effect on the confidence my CO had in me (because he essentially had none following my OOD board) and led to the crew having complete confidence in my orders.  This in turn led my watch section to work hard at everything they did as my confidence as their leader rubbed off on them.  As they became more proficient, my confidence in them grew as well.  I can confidently say that Prof. Shiv is 100% when he says that confidence is contagious.

His first statement with passion is also accurate but I think that passion leads to much more dangerous places than just confidence.  I have little doubt that my passion for my career path has led to a much larger interest in it from our unit – we made our quota for the first time in our history and should easily make it next year.  With that being said, my passion is not misplaced – I have concrete facts to support why I am passionate in the manner that I am.  This is where I think that just passion can be dangerous.  Without the solid facts behind it, passion can replace logic which shouldn’t happen in the majority of cases out there.  You can as passionate as you’d like wanting to sell me a ketchup popsicle during the summer, but if I have white gloves on there is zero chance I’ll buy it because it doesn’t make sense.  I think politics is another example where passion has replaced policy.  Rather than run your campaign on solid facts, politicians now days invoke negative passion at their opposition while building sometimes nonsensical passion on their side.

A632.8.3.RB_HallMike

As I said in my discussion post, I think the Cynefin framework does come in handy in decision making, especially in my career field as a naval officer.  The nice thing about the framework is that is allows you to identify what type of situation you are in - whether it be simple, complicated, complex, or chaos – and then react appropriately.  This framework specifically helps you out in a couple of ways.  First off, it breaks down situations into 4 broad categories.  While not sounding important, being able to categorize something into only 4 different situations sure can make things easier when compared with having to categorize something into 30 different ones – 4 is just detailed enough to ensure separation between the frames.  Secondly, once you have identified what frame you are in, it provides for a common response.  Each frame has a different response that is catered to the specific frame.  There is no need to collect large amounts of data in the chaos frame as there are few trends that can be identified.  Instead, you act first and see how the system responds to get a feel for things.  Thirdly, the different frames also provide a quick summary of what you are going to have to do to solve the problem.  Are you going to have to use a procedure or are you going to have to think a solution out – each frame is different.  From the readings, it also provides for things a leader should and should not do for each situation.  For example, complacency is a problem with the simple frame due to the cookie-cutter approach to the solutions.  As a result, a good leader should be wary of a complacent team when identifying simple problems.

I can easily identify multiple examples of each framework.  I would compare the necessary thinking process for basic ship driving to the complicated frame.  In this frame, there are multiple right responses for any given situation.  With ship driving, there are often many “correct” answers to get the ship safely from one point to the next.  There are governing documents that guide how you act in general, however for the most part you are free to choose which way you want to go (within the confines of the Navigator’s track).  Within the submarine community, many JOs have a hard time removing themselves from the nuclear side of the house (which is definitely a simple frame system outside of catastrophic casualties) when they come up forward.  As a result, they tend to think in a very linear fashion like they do back aft.  What they forget is that most ship driving manuals allow the OOD the freedom to make the decision and only recommend certain maneuvers.  In fact, the manual writers did this specifically to prevent people thinking that they have to act exactly as the manual says.  As a result, when they think they have to turn, they do so in a very rigid fashion (for arguments sake we’ll say the manual says turn to place the contact 50 degrees off the bow).  The new drivers will turn and place the ship exactly 50 degrees of the bow by turning the bow through the line of site, even if it means an almost 180 turn.  I used to get in heated arguments why this shouldn’t be done with some of them, and every time the CO backed me up.  I would stress to the guys I was training that the book only recommends and gives you the freedom to operate the ship safely as you see it.  Anyways, long story short, driving the ship puts you in a pretty good situation to sense, analyze, and then respond to the situation (as opposed to trying things out first with the case of the complex frame or categorizing in the simple frame).

As I mentioned above, the nuclear side of submarining is clearly a simple frame.  Your job as the operator is to identify trends/problems and then respond in accordance with the procedure.  Any critical thinking outside of that is simply not desired.  You are to sense the problem, categorize it, and then respond properly.

A632.7.4.RB_HallMike

Collaboration when dealing with conflict is an absolute requirement in order to ensure that everyone walks away from the discussion happy.  Getting other people involved not only will limit the ill will from any disagreement; it will also lead to a more thorough, well thought out plan.  I can think of an outstanding example outlining this situation that everyone has had to deal with at one point or another – getting together with a group of friends and then trying to decide where to go to dinner.  During the initial phase of the discussion, people often will say that they don’t care where the group ends up.  How many times have you said, “Copy that, we are going to Sun Xao Chinese restaurant then since I have been craving some good dumplings” only to then hear grumbling about your choice.  In order to prevent any hurt feelings and to get everyone’s opinion, you must dig to get them out.  So, I often make sure I know exactly what people are feeling prior to making any decision and I get there by asking several questions.  First and foremost, I ask what they don’t want – this allows people to get that negative vibe out immediately to narrow down the choices and to focus on the positives.  Next, I ask how far we want to drive – this at least narrows down the search even further.  Following this, my next question would be are we worried about a wait – this will decide whether or not we are going somewhere popular or a hole in the wall place.  Once we have narrowed that down, I’d ask each individual what type of food they are looking for.  Finally, I’d start tossing out restaurants that fit the criteria.  While I don’t always ask all of these questions, a few come out every time the scenario comes up.  In the end, I usually don’t have to make a decision – everyone comes to a consensus on where we want to go which was always the end state of the discussion (determining where to eat).

                 Keeping that scenario in mind, I really need to think about getting others involved when the stakes are much higher and on a professional level.  I am guilty of not wanting to give into my ideas – I spent some of my precious time creating them so I am often wary of letting go of them unless there is a superior idea.  I would be much better off if I would keep my idea in mind but apply the questioning attitude I use in the more casual setting to reach common ground with the other person so that a unified proposal can be created.