Culture Enables Strategy

Culture is important to an organization.  I needed a plan….a script around which I could gel the team and motivate them to perform at astonishing levels. This was my plan….my strategic plan….all one page of it, when I had command of USS CARL VINSON (CVN 70).  It was granular in the sense of addressing all domains requiring our attention, but broad in its range across all critical aspects of our business.  It was updated every six months, or so, as priorities changed depending upon where we were in our deployment cycle.  It hung in nearly every space on the ship, and I always used it to provide context to my conversations with my great Sailors – about them, and/or their families and other loved ones.

Ultimately, I owned the culture….I was responsible for it and accountable to all who were effected by it.  No matter what else was going on outside the squadron or ship lifelines, I “was the ship”….just like you should be viewed as your organization. My most important sales effort was to convince my people at all levels, that they owned the culture as well.  After all, they were the primary contributors to achieving our mission and vision with focus on, but not limited to, our guiding principles.  My role was: to be consistent in my messaging; to lead confidently, even when times were tough, and: to communicate, communicate, communicate. This was essential to our leadership plan -  we communicated in the shops, over a cup of coffee during a break, over the ship’s loudspeaker system, at awards ceremonies, via email back to the family members giving them updates, and, of course, our world-famous “Captain’s Calls” on the ship’s hangar bay – I could write a book on the energy, the cheerleading, the promotion of achievement by one or more members of the tribe that occurred at these events - they were cathartic for everyone involved…..I mean EVERYONE.  Every one of you should want to know how to execute a “Captain’s Call”.  We used our oath-of-enlistment, and the relevant elements of our ‘Vision’ and ‘Guiding Principles’ to keep our messaging on-point, and our people focused and motivated to excel at the right things at the right time. 

The best Chief-of-Naval Operations ever (in my opinion) spoke often about the notions of ‘tribal leadership’ and the ‘power of the tribe’.  It has always stuck with me, and I created this visualization around an ecosystem….a winning ecosystem  - to create a positive, collectively inclusive, competitive, operationally comprehensive culture (we had to do everything right all of the time).  For me, the timing was perfect.  Our design was to be great… as individuals and as one team.  Our view: “I am great, and so are you.”

What did this do for CARL VINSON:  

• We attracted talent that immediately fit or aspired to fit of part of our winning team.  Young Sailors came to the ship because they were ordered to the ship, without say – we had no unit recruiting campaign.  Our going-in assumption was that nobody joined the Navy to be on a losing team, proved to be true. It was our objective to be successful as a team, because we needed everybody.
• We were able to enhance the dialogue regarding how each teammate interacted within the tribe….as contributors and enablers. Everyone had a role, which was constantly reinforced within the context of our plan. 
• We were able to accelerate contentment and satisfaction, which made everything else easier in an environment that was very demanding in every way. 
• We found performance to be ‘off-the-charts’, even by those who had no idea what they were capable of achieving when they first arrived. Winning became infectious. 

Behind the scenes, leadership, at all levels, was aware of how they played in this effort.  Frankly if they were not willing to fulfill their leadership role in this regard, I looked for someone that was.  Elementally, going back to our strategic plan, it is worth a review on how we executed: 

1. Mission and Vision: We worked on this soooo hard. Everything had to be connected and, more importantly, executable.  Everyone needed to understand the essential elements of the mission and the vision by which we were to excel in meeting this mission. Everyone had to participate in this, or we failed.  I have specific instances that would take too much time here to describe where Sailors failed because we, as a leadership team, did not connect their dot to the bigger mission dot. Our job was to provide clarity and fidelity to each person’s purpose, as it related to our “one team, one fight” ethos.  

2. Values and Guiding Principles: We used our core values of : “honor, courage, and commitment” and the other guiding principles to weaponize our culture – to make the tribe ‘killer-efficient’ across the wide spectrum of responsibilities.  Everything started with “honor, courage, and commitment” as these values directly correlated to our approach to the remaining principles.

3. Process: Of course, values were of little importance unless they were enshrined in the organization’s processes. In our environment, these processes were already well-established and documented.  However, the ever-changing operating environment placed many of these processes on the teetering edge of catastrophe if not executed within the limits of the operation being conducted - sort of like operating a high-performance aircraft on the bleeding-edge of its operating envelope.  We always rehearsed and worked to completely understand and appreciate our multiple ship’s interconnected processes given the complexity and dynamics of almost every evolution on the carrier.  I was neverintentionally let down.

4. People: We could not build a coherent culture….a winning tribe, without people who either shared our core values or possessed the willingness and ability to embrace them as they progressed to become tribal contributors. We had the hand we were dealt, so, we had to do it the old-fashioned way - we had to demonstrate that our vision was critical to mission success and that it was worth going after.   People stick with a culture they like and are proud to own.

5. Narrative:  the power of narrative. I think you get my message already. A powerful mission narrative is a gift that keeps on giving.  You need believers at all levels, down to your most junior personnel.  We relied upon the unique stories that were representative of who we were as individuals. the CARL VINSON as a strategic asset to the Nation, and the United States Navy as it related to the “we the people” aspects of our U.S. Constitution. Again, we used the ‘oath-of-enlistment as ‘narrative enabler’ on numerous occasions – so many great stores there as well.  One great story: There was a request for a burial-at-sea of an A-6 Intruder pilot who had been shot down over Viet Nam in 1968.  We were to sail past Whidbey Island, Washington to conduct the burial, as the pilot had been stationed there doing the war.  None of my young Sailors had been born in 1968, and really knew little about the Viet Nam war.  But they had an inkling of the sacrifice made.  We had flown family members out from Whidbey Island to participate in this solemn celebration-of-life.  So, I was taken aback on the morning of the event, as I walked to one of the aircraft elevators to officiate over the burial, when I saw thousands of Sailors, in formation in their dress-blues to render honors to a fallen Shipmate – “One team, one fight”.  I learned something on that day: everyone yearns for connectivity to something meaningful…..and a person’s sacrifice for the good of everyone else is about as meaningful as it gets.

6. Place: The place shaped our culture. Our ship was alive to us.  It was us, and we were it.  Everyday, I observed how it impacted our behavior and nurtured our values.  To this day, when I talk to some of my Shipmates, from our time together on CARL VINSON, we still speak of this place, what we collectively accomplished, and how it has impacted our lives.  Our place was the USS CARL VINSON.  

Charge hard!!