by David M. Walczak, FSA, MAAA

This article is reprinted from the January 2007 issue of The Stepping Stone, newsletter of the SOA's Management and Personal Development Section.

Looking for engaging books on management techniques that apply to our industry has been a quest and a challenge for me in the last few years. I have gravitated toward the practical versus the theoretical and so the opportunity to learn from a military commander trying to improve the capabilities of a guided missile destroyer, the USS Benfold, used in the Persian Gulf sounded promising. The Navy, in general, has dismal failure rates for new recruits and very low reenlistment rates. Morale on the Benfold was at rock bottom when Captain Abrashoff took over in 1997. His personal mission was to make it “the best damn ship in the navy” by improving morale and performance in measurable ways. The tactics used and explanations for choosing them were not only credible, they were applicable to situations in any life or business context.

One of the first key thoughts imparted by Captain Abrashoff is the concept of Leading by Example. Sounds like a trite no-brainer, right? Maybe so, but is it easy to practice? One of the keys to leadership is realizing that your staff and other followers notice everything. You have a major impact on them even when you don’t see an explicit reaction or hear comments. Can you accept this and act on it in all situations? Can you pass ‘the Washington Post test’? Would it bother you if anything you did or said around a subordinate was on the front page of the paper tomorrow? A supporting plank is the key concept that a certain percentage of the time, the problem is you, the leader--probably a greater percentage of the time than we choose to admit. Denial over the need for self-examination is one of the largest barriers to success as a leader. If you can show others that you can be open to criticism, react well and even change, you will earn respect and credibility. The author provides some great examples in the structure of the military pecking order, but as actuaries, we run across situations crying out for humility every week.

Another high impact tactic rolled out in this book is Listen Aggressively. This chapter resonates particularly well with a consultant who is constantly being told by senior partners and human resources that we are nothing without superb listening skills. How can you be effective if you don’t have all the facts? How often do we tune people out because we aren’t expecting them to have particular information that’s helpful to us? How often do we abuse the opportunity to multitask? Use of a better listening strategy will ultimately provide you with more information.  In addition, if you repeat the key message you’ve just heard back to the speaker (one of the author’s tips), the listener will feel flattered and you will build critical rapport.
 
Though there are several other key categories of management expertise included in It’s Your Ship, the last I will touch on is a chapter called Results, Not Salutes. The concept here is not to join a military unit or business organization for the end result of personal ego stroking. That is, if you want to wildly succeed. Innovation knows no rank and the officer who listens to the troops in the trenches will be able to implement ideas like switching from iron to stainless steel bolts preventing the need to repaint the ship’s hull quarterly due to rust stains. Listening to and acting only on ideas from the top brass will be much less effective in the long run. Results are what will most impress the admiral in the long run, no matter where the idea originated. By bucking the tradition of the officers going to the front of the chow line on the Benfold (the Captain went to the back of the line when food was running low), he turned the tables and saluted the men.

By using the dozen or so key ideas in the book, which were drastic for the Navy, the author was able to turn the Benfold into the prototype for performance and morale … it really worked! Captain Abrashoff doesn’t list a coauthor, no apparent ghost writing efforts in this book. As a result, his style is his own which is simply this: anecdotal examples of his broad ideas in a basic and believable laboratory environment. No overused clichés about animals, black belts or cheese. Just a neophyte, self-made management expert explaining common sense concepts that he discovered by first hand experience in a new role.

David M. Walczak, FSA, MAAA, is a senior manager for Deloitte Consulting working in the Minneapolis practice office. He can be reached at dwalczak@deloitte.com.