On Leadership

"On Leadership” is a feature column where Rotary Wing Flag Officers are able to submit articles on leadership topics of their choosing.

Let Go of the Good Old Days! The Time is Now

By RADM Shoshana S. Chatfield, USN, President, Naval War College

At the time when I entered the service, our country was going through an era where the global security environment was characterized by a bi-polar balance of power. The USSR was our known adversary, and during that Cold War, our Navy and Joint Force had developed mature tactics against that adversary. The investments to defeat that adversary had already been made, and the agreements to prevent escalation and to inform our conduct at sea and in the air had already been developed and tested. The collapse of the USSR brought with it a feeling that a peace dividend would yield incredible economic and technical growth. The next two decades would be transitional in many ways for our country, and as a young aviator, I had a front-row seat to observe and learn what could be achieved when technical evolution is met with determination and innovation during an era of cooperative security.

Helicopter Combat Support was where I developed the awareness, habits, and skills that would carry me through a 34-year career. There I became aware that small teams, collaboration, and standardization were the bedrock of our naval helicopter community. I also observed that when properly enabled and implemented, these building blocks set a foundation for me to continue to evolve as a naval officer. I came of age during the last days of pure Vertical Replenishment deployments and an active Combat Logistics Fleet that supported our strike groups. Looking back, I now realize that I had arrived at the end of the good old days.

The small HC Detachments that deployed together over the horizon on fat ships introduced me to the power of small teams with high trust shared between their members. There was no denying that our group success depended on both individual contributions of Sailors and the total commitment of the entire group to mission success. I saw the amazing accomplishments that were possible when Sailors took ownership of their mission outcomes. It wasn’t unusual to see the Detachment petty officer in charge of maintenance administration, for example, cleaning the windscreen of the helicopter before launch or to notice that people were competing to find a spot near the ramp to help push the folded H-46 into the hangar at the end of flight operations. The most successful detachments also understood that mission success depended on the integration of teams of teams—cohesiveness to engender high trust within the smaller team and connective tissue and shared purpose to enhance the overall capability of the larger team.

My next tour expanded my understanding of crosscommunity collaboration and integration. In the ‘90’s, the community was investing in its nascent tactics program. Our community was racing to be able to provide aided search and rescue support to Amphibious Ready Groups where the Marines were already using technology we did not have. And that was where our new capability would be delivered first.

The few who were chosen were introduced to Night Vision Devices through training programs sponsored by the Marine Corps. The incompatible cockpit and the extra work to install a light kit, the rolls of speed tape used to patch light leaks and learning to place a counterweight on the helmet to relieve neck strain were just some of the innovative solutions our crews utilized as we raced to catch up. I was able to see firsthand how challenges that go hand-in-hand with the introduction of new technology and implementation of new programs can be solved with the right partnerships.

Since my first days in primary training, through my first flying tours, subsequent department head tour, and onward, standardization has been the constant over my career that has allowed me to prep, brief, and fly in an array of mission sets, all while maximizing the effectiveness and safety of our crew. Strong standardization programs that refine and assess repeatable processes have protected my crewmembers and me for decades, and I am grateful for having internalized that habit. I still look for systemic root causes—breakdowns in standardization—when I encounter challenges in any unit’s business practices. Now, at the Naval War College, this practice provides a solid framework for my team to coordinate, direct, and manage large amounts of information and workflow and fits nicely into the academic realm where rigor in scholarly work depends on validity and reliability in research methodology.

In the mid-to-late-2000’s, there was great fear about the retirement of the H-46D Helicopter, our beloved “Phrog” that, since the end of its combat missions in Vietnam, had supported Vertical Replenishment with graceful aerial displays. It felt good to fly it and I knew it well. After rebounding through dynamic upgrades and service life extension programs ,it had already stretched its usefulness well past the reasonable standard. Yet my community developed a resistance to the idea of a replacement vertical lift platform, especially one with a tail rotor. Predictably, someone got the idea to make patches and lapel pins that had the silhouette of an H-60 with the red line through it. “No tail rotors!” became the slogan as the aircraft physically entered production. Program managers received harsh criticism during that time and most of the aviators did not start to accept the machine until it was introduced to the flight line and our esteemed community leaders had the opportunity to fly it and began to endorse it.

What I ultimately realized through that awkward aircraft transition was that community success depended on our ability to recognize when and how we needed to take action to meet new challenges. Simon Sinek, who writes and lectures on the topic of innovation, advises leaders to understand that a relatively small number of people in our organizations are innovators. A slightly larger group, he tells us, are early adopters. His advice to concentrate on these two groups, instead of waiting for the middle majority to catch up, feels true as I consider the early days of our transition to the H-60S and organizational merger of several communities into HSC under the original Helo Master Plan.

We are shifting into a dynamic and uncertain global security environment, one that is characterized by the need to rapidly and safely integrate new technologies, and the real urgency to be able to set benchmarks for performance and measure units against those standards. We have effectively moved past the good old days again. A part of the solution to that challenge can be found in the recently released Joint Chiefs of Staff Vision and Guidance for Professional Military Education and Talent Management: Developing Today’s Joint Officers for Tomorrow’s Ways of War, which stresses the importance of leader development. The pursuit of warfighting advantage requires a sense of urgency and a commitment to cultivating “critical and creative thinking.” Game changing outcomes will be developed at the margins through collaboration, innovation, and integration.

We should not expect to reach a “steady state” in this era of great power competition. In fact, futurists forecast that the pace of technological change will continue to accelerate. What will this mean as we balance our heightened focus on collaboration, innovation and integration with the need to build high performing, high trust teams and stay true to our established habit of standardization and certification? Change is inevitable in our business. Our community success has always depended on how we adapt to new environments. Let go of the good old days! Now is the time to actively set a culture that enables innovation; identifies and supports those who are connecters, networkers and collaborators; and leans on and celebrates our bedrock habits and skills of building high performing, small teams and strong standardization programs to manage change efficiently and safely.

Citations:

Milley, M. A, Hyten, J. E., McConville, J. C, Berger, D. H, Gilday, M. M., Goldfein, D. L., Lengyel, J. L., & Rayond, J. W. (2020). Joint Chiefs of Staff Vision and Guidance for Professional Military Education and Talent Management: Developing Today’s Joint Officers for Tomorrow’s Ways of War. Joint Chiefs of Staff. https://www. jcs.mil/doctrine/

Simon, S. O. (2020, January 10). How to Make a Cultural Transformation. YouTube. How to Make a Cultural Transformation

Female Aviator Mentorship Breakfast

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