[Music] i was trained for one submarine my guys were trained to do what they were told that's a deadly combination we all know organizations where where people just follow the leader into disastrous situations so i got my guys together and i said hey we've got a problem here i was trained for another submarine you're trying to do whatever nonsense comes out of my mouth that's right captain i mean they knew they already knew i was pretty much talking to myself so what we're gonna do what are we gonna do guys and we talked about it
okay what i really wanted to do was get ready for the inspection but we were sitting in the wardrobe we spent a couple hours we were talking about it and we came up with all these different things and well you captain you just got to be smarter you got to give better orders it's like well how am i going to learn a whole nuclear summary miles and thousand pipes that's when i spent a year learning olympia two weeks over here how i mean so okay so in a year we'll be safe that's not gonna work
we had to deploy the submarine in six months um so we talked about it and they said okay there's only one logical solution we figured it out you they're pointing at me you shut up what do you mean that's not what captains do that's not what captains of nuclear submarines do they walk around they give orders they sound like russell crowe head two thirds i make it up 500 feet helm left 15 degrees wider steady course two five five low torpedoes and tubes one two three and four flood down open outer doors right and i
thought about it and you know what they're right so at that point i vowed never to give another order and if you came down to my submarine it had been very confusing because you couldn't have pointed it had been hard to say well who who's the captain here because you wouldn't have seen me giving orders i did retain one order the final order to launch a weapon a torpedo or a missile i i kept with me because i felt that that was since that was going to result in the deaths of other human beings that
i didn't want that on anyone's conscience but but mine that was my moral and ethical responsibility but even though everything else in the navy there's long lists of things that says the captain has to authorize captains should authorize you got a couple nukes in your group they'll tell you it's true captain authority submerge the ship get underway start up the reactor shut down the reactor connect to short power divorce from shore power on and on break rig for dive on and on and on pages of these things i just refuse to give those orders what
we replaced it with was intent instead of giving instructions if you want your people to think don't give instructions give intent so they become hey uh what do you want me to do well uh left full rudder steady course two five five no i said well what what are we trying to accomplish here today well we're trying to get in position so that when the enemy submarine comes through okay so where do you think we should position the ship uh maybe over here good idea go there you give intent to them and they give intent
to you so my officer stopped requesting permission and every other submarine captain requests permission to submerge the ship submerge the ship submersion ship i on the santa face captain i intend to submerge the ship very well and they did it and it might seem like it's a very small nuanced change of language but it was hugely powerful because the psychological ownership now shifts to them they need to discover the answer otherwise you're always the answer man you can never go home and eat dinner and so we started doing this and it was hugely powerful i
actually went another step then i got smarter and i said when the officer said captain i intend to submerge the ship i would ask him well is it what do you think i'm thinking right now and he'd look at me uh hard to tell i'm guessing you're wondering whether it's safe bingo i said well convince me it's safe it's a captain antenna submersion ship all men are below hatches are shut chips rigged for diver check the bottom deck ship the submarines in the water that's been assigned to us then i was then later i had
asked him is it the right thing to do and they would say well yes sir because our mission requires that we and these are the two pillars that i think support this idea of giving control these are the two pillars that need to be in place the technical competence which is represented by is it safe and the organizational clarity which is represented by is it the right thing to do and you put those things in place and then you can give control you give control and you put those things in place and you are off
to the races so think about what's happening now my officers are starting to think like me because i have to think like where where should we do the ship and so the guys below them now this took this took 24 hours to happen it took a couple years for the full implementation but immediately there was change the officers are thinking like me so pretty so i could go in the engine room find the end's room lower level watch who was taking logs in the lube oil pumps and he would know what the submarine was doing
he would know whether we were up tight close to the enemy it was time to stay quiet or whether we had backed out a little bit this may be a good time to change filters and make a little bit of noise a year later we received another inspection a year later we received an inspection the inspecting team gave us the highest grade they had ever seen not that year not in the pacific ever seen why i mean this crew had a captain it was a dummy it's because that needle moves started moving up and on
another submarine there was one guy in charge one guy giving orders one guy thinking and 134 people doing what they're told i don't care how smart you are on my submarine i got 135 thinking active passionate creative proactive taking initiative people it's a tidal wave you don't stand a chance here's the solution move the authority to where the information is you mean the software engineer can decide whether we ship the software yeah you mean the client my salesman can just can close the deal well up to a thousand dollar no yes whatever the price yes
what does it take to make that happen now if you're picturing a lot of people out there doing crazy things and a bunch of arrows going a bunch of different directions you have the wrong picture you crew you create the environment so that those people are out there making decisions as if the ceo were standing right behind them and if it's not the same decision it's actually a better decision because they have the information and not only will you get better speed of execution because now you don't have this delay what happens is those people
feel like they matter because they're thinking you engender thinking you create the environment for thinking the secret is nothing is nothing i said is hard there's nothing hard the only thing that's hard is you it will feel wrong you've been genetically and culturally programmed to take charge and make it happen take take control and attract followers and what you want is to give control and create leaders it will feel wrong and you will repeatedly repeatedly start down this path if you so choose and then you'll be angry at yourself like i was and you will
have a failure and you'll go back to the old ways you'll pick yourself up and you will go again you will go again and by doing so you will achieve the greatest thing possible you will have achieved greatness not because of the deeds and acts that you did but because you set an environment where the people around you and their families and their schools and their organizations and their businesses they've achieved greatness that would be the greatest thing of all go forth and be great [Music] you
