Chief of Naval Operations | Jonathan Greenert | TEDxPittsburghStatePrison

good morning thank you very much thank you John 44 years ago this young kid son of a steel worker went to Annapolis Maryland to go to school they're leaving Butler PA behind and saying here's what I'm going to do I'm going to go here for four years it's free do five years in the Navy move on and go make money somewhere well as Roy Hobbs said in the movie the natural things don't always turn out the way we plan I joined the submarine community I married up like a lot of good people did and Here I am today lucky enough to be the Chief of Naval Operations leading the finest Navy in the world representing 325 thousand sons and daughters many of them from this area 200,000 civilians and 70,000 Navy reservists who are out and around the world today where it matters doing what matters to protect freedom and to make sure the economic lines of communication are open so I'm a lucky man here standing before you today I want to talk to you today about two elements of leadership accountability and second chances and I'd like to do that through a story so bear with me 38 years ago a nuclear submarine almost sank by the pier I mean it would have been a calamity and you think how can I be well first of all a nuclear submarine today cost about a billion and a half dollars that's a lot of money at risk about half price back then but still a lot of money at risk so how can this be if it's import well when you go to work on ships in port to vary it can be a dangerous situation one that requires a lot of a lot of vigilance so here was going to happen when you do maintenance on a submarine sometimes you need to go in and take the valves out move the piping and go to work on it you got to make sure that the intake on the hull is covered so you don't bring water in when you take these things apart it's a very kind of complex situation divers come down they come down with groans they check with the officer of the day in charge of the ship to make sure that this is all coordinated and they bring what's called a flange looks about the size of a pizza pan about a 12 inch pizza pan and they'll bolt that on the side of the submarine well you got to make sure you bolt it when I say on the side of submarine you blank it off so that when you take the piping out the water doesn't come in we better get this right because if you don't the water is going to come in so like I said people sign off for this and say we put this on say thank you very much the duty officer signs for it and we have all counted for what's about to take place so that happens on day one on day two workers come down to take a valve apart and they're unbolting these large bolts pull the thing out and here comes the water a non-rush of water the size of a pizza pan coming inside here and but for the effort of some fairly heroic sailors big guys pushing this thing back in putting the nuts back in we might have lost that submarine because that was kind of uncontrolled flooding so they were able to put that back in but there was a lot of water on the submarine probably almost up to your knee they D watered it and it was time to do an investigation how could this happen we have all these procedures to take place there needs to be an accounting for what took place so that was done depositions were made it all came together and the commanding officer of that submarine received the documentation and here's what was decided letters of reprimand would be distributed to the officer of the day it's a junior officer the day they put this flange on to the officer of the day that they went to take these things out and to the divers and the diving supervisor command officer said we'll wait a minute I'm not going to deliver these letters of reprimand by the way a letter of reprimand it's a career ender you won't promote to your next level it's a very serious incident he said I'm not going to deliver these letters of reprimand I'm accountable for everything that goes on on this unit this submarine of mine this is my responsibility if anybody's getting a letter of reprimand give it to me my junior officers did the job that they said they were going to do they believed what these divers had said was true and they took their word for it I'm not going to deliver these go ahead and bring it to me that's accountability ladies and gentlemen that's the accountability that we and the your United States Navy expect of our commanding officers people who understand their people stick up for their people and are responsible and take responsibility for all that takes place within their unit within their facility or maybe within their larger institution we give our commanding officers a lot of authority they take for example a submarine to see they're responsible for a hundred and fifty people out on the waves around the world around this world of ours submerged surface a destroyer there are 300 people involved an aircraft carrier 3,500 people commanding officer and aircraft carriers a mayor in addition to everything else that goes on so we expect our commanding officers to do a few things number one set the foundation of integrity you have to believe in your Navy that everybody is telling the truth because your life is going to depend on it and if you have a foundation of integrity that breeds trust mutual trust trust up and down the chain of command and Trust across and your shipmates and with that in an environment of dignity and respect you build the character with your sailors that become good leaders whether they be in the military or leave outside the military now let me give you if I may an example of unconditional trust and what I say can be really very much life-threatening or it can save your life let's take the example many of you seen the movie Top Gun you look at the movie you've seen movies where the jet takes off from the aircraft carrier let me tell you what takes place right before that jet is launched going from zero to 160 miles an hour in two seconds there's an individual in a yellow shirt everybody has a shirt on so you know who's doing what that person is called the shooter shooter puts his hand up starts turning it around it starts pointing around right before the launch points to the fuel person purple shirt looking for a thumbs up it's loaded with the right fuel points to the person with the steam caterwaul pressure it's got it right points to the Ordnance how much ordnance is on there how much bombs and whatever you got the weight right that's the red shirt turns to the white shirt is the tension right lastly turns to the pilot who salutes the shooter and effectively says my life this airplane is in your hands the shooter touches the deck airplane is launched and off we go that's unconditional trust and that's part of what is built there whenever you know you have the means to know that those people around you have integrity and will you can trust everything that they tell you in an environment of dignity and respect so let me take you back to the story what happened whenever all of this took place well I'll tell you what happened commanding officer said I'm not delivering these letters of reprimand and they said well captain come on up to the green table we're going to have a talk with you so he went up and he laid out his case and they said you know you're right that process isn't right those people shouldn't have been held accountable and the captain did not get a letter of reprimand that captain went on to finish a 30-year distinguished career in the Navy and a distinguished career also in business the people that put the valve in the heroes they were given medals of commendation for the work that they did in that regard they changed the procedure on how we put these flanges and how we did maintenance on submarines they say okay well what about the the two junior officers what happened to them well the good news is they didn't get a letter of reprimand either one of those junior officers moved on finished his tour in the Navy and went on to do good things in business very happy man in Texas the other junior officer actually stayed in the Navy date in the Navy a long time forty years the other junior officer became the Chief of Naval Operations the other junior officer is me because this commanding officer had the integrity had assumed the responsibility and had the accountability and gave us we to junior officers that second chance we were able to continue on in my case with a career that I'm very proud to have served now as your Chief of Naval Operations so ladies and gentlemen there's a lesson in here integrity is the foundation in any institution I would tell you and certainly in our Navy and with that integrity you can impede a trust among each other that will then breed unconditional trust in an environment of dignity and respect to build the character that we need to build future leaders in our military and in this great nation of ours so for those of you that lead out there for those of you that run institutions integrity dignity and respect and trust and you will have leadership there's bold leadership that is confident what they can do and leadership that is accountable thank you all very much for this opportunity to address you Oh

Channel: TEDx Talks

Views: 64,788

Keywords: TEDxTalks, English, United States, Social Science, Leadership

Id: NzurFh6-MgQ

Length: 10min 23sec (623 seconds)

Published: Tue Jul 21 2015