I don’t mean to suggest by that that he is a man who is without controversy. He speaks his mind. . . . But the greatness of the American military service . . . is symbolized in this ceremony today, because this man, who is controversial, this man, who comes up with unorthodox ideas, did not become submerged by the bureaucracy, because once genius is submerged by bureaucracy, a nation is doomed to mediocrity.
President Richard Nixon1
Some years ago Tom Waits had a best-selling song in which he recalled the emotional rollercoaster he experienced in telephoning a former girlfriend: “Operator, number, please: it’s been so many years—Will she remember my old voice . . . ?”2 Navy commanding officers certainly never had any difficulty identifying the unique high-pitched voice of the Father of the Nuclear Navy. They had a good idea when he might call. Rickover was as regular as the swallows returning to Capistrano. If a problem of consequence had occurred on board your ship, you prepared yourself. When his red pencil arrived at your name, Rickover was going to dial your number. He was going to demand that you personally justify your actions. If you could not do so to his satisfaction, the admiral—in a time-honored Navy tradition—might very well tell you to hit the road on your way out of “his” nuclear-power program.
I was twenty-eight the first time seventy-year-old Admiral Rickover called me. It was 1970. I was serving as the officer responsible for the engineering plant on board USS Nautilus, the celebrated platform Rickover had been personally responsible for conceiving. While Nautilus was truly remarkable when compared with a diesel boat, she was inferior to every other U.S. nuclear submarine ever built (with the possible exception of USS Seawolf, which that day was moored to the other side of the same pier in New London). Nautilus and Seawolf were the first and second nuclear submarines in the world and had been used hard in their early years. Some of their makeup was running, and there were ladders in their stockings. Nevertheless, they were both still expected to be front and center whenever the hostess tinkled her silver party bell. Getting old is a bitch.
The day I received my own first telephone call from Rickover, I had been in the reactor compartment repairing a problem (which still remains classified and unique, so while it was a different breed of “giraffe,” we’ll reuse that label). While my men and I tried to fix the situation, the commanding officer decided he should let someone know we had a problem. He selected the president as that someone.3 I am sure that President Nixon was interested in what the officer had to say, but he turned out not to be an expert in giraffes. Therefore, when my boss hung up, President Nixon made the wise choice of calling the man he would soon promote to four stars. I was not privy to his conversation with Admiral Rickover.
I do have some understanding about what happened shortly after Nixon and Rickover spoke. For example, I am told that Admiral Rickover immediately telephoned my commanding officer and gently pointed out that when there was a difficulty on board one of his submarines, he did not enjoy first learning about it from the president of the United States. He quizzed my commanding officer. He apparently did not receive an explanation with which he was completely satisfied.
Back in the reactor compartment, we were busy. We had made one unsuccessful run at the problem and were developing a second plan when the commanding officer stuck his head through the access three stories above: “Dave, telephone call.”
“Captain, I’m really busy.”
“Admiral Rickover wants to talk to you on the wardroom telephone.” (This was years before big bulky portable phones and decades before mobiles.)
“I’m really busy.” It seemed to me that my job was to solve giraffe and the captain’s role was to talk to Admiral Rickover.
“He really wants to talk to you!”
Okay, that was clear.
I climbed the ladder and quickly dealt with the precautions necessary when working with radioactivity. I then followed the captain to the wardroom, taking the receiver he handed me. “Yes, Sir.”
A familiar high-pitched voice wasted no time in pleasantries: “What is going on?”
“I screwed up.”
“I know you are screwed up. How much are you screwed up?” (To be completely accurate, these were not the precise words Rickover used. The admiral had a proclivity for more graphic speech.)
In fifty or so quick words, I explained giraffe.
“Do you need any help?” His voice was calm, not accusatory. As soon as he realized I actually knew what had gone wrong and was taking full responsibility, his attitude turned immediately to helpful.
In point of fact, I had no idea whether I needed help, but at the same time I was not terribly interested in “advice” from any of the non-nuclear-trained staff then available in New London. I only knew I wanted to get back in the reactor compartment before I inadvertently spread radioactive contamination. “No,” I answered.
“Do you want anything at all?” Again, his voice was unruffled.
I stopped shifting from foot to foot and thought for a second. “I could use some more pure water” (to provide a backup supply if a different event unexpectedly occurred).
A second later the world was back to normal. I was listening to a dial tone. It took us eight hours to solve the immediate problem.
Three days of frantic work later, all giraffe consequences had been dealt with, we had written an explanatory report to Admiral Rickover, started up the reactor, and gotten under way to maintain our scheduled Mediterranean deployment. It was just after midnight when we backed away from the pier. The Thames River was quiet. All the personnel who worked the river and lifted the bridges were in bars with beers or home with families. As we left the submarine base, we partially submerged to slip the top of Nautilus’ sail a few inches under the railroad overpass that blocked our egress to Long Island Sound. We would be far at sea by the time day broke.
After we had cleared Montauk Light, the commanding officer went below, leaving me alone on the bridge with my thoughts and the undulating sounds of the sea. It was only then that I reflected and realized that in one of the largest submarine ports in the world, after the president of the United States had been notified of a unique problem on board the submarine most intimately connected to Admiral Rickover’s reputation, even while the problem dragged on for the entire working day, not one individual had stepped foot on our pier to check on an officer (me) not yet in his thirties. That is, except for the rear admiral personally driving the water truck, who had asked the topside watch to please inform Lieutenant Oliver that fifty thousand gallons of pure demineralized water was available on the pier if he needed it.
Many years later, when I knew Rickover better, I still questioned, as I know readers do, how he could have so entrusted such a callow youth (and even the commanding officer, who was only ten years older). The answer did not lie in the particular abilities of the individuals, but rather in the management system Rickover had created within the larger Navy. The admiral had in effect discovered a Rosetta stone of management. He had, through ten to fifteen years of study, trial, and error, determined how to instill W. Edwards Deming’s process control in submarine engineering and training without simultaneously constraining operational boldness.4
Key to his trust was that long before the day Admiral Rickover first called me on the telephone, he knew me well. He had personally interviewed me for nearly an hour, as he did every new officer applicant, before I graduated from college. He had subsequently received weekly or quarterly reports on my progress during the initial six years of my personal development. In addition, before he had entrusted me with the care of the Nautilus’ engineering plant, I had returned to his headquarters in Washington, D.C., to undergo three days of tests. The tests were extensive: an eight-hour written examination followed by four hours of orals. In addition, to receive the Nautilus assignment, there followed another full day of give-and-take with the admiral’s deputy, Bill Wegner.5 In short, none of his several thousand officers were blank pieces of paper to Rickover, and those he intended for particularly difficult duties (which Nautilus certainly was), he selected very carefully.
On the subject of nuclear power, Rickover knew from the beginning it was important to scrutinize safety. He believed this could be accomplished only through carefully monitoring the people he admitted as well as their training. He did not delegate that responsibility because the sad truth is that most leaders, even those in nuclear power, lack the backbone to truly manage people. Management does not just involve praise—anyone can do that, although many do not. Management also involves looking someone in the eyes and delivering the hard message that the employee has reached too high.
What Rickover understood better than anyone I have met is that people are much happier when they are busy working on something they can accomplish. An individual finds this much more satisfying than completing a human resources performance improvement plan that will only qualify him or her to once again fail at a job for which he or she is unsuited.
He also understood that fellow workers do not appreciate having a nonperformer in their midst. It does not matter whether the person fails because he or she is not trying hard enough or is insufficiently talented. If the worker can’t perform, the team suffers. Failing to remove a nonperformer delivers the denigrating message that the manager does not value the group’s work.
The personal interview process that Rickover conducted was essential to the culture he was instilling and demanding within the nuclear program. This new culture demanded changes that would prove difficult for his public critics to understand. Nearly everyone in the Navy bridled over Rickover’s selection process for nuclear power for several reasons, including the following:
• the rest of the Navy didn’t use such a process;6
• the powerful Bureau of Personnel didn’t control the process (so they fought it tooth and nail until finally there were sufficient nuclear-trained officers within the bureau to quiet the old guard critics);
• industry didn’t use such a process (that is, have new recruits interviewed by the CEO), so there were no commercial paradigms to point to as justification;
• people with apparently good résumés were rejected;
• sons of important men were not selected;
• people with good political connections were not selected; and
• Rickover never explained the process or his decisions.
Rickover had to deal with an unusually large number of personalities loosely described by pop psychology as Type A. However accurate the label, how do you reward risk takers who often resist guidance yet have the leadership characteristics necessary for the future success of the organization?
Rickover cursed “like a sailor” as the saying goes. He could even embarrass other seafaring souls. His cursing frightened some so much they froze and couldn’t adequately explain themselves, and it caused others to unnecessarily back down, rather than hold their ground. It produced an environment not conducive to the free flow of information. Was cursing Rickover’s great flaw? Are great men born with a flaw, or do men with power let their flaws creep up on them, like Carl Sandburg’s fog, on little cat feet?