Its Your Ship: Management
Techniques from the Best Damn Ship
in the Navy by Michael Abrashoff
Modern Leadership And Change In Action
Other than the sobering fact that real lives are regularly at stake, running a
navy ship is a lot like running a business: leaders of both must get the
most out of their crews to operate at peak efficiency and complete the
tasks at hand. As commander of the highly acclaimed USS Benfold,
Captain D. Michael Abrashoff irrefutably demonstrated how progressive
management can succeed at sea; in Its Your Ship, he translates his
methods into an approach that can also be applied by land-bound captains
of commerce and industry. Describing the ideas and techniques that I used
to win my sailors trust and, eventually, their enthusiastic commitment to
our joint goal of making our ship the best in the fleet, Abrashoff cites
embarrassing failures along with subsequent triumphs to illuminate the
keys to his accomplished 20-month tenure aboard the guided missile
destroyer. His suggestions: lead by example; listen aggressively;

communicate purpose and meaning; create a climate of trust; look for
results, not salutes; take calculated risks; go beyond standard procedure;
build up your people; generate unity; and improve your peoples quality of
life. While hardly original on the surface, Abrashoffs course should provide
practical direction and inspiration for any leader hoping for similarly
positive results in similarly rigid organizations. --Howard Rothman
Personal Review: Its Your Ship: Management Techniques from
the Best Damn Ship in the Navy by Michael Abrashoff
Can anyone in search of a culture of peace learn anything useful from the
success story of a war ship? How does the management of a ship
endeavored to be the best in its category serve as a point of reference for
public and private corporations, involved with the fulfilling of society
needs? Hasn't one just had enough of the warfare marketing? Do we need
war management as a new reference (or as a new fad)?
These could be some of the questions that can come to the minds of
people who may take a first glance at this book. Others may feel
enlightened by it as proof that management should be inspired by military
precepts. After all, aren't the structures of many modern organizations
inspired by the art of war? Don't terms like headquarters, strategy, tactics,
line of command, and so many others come directly from the military
jargon? Some people may even twist their noses and refuse to open the
book. They may argue that management has to do with cooperation and
not with some wining and others losing. The sources of inspiration should
involve other fields of human action, and include nature. Depending on
what each one is looking for or believe is going to find, they may all be
right in their views. Or they may be wrong. So, how do we get from here?
An interesting starting point could be the one that considers this book as
being about people, about ordinary human beings. Human beings who
have stories to tell, life stories that may involve suffering, limitations,
stumbling blocks, frustrations or even deceptions. But their stories can also
be about demonstrations of courage, stimulating challenges,
companionship, unconditional support, self-realization, accomplishments
and joy. They may be stories that reveal the character of the ones who
lived or told them. It is also a book about the potentials that each person
carries within himself or herself and given the appropriate conditions, they
may flourish in extraordinary ways. It is also about how an inspiring
leadership can contribute to the unfolding of those potentials. Besides, it's
a book about what motivates people to take action. Not the most
elementary, superficial and illusory kind of motivations, but the deep ones
which give a real sense of an important contribution to the world.
As it follows, it would be convenient to look at this book as extremely rich
in resourceful lessons about competences that transform a "commander in
chief" in a genuine leader, capable of mobilizing the best energies of
people with whom he works. These are subtle competences, such as
knowing how to listen with refinement, how to practice unconditional and

positive appreciation/acceptance of others, how to raise the levels of self-
esteem through the proposition of "impossible equations" (those which we
want but don't know to get to them) geared to the overcoming of
limitations; and how to use very well elaborated strategies to face with
success any orthodoxies ("It has always been done that way, it created
success in the past, therefore no questions about it.")
Leaders need to face some very powerful challenges to develop those
competences. The first challenge to be faced is to question their own
mental models, the "formatting" of their thinking that many times functions
as a filter that percolates only that which is in conformity with what is
already known and conveniently accepted to be true. Then, they need to
create an environment of unequivocal trust in which everybody in a group
can freely express not only ideas, but also anxieties and weaknesses. A
kind of environment that would allow everybody to admit and accept
(including the leader) to be vulnerable. And finally, the challenge of
establishing a clear and very well articulated purpose, so that it can be fully
understood by everyone in the group. It is also necessary to take into
account that the realization of this purpose will need to be supported by a
solid base of principles that are the expression of nonnegotiable and
inalienable values. In this case, the challenge to the leader is to create
consensus around the principles that will be taken into account.
Another fundamental point in the appreciation of this book is to deepen the
level of abstractions that one can make. A first level abstraction would
invite the reader to look for situations similar to the ones described in the
book, so that by using analogies he or she can envision news possibilities
of action. A second level abstraction refers to the identification of mental
models and assumptions that hide behind the modus operandi of a
situation and, in so doing, see if such assumptions are present in similar
situations, so that one can learn how to act on them. A third level
abstraction could look at fundamental principles that led to the decisions
adopted in the described situations. On this level, it is possible to find more
intense and productive analogies, because the principles may be
expressions of universal values. For example, on chapter four which is
about Communicating Purpose and Meaning, the author narrates the
episode of a radio operator who, by means of his own initiative, discovered
how to solve a critical communication problem during the crisis with Iraq, in
1997, which could account for very serious problems. The radio operator
worked so hard that he ended up discovering how to solve the serious
faults in the system that created great congestions and he even expanded
its capacity. He did so because he was extremely competent, he was
working in an environment that valued initiative and he had a clear purpose
of his work. A first level abstraction could be the manager's need to know
very well the members of his or her team and give them autonomy to bring
forth their potential. On a second level, a possible abstraction could be the
assumption that the manager not only gives the material conditions for his
team to do the job but also to know the reason why they do what they do.
On a third level, it could be that the value of human life is above all else
and for that reason no effort will be too exigent or too exaggerated when

the preservation of life is at stake. As leaders, how can each manager
perceive his or her performance in relation to these abstractions?
Stories can be read and understood as metaphors, or as a description of
something by means of something else that is similar to it. This is a book of
stories. Therefore, a book of metaphors. In that sense, it doesn't really
matter if the stage for the line of action is on a war ship. This is just the
packaging, a kind of container as in "King Arthur and Knights of the Round
Table" or "The Fox and the Grapes" which are also metaphorical stories.
And just because they are open, their metaphors can have different
meanings for different people at different times. So, what you are going to
find within this book will be that which you believe you are going to find.
What are you choosing to look for?
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