Hoffman Industries
  • Home
  • Blog
  • Inspiring Books
  • Organizations
  • About

Learnings

You can learn business.  My journey building M5 was all about accumulating knowledge to be a better entrepreneur, manager, and leader.  This blog is to help me keep some of the notes from that trip, and sharpen my thinking for the next one.

On the Harry S. Truman, part 2

6/10/2009

0 Comments

 
Picture
A few Saturday nights ago I was four-stories up in the tower of the Harry S. Truman nuclear power aircraft carrier watching F-18s take-off and land in the dark.  Admiral Fox was talking about the weaknesses of the military bureaucracy.  You’ve heard it before: how can this massive institution of almost 3 million active and reserves plus contractors engineered to project overwhelming force be nimble enough to meet the new century’s dispersed and dynamic threats?  As examples, Fox was bemoaning the recent disaster of spending billions and almost a decade trying to upgrade the President’s helicopter and the fact that it took ten years to make a minor upgrade to the F-18.

Can we apply anything from military-style management to fast-growth technology companies?  We have seven staff with military experience, including a former Red Army Accordion player  and a Captain that led troops in Iraq. We all talked about this, and there were a few take-aways.

While the rigid structure wouldn’t work, we definitely can do a better job of giving staff clear orders, training and career paths, and the space and time to develop mastery of their roles.  This was striking on the Truman.  Their organized processes allow them to do amazing things with a crew of 5,000 that average 19-years old.  According to the XO, this clarity meant that the relatively new management team on the Truman clicked and started working together almost immediately, no offsite-ropes course required.

The starting point for us has been writing role definitions for every job, but we’re five months in and still working!  It has certainly helped uncover areas where we are fuzzy: Who’s responsible for pricing? For marketing to current clients? For managing inventory?  Our idea is that from there, we can develop training and career plans.  I’ll be happy if we complete this in 2009, but we’re trying.

The fraternization policy is another matter.  Once you are promoted above your peers, you can’t socialize outside of work.

There’s no drinking on the boat.  We had an interesting discussion about how that would work in our culture, where informal after-work sessions have been great ways to build trust

and, eventually, teamwork.  I also have to wonder about how effectively Captain Clarkson polices the no-sex-on-the-boat rule.

In the next and final installation of this tripblog I’ll write about phones.
0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    RSS Feed

    Categories

    All
    Cloud
    Customer Experience
    Customer Experience
    Learning
    Management
    Shoretel & M5

    Archives

    March 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    January 2013
    November 2012
    September 2012
    July 2012
    May 2012
    March 2012
    February 2012
    October 2011
    April 2011
    December 2010
    October 2010
    March 2010
    February 2010
    October 2009
    August 2009
    July 2009
    June 2009
    May 2009
    March 2009

Best way to reach me
Home        Blog        Books        Organizations        About