Training – Crenshaw Consulting Associates

June 25, 2014June 25, 2014

What to do, or what not to do. That is the question!

I received several comments after I published my last article on “Leadership in the 21st Century” and I appreciate all the comments. In that article I commented on the recent case involving a former Commanding Officer of the Navy’s elite flight demonstration team, the Blue Angels. After consulting, conferring and otherwise hobnobbing with my fellow former Wizards, I thought I might offer up just a few more comments on the subject before forever holding my peace on the subject of Capt. McWherter and the Blue Angels. There was a lot going on there besides just the failure of judgement of the CO, including limited oversight by the Navy and the absence of an Executive Officer senior enough to step in and provide some advice and counsel. More on that later.

I was struck by a recent Gallup Poll which once again found the Navy as the least prestigious of the Services. I’m not sure what that means since most of what Mr. and Mrs. America think about the Services is a product of their own (the Services’) PR machines. Wasn’t it the Navy that successfully extracted the Captain of the Maersk Alabama? Wasn’t it the NAVY SEALS that terminated Mr. B. Laden? Wasn’t it the Navy that was first on the scene providing relief during Hurricane Katrina, and Indonesia and Japan? Doesn’t the President always ask “Where are the carriers?” whenever something goes wrong in the world? Doesn’t the Navy run the White House mess? Isn’t it CAPTAIN Kirk, not Colonel Kirk? Jeez , what do you have to do to become the most prestigious Service around here? I know……..Sponsor a race car that wins the Daytona 500! Or make a cool commercial about killing dragons and rescuing damsels! Or lose track of a couple of nukes!

The notion struck me that part of the problem is that the Navy is too transparent. We not only advertise when we relieve Commanding Officers (don’t think that the other Services don’t relieve their share of Commanders) but we also come clean when we relieve senior enlisted advisors. You just don’t hear much about that from the other Services. Of course it’s a big news item these days and I liken the problem the Navy finds itself in with regards to negative publicity to the problem I have on the golf course…..Once I’m in the woods, it’s almost impossible to get out. Either I schwack another tree in my current thicket, foolishly trying to thread the needle between a couple of obstructing trunks, or I wind up in the woods on the other side of the fairway because I gooned up my attempt to pitch out. Why I don’t just pick it up and take a “Snow Man” when I wind up in the woods I’ll never know. That’s where the Navy is right now, in the trees and trying to pitch out.

This openness puts us behind the eight ball in my humble opinion….On the other hand, I think being open about our problems is not all bad. At least it shows we are aware of the problem and attempting to deal with it. But what exactly is The Problem? Is it that the Navy has a crisis in leadership? I don’t think so……in fact I know that’s not the problem. With close to 300 ships, 50 or so aviation squadrons and probably at least 100 shore commands, we actually have very few COs that break the event threshold. In fact, you could write 100 good stories for every bad one…but that doesn’t sell papers.

I’ve commented before on abusive leaders, so I won’t beat that dead horse. The Navy and DoD have reacted to lost nukes, out-of-control Commanding Officers and other misdeeds by increasing ethics training, establishing an ethics Czar ( and a very capably one I might add), and adding ethics courses to Prospective CO schools and Senior Enlisted schools. But in the end, by then what is there to train? Someone is going to stand up in front of a class of prospective Commanding Officers and say……Don’t have sex with your XO, don’t use counterfeit casino chips, don’t fake your death to escape from your bad marriage, etc etc? I don’t think this will have much of an impact. It’s focusing on what not to do…….not what to do. The striking thing about almost all the heinous infractions that appear in the news is that none of them are questions on the margin. They are about personal failures by people who should know better. No amount of training will fix that. What we can do is:

Focus training efforts of prospective COs and Senior Enlisted Advisors on how to be successful, not how to stay out of trouble. Be positive, proactive and practical in training COs.
Provide support to leaders. Conduct regular checkups of commanders by mentors who have successfully navigated the waters of command. (Not IG-like, but as a sanity check)
Improve the fitness report system to allow for a more honest appraisal of performance and potential for command (I don’t know what the number is now, but it used to be that 70% of officers were in the top 10%…..similar to the current VA flap which found that all SES’s in VA we rated in the top 2 performance categories)
Revamp the command selection process to take advantage of improved fitness reports and include 360 reviews as part of the process
Continue to set the bar high for performance in command

The bottom line: Let’s spend more time on how to succeed in command,instead of how not to fail. There’s a big difference.

May 10, 2014February 24, 2015

Power Counter-Point

Breaking News

SECDEF Power Point Guidance. Looks like he reads my blog!

Who loves Power Point? Let’s see a show of hands….What? No hands? big pp

Like just about anyone in government, Lord knows I’ve seen my share of Power Point presentations. I remember the Granddaddy of them all from my first year as the Navy’s money guy. It was time for the requirements folks to brief the Chief of Naval Operations on their budget proposal. I should have suspected something when the calendar was blocked for three days, but what the heck? I was a new guy and thought this was normal. We sat down in the PEC ( I can’t remember what that stood for, but it was the big CNO conference room where we discussed such matters) and girded our loins for the fireworks. Now those of you who have ever attended a meeting in the Pentagon where money is being discussed know that there is literally no conference room in the Pentagon big enough to accommodate all of the Importants, the not-so-Importants, the strap-hangars and even one or two people who actually know what’s going on. The 20 person conference table had 40 people around it. The walls were thick with one and two stars and their civilian counterparts sitting in hard, folding chairs taken from the WWII surplus locker. The EA’s, aides and Navy Hospital Corpsmen (in case someone had a heart attack after seeing the numbers) were standing wherever there was room. Of course, being the junior Three Star, I had the honor of sitting right next to the projector….hot air blowing in my face and the fan so loud I could not hear what was being said (I always suspected they put me there to break me down so that I would agree to anything just to get out of the room!). Nonetheless, I felt pretty good. After all, I was BIG! I had the $130 Billion checkbook……and I was sitting at the table!!!

Then the first slide went up. There was a collective groan when all eyes focused on the very small, 8-point numbers at the bottom right of the first slide:” 1 of 1329.” I remember the N4 leaning over to me and whispering YGTBSM! “Maybe we’ll just zip right through them,” I naively said. ” After all, if we look at each slide for just 10 seconds it will only take three hours and forty-seven minutes.” Around 11 AM, I realized just how wrong I was as I heard the presenter say, “Next Slide” and my eyes were drawn to the lower right side of the slide—“6 of 1329.” I did a quick calculation (after all, I used to be King of Ops Analysis for the Navy) and realized that at this pace it would take roughly a month to get through all the slides (not counting breaks). What were they thinking? How did they possible hope to get through all those slides? By the way, there were over 4000 back-up slides, just in case one of the 1329 didn’t cover all the bases.

That’s why over the years I’ve relied less and less on Power Point and more and more on one, well-designed visual aid whenever I have an important presentation to make (Don’t pay any attention to those PP presentations on my web site. They don’t really exist). I am one of the original Power Point Rangers. I remember when the presentation software suite of choice was Harvard Graphics (Whatever happened to HG?). As a newly-minted action officer on the Joint Staff I was sent to a one week course on the new software in use on the Joint Staff….Power Point. It was certainly a step up from HG, but like all IT improvements, the Bosses expected miracles and demanded more and more sophistication. Back then, in order to make a PP slide you had to first make it on the “Wang Computer”, then print it out on the ONE color printer in the Joint Staff on special, clear acetate sheets. They were forever sticking to the hot parts of the printer and in general a pain to work with. Once you got all that done, you still needed to tape the sheet to a cardboard holder that you could slap on the overhead projector. My office was just down the passageway from the Tank (where the Joint Chiefs met) and our boss was always changing the slides at the last minute. So I can remember a “bucket brigade” of PP slides moving from the office to the backdoor of the Tank just as the Boss was saying “Next Slide.” No wonder I hate Power Point.

Of course, nowadays it’s a piece of cake.. Hook up the laptop and off you go! Except there are always the inevitable “What button do I press?”, “Which way do I point this thing?”, “Can someone find my slides?” questions that the briefers always wind up asking. (this is where your audience checks out and begins to check e-mail, write the grocery list, and go to the bathroom) So I’m not sure we are that much better of now than back in the day! I guess my point is why detract from your presentation with slides and all the hiccups that come with them? Pick one good visual aid and go with it. Give people copies of slides (best done after your brief) but don’t rely on them.

But, sadly, “we will always have Power Point “(apologies to Bogart), so I thought I would put out a few “Points about Power Point” (Damn, I’m clever!)

Keep them simple. Pictures and graphs are best. Use few words. Remember people will be reading the slides and not listening to you if there are words on the them.
Make sure the words are spelled correctly. Most Admirals and Generals spend more time checking the spelling on slides than either reading what the words say or listening to you. One misspelling and you are labeled an Idiot For Life and all future slides are null and void!
Have a time budget for your slides. It’s hard to spend less than 5 minutes on a slide. If you have to spend less that that, then you probably don’t need it.
DON”T READ THE SLIDES!! Guess what? Everyone in the room can read.
Speaking of reading, make sure the material on the slide is large enough that it can be seen in the back. I hate it when someone flashes up a slide with a 50 element spreadsheet and says, ” You probably can’t see this, but……..” Why waste my time with something I can’t see?
Don’t read the slides!! (Did I already say that? It’s worth repeating…..Don’t read the slides)
Don’t use Power Point. I have found that speaking from a placemat-sized piece of card stock is far more effective that using slides. Put the things you want your target to know on the placemat. Force them to look at you and to listen to you by having nothing else for them to do. If you need Power Point slides to be effective, look for another line of work.

OK. Hope this helps. Remember the source… A professional and seasoned Power Point Ranger, and someone who had suffered though more bad PP briefs than Carter has pills.

Oh Yeah, one final point: Don’t Read The Slides!

March 18, 2014March 18, 2014

A Day Younger

I was honored to be on the waterfront last week and had an opportunity to meet officers and Sailors on a soon-to-deploy ship and boy did I leave feeling good about our Navy. Everyone I talked to, from seaman to the Captain, were excited about their ship, their contribution to national security and the upcoming deployment. Their enthusiasm was genuine as it was a weekend and I’m sure they would have rather been with their families. It reminded me of a saying I used to share with my audiences when I was important (at least in my own mind): Every day I spent at sea I got a day younger, and every day I spent in the Pentagon I got ten days older! That certainly explains why I look so old now–too many days in the Pentagon and not enough days at sea. It’s probably not intuitive to you land-lubbers, but being at sea and on deployment is the easiest part of the whole cycle. Before deployment there are endless exercises, training and long hours preparing for the task ahead. Many would say that’s the hardest part of being in the Navy. That’s not to lessen the impact of being away from family and friends…there’s always that. But Navy leaders have done a lot to lessen the distance between families during deployments. Sailors are generally well connected to their loved ones by internet, email and instantaneous telephone connectivity. During my first deployment in 1975, the lovely Mrs. Crenshaw and myself exchanged daily letters, sequentially numbered on the back flap so we could read them in chronological order. Nothing’s worse than reading about your son being released from the hospital when you didn’t even know he was in the hospital to begin with. I wish we could establish a program that gets all Pentagon confines out in the field a couple of time a year so they could recharge their batteries. I felt even better when I had the opportunity to meet with Soldiers this morning, many just returned from Afghanistan and many more looking to go back in less than a year. I didn’t hear one sour note. They were all ready and willing to go back, despite the hardships on their families. As I read the news about the possibility of us pulling our of Afghanistan, I can’t help but think about the 2176 brave Americans who gave their lives for this cause. We could argue all day about rather or not Afghanistan is a critical aspect of protecting America’s freedom and I frankly don’t care which side of the argument you are on…..The fact is 2176 have died for the cause. To pull out lock, stock and barrel would be a dishonor to them and the families who remain behind.

And I can’t imagine how anyone can look them in the eye and tell them that they are pulling the plug on their Commissary benefits, or telling them that their health care is too expensive so when they retire, they will have to pay more. I would rather see us spend all the money and effort people are spending on marginal costs on homeless veterans and jobs for veterans and other programs which honors their service, not puts a price tag on it.

March 7, 2014March 7, 2014

Top Shoe! General Powell was Right!

I was very pleased to see a piece in San Diego Union-Tribune this morning about the establishment a Top Gun-type school for our Surface Warriors. VADM Tom Copeland, Commander of Naval Surface Forces established “Top Shoe” (my term, not his) to foster a generation of young surface warriors who really know their craft, not just their weapons systems. For those outside of the Navy, there are a few terms which you should probably know. Aviators are know as “Brown Shoes” because they wore brown shoes with their working uniforms and their aviation green dress uniform (which was reserved for aviation only). Aviators commonly referred to the Surface Warfare community as “Black Shoes” because they wore the traditional black shoes with everything, including their pajamas. They also seemed to have penchant for wearing those thick plastic, black-framed eye glasses that no self-respecting Brown Shoe would be caught dead in. Over the years, aviators tended to drop the Black from the equation and generally used the term “Shoes” to describe their beloved surface counterparts. I don’t know what’s happened in the last few years with aviator uniforms, but I know the Aviation Greens are gone and thankfully, so are the black glasses.

When I was on the Joint Staff during the time that General Powell was the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, I remember receiving bits of wisdom on the occasions that I happened to be in a meeting with him. There are the famous 13 rules for leaders ( in any position, military or otherwise) that General Powell is known for and worth repeating here:

It ain’t as bad as you think. It will look better tomorrow.
Get mad, then get over it. (my personal favorite)
Avoid having your ego so close to your position that when your position fails, your ego goes with it.
It can be done.
Be careful what you choose: you may get it.
Don’t let adverse facts stand in the way of a good decision.
You can’t make someone else’s decisions. You shouldn’t let someone else make yours.
Check the small things.
Share credit.
Remain calm. Be kind.
Have a vision. Be demanding.
Don’t take counsel of your fears or naysayers.
Perpetual optimism is a force multiplier.

I also seem to recall a few others that didn’t get so well publicized. I can’t vouch for their authenticity, but with all due respect to one of my greatest role models, I have always attributed these two to the good General as well.

There are no rumors in the Pentagon. Sooner or later everything comes true.
There’s nothing new in the Pentagon. It’s all been seen before.

The establishment of the “Top Shoe” school reminds me of the second unofficial rule. As a young lad I was very lucky to be assigned to a “Black Shoe” staff as one of the few aviators aboard (back then it was called a Cruisier-Destroyer Group) and part of my training was to attend the dreaded Tactical Action Officer School (TAO). It was the most intense six weeks of training I have ever experienced. But when I graduated, I knew just about everything about operating the combat systems, the threat, tactics and the logistics of running combat operations. In my mind it was a “Top Gun” for Surface Warriors. Over the years I think that TAO training was scaled back in favor of more technical subjects. With the establishment of the new school it appears the emphasis is back and I think it’s a great idea. Let’s hope it doesn’t fall prey to the budget axe.

But remember…with all due respect to my surface buddies……..there’s nothing like launching from a carrier, zipping around at Mach 1, turning and burning against a worthy adversary, and winning the fight (Fox 2, You’re Dead!). And after all that, you still have to come back and land your 20 ton machine of death on a pitching and rolling deck before you can brag about your victory in the ready room. That’s Top Gun!!!!!