Michael Abrashoff  2:10  

What was going through my mind was sheer terror. The quarter before I took command of the ship, our retention rate was 8%. Meaning, we were retaining 8% of the sailors eligible to reenlist. We had one of the highest accident rates of any ship in the Navy and some of the poorest performance metrics.

I’m thinking, “I’m not smart enough to turn this around.” I graduated in the top 80% of my class at the Naval Academy. At the beginning, I felt like I was a victim because I don’t get to choose the people I work with. I don’t get to choose our missions. I can’t go back and ask for more money to get the job done. The biggest event of my life happened on the day I took command. 

In the Navy, when there’s a change in command ceremony, it’s a big deal. Work stops a month prior. The crew paints the ship from top to bottom. The Admiral comes and gives a long-winded speech about how great the outgoing guy is. At the end of the ceremony, as my predecessor was leaving the ship for the final time with his parents and his wife and his kids, and as his departure was announced on the public address system, my new crew stood and cheered at the fact that he was leaving.

And to my knowledge, that had never happened before in any ship in the history of the Navy. The first thought that went through my mind was: “What do I have to do to keep that from happening to me two years from now, when I leave that ship?” 

The second thought that went through my mind was: “You know what? I’m not here to be liked anyway. It’s probably never going to happen. What I am here for is to keep these young men and women safe.” 

What drove me was not my next promotion. It was never having to write the parents of any of my sailors, telling them that their sons or daughters weren’t coming home because we didn’t give it our best. 

And in that moment, I realized in this day and age, you can’t order excellence sitting in the captain’s chair. If you’re going to be the leader in your industry, you’ve got to figure out a way to engage your people, so that they take just as much ownership of the business as we have. 

That’s what drove me every day. It was how to engage the crew to get them to take ownership and to have them help me drive results.

Sean Murray  4:23  

There’s so much there. I want to just talk for a moment about that idea of wanting to be liked. I think that it’s a goal that many young leaders put ahead of maybe others in a naive way. They think that maybe to be a good leader, it means to be liked. 

I think you’re spot on to say that’s not the primary goal. The primary goal is to achieve the mission, to achieve safety, and these other goals. If you’re a good leader, you will be respected eventually.

Michael Abrashoff  4:47  

There’s a difference between being liked and being respected. I would rather be respected than be liked. The key was, how do you drive performance? You do that when you respect your people, and they respect you back. That’s the foundation of a great relationship.

Sean Murray  5:05  

The other thing you just mentioned was the question that came into your mind: “How do I create some ownership for these young men and women, or these sailors?” That’s something that you go into in great detail in the book. You came up with a mantra: “It’s your ship that kept coming up.” Can you talk a bit about your journey to create ownership? How did that happen?

Michael Abrashoff  5:28  

I like remembering names, faces, and a little bit about people. I’m thrown into a crew of 310. At the beginning, I started to put index cards together with people’s pictures on it and their jobs. Now, I decided why don’t I just interview them?

It had never been done before in the Navy. I interviewed every sailor on the ship individually, all 310 of them. I got to know their names, their spouses’ names, their children’s names, and their hometowns. In these interviews, once I realized how smart they were, I challenged them to come to work every day, and that they could challenge every process, procedure, custom, or tradition. 

If they had an idea how to improve a process 1%, I wanted to hear from them. What I said to them was: “If we’re 1% better today than we are yesterday, and 1% better tomorrow than we are today, nobody is going to touch us. We will become the leader in our industry.” It’s just improving a little bit each and every day. 

In a lot of times, people have these big, hairy, audacious goals. That’s well and good, but the way you get there is through constant measured improvement. When a sailor had a great idea, I’d say, “Hey, it’s your ship. Run with it.” Once they started realizing that it was their ship, that’s when they started getting the great performance.

Sean Murray  6:50  

I love that idea. One thing that you’re doing there that speaks volumes is just listening and showing respect. You talked about gaining respect as a leader, but one of the first things you did was show respect to each and every individual on the ship by just sitting down and listening. There’s a lot of power in that.

Michael Abrashoff  7:10  

It’s amazing that we don’t take the time to do that. Certainly, after I got out of the Navy, I got asked to speak at a small bank in Chicago. It had 100 employees. Before I get up to speak, the president of the bank asked every employee to stand up and tell everybody else in the room something that they’re most proud of in their lives that nobody in the room knows about.

They get to the cleaning lady. I could see the apprehension on the bank president’s face. He had no idea what she was going to say. Very confidently, she stood up and said: “My son graduated from the University of Chicago Law School this weekend. I’ve come to work at this bank every day for 30 years, so that he could have a better life than what I had.”

You could have heard a pin drop. To everybody else, she was the cleaning lady. But in my own way, in these interviews, I try to find out what my sailors were most proud of in their lives. And then, I could use that to connect with them, engage them, and make them seem like I care about them. If your people think you care about them, they will follow you in the battle.

Sean Murray  8:18  

Wow, that story just sent chills down my back. It reminds me of something else you wrote about in the book. You said that it was a duty that leaders have to others into furthering community or society. It is helping others that maybe are less fortunate than ourselves. 

You talked about coming from a family of two parents with a lot of love and support. Many of the sailors on your ship didn’t come from that background. You talked about giving back.

Michael Abrashoff  8:47  

Well, out of the blue, I de-Zillowed [Zillow is a home sale/ rental platform] my childhood home that my mother lived in for 86 years. The Zillow value of my childhood home today is $79,000. We didn’t know that we were poor. We didn’t feel like we were missing anything.

In today’s hectic work environment, and the demands on people, and the financial pressures and stresses, a lot of times things fall by the wayside. It’s that time with your family, being there, helping them grow, mentoring them, coaching them, and whatnot. These are things that you only get one shot at in life. 

What we tried to do was to recognize the parents who had kids. I gave them an afternoon off to go to PTA conferences. We knew what was going on. We knew what the school schedule was. We tried to gear our work schedule, so that people could be home for those big family events. 

And sometimes, let’s face it, especially right now with the COVID crisis going on and the economy the way it is, we’re under tremendous stress and pressure. I think that if we just take a step back, realize what the important things are in life, and connect with them, we’ll get a lot more satisfaction, as will our families, children, and the people that we work with.

Sean Murray  10:12  

Absolutely. You had mentioned that the USS Benfold had a high turnover rate when you arrived. Another fact that you mentioned in the book is that the Navy already knew that one of the big reasons people left is they just didn’t feel listened to. They didn’t feel heard. I’m guessing that that had an impact on your turnover as well.

Michael Abrashoff  10:33  

What’s interesting is everybody at the time said, “Oh, they’re leaving because we can’t pay them enough.” I did exit surveys to confirm that pay was the number one reason why our people are leaving. Pay is important, but it was number five on the list of reasons why people leave. 

The number one was they didn’t feel like they’re being treated with respect and dignity in the workplace. Number two is they didn’t feel like they were being listened to. Number three is they didn’t feel like they were getting the training they needed to do the job. And number four is they didn’t feel like they were being groomed for increased positions of responsibility. 

Instead of feeling sorry for myself that I can’t increase their pay, I focused on the top four issues. We go from having one of the worst retention rates. It was almost having 100% retention rate during my last year in command. 

If you think about how much money and effort you spend in recruiting new people and training them, and then if they leave you, that’s wasted resources down the drain. You’ll never get them back. What I wanted to do was to retain the people that we already had, instead of losing them and then having to go back and start from scratch again, when we get new people.

Sean Murray  11:44  

That’s a great story. You mentioned at the very beginning that one thing about the Navy is that you didn’t have an unlimited budget. You couldn’t go back to the Pentagon to ask for more money for bonuses to keep your people happy. You found a way that addressed the right issue. 

You didn’t just go with the assumption that, “Oh, it must be the pay.” You took the time to find out what was really going on. It turns out that there was a solution there that is really just being more human and more respectful to others. That didn’t cost a lot of money. It had a huge result.

Michael Abrashoff  12:20  

The other thing I did was…to get advanced in the Navy as an enlisted person, you have to take a standardized exam against everybody else in your occupation in the entire Navy. All things being equal, we have roughly 300 ships, the same random assignment of people, and the same operating procedures. 

The promotion opportunity across all 300 ships should be roughly the same, but ours wasn’t. Ours was 2/3 of what the Navy’s promotion rate was. It meant that we had a problem with training and getting people prepared to take the advancement exams.

In the interviews, I reviewed what their scores were from the previous exam, and the areas they were weak in. And then for each sailor, we could do targeted training to make sure that we could get them up to speed in the areas that they were weak. They can take those exams and pass them. 

In my last year in command, our promotion opportunity went from 68% of the Navy average to 252% of the Navy average. It was because we took an interest in every sailor; where their weaknesses were. We coached them and trained them, so that they could overcome those obstacles on their standardized exams. They knew the effort that we put in to help them get promoted.

At the end of the day, they earn those promotions on their own. They weren’t handed anything. When you earn something on your own, you take tremendous pride in yourself. Your self esteem rises. You’re happy it works.

Sean Murray  13:52  

That really gets that innate desire to improve and to get better. You talked about getting 1% better every day or even every week. We talked about compounding a lot on this show as value investors. We are thinking about financial compounding. 

We are also thinking about the compounding of learning, which is just learning and getting a little bit better every day. I love that concept and the fact that you lead with that idea of just not making huge changes overnight, but just getting a little bit better. 

And then, you put it on the sailors that if they had ideas, you wanted to hear them. I would say that’s a little risky or many leaders will feel it’s risky. They don’t want to go there because they feel a little bit out of control. 

People might do things that could lead to mistakes, and especially in an environment like the Navy where there’s a lot of rigidity and command and control. Was there a little trepidation there? How did that play out?

Michael Abrashoff  14:48  

Well, of course, I was uneasy at first because I was going someplace we had never been before. I was always anxious to make sure I wasn’t creating anarchy. At the end of the day, a military unit has to be disciplined to execute, when I give an order to shoot, for example.

I found that the more control I gave up, the greater command I got over the ship. Discipline improved. When I did give a direct order, people swung into action because they knew that I was serious about it. 

The way I think you get to increase discipline is when people feel like they have a stake in the outcome, and that they’re being listened to. In the interviews, I asked three questions: “What do you like most about this ship? What do you like least? What would you change if you were the captain?” 

Rule number one is you can’t change the captain. Rule number two is we can’t change the rest of the Navy. And rule number three was to be responsible. I don’t have any extra money in the budget. If you’re going to give me an idea, we have to have the ability to implement. 

And so, by setting the groundwork for asking your people for ideas, they realize they have to be responsible as well. They can’t give you pie-in-the-sky ideas that are going to cost a billion dollars to implement because it’s never going to happen. But if you could just get that incremental improvement, you can find cost savings along the way, bit by bit. 

Saving money was never one of my goals. Living within our budget was. But because the crews were better trained and took better ownership of their equipment, my last year in command, we operated our ship on 75% of our operating budget. We were able to save millions of dollars. It wasn’t even one of the goals. It was to operate smarter. Leaner operations came as a result.

Sean Murray  16:48  

Did you have additional financial resources because you were saving money to maybe make some investments, here and there, in people or other parts of the ship?

Michael Abrashoff  16:57  

Exactly. I had enormous flexibility at that point to spend in targeted areas that I felt could do the most good because we were saving so much in other areas.

Sean Murray  17:09  

One of the areas that really surprised me, but in hindsight is genius, is that you sent some of your chefs to culinary school.

Michael Abrashoff  17:17  

The day after I take command of the ship, I bring my parents on board. They’re in their 70s. They had lunch in the captain’s cabin. It was the worst food I’ve ever had in my life. How you can ruin chicken nuggets is beyond me, but our cooks managed to do it. 

I was embarrassed in front of my parents. And then, it hit me, “Gee, if this is what the captain and his guests are getting fed with, what are we feeding the crew?” 

I had lunch on the mess decks with the sailors. The captain never eats there. I found out that the food we were serving them was worse than what they were serving me. And so, I started pulling the string, “Why?” 

Well, nobody joins the military to be a cook. The recruiters have quotas to fill. If you walk into a recruiting station on the 30th of the month, when it’s quota day, and you can have an IQ of 180, but if they need a cook that day, you’re going to be a cook. 

We put non-volunteers into the job to begin with. We don’t give them any training. The rest of the crew demeans them and abuses them, so there’s absolutely no pride among the cooks. 

I took a hit to the budget. I sent half of my cooks to culinary school for two weeks. It was a huge deal. I get them off the ship, go to San Francisco to learn how to cook better. We changed vendors. There’s nothing in the rules that says I have to use the same vendor.

I decided to get a different vendor that would serve us better quality food. Every day, I would walk through the galley talking to cooks and thanking them. At the same time, I was looking for standards like cleanliness and whatnot, so that we don’t get foodborne illnesses.

I put new evaluations out on the food line for sailors to give me feedback on what they liked about the meal and what they didn’t. But tell me what you want to see and how we’re going to do it if you want to improve. 

Within six months, we’re serving gourmet quality food on the ship. Whereas previously, we were serving the worst food I’ve ever had in my life. The reputation for great food got out on the San Diego waterfront. Sailors of other ships would come to our ship for lunch because the quality of food was so good. It was all for the same amount of money we were serving lousy food.

Sean Murray  19:27  

I think that’s just a great example of making an investment in an area where you just got a huge return. It’s also non-conventional. It was not an area that people would think about. 

The other thing about meeting with this idea of “It’s Your Ship,” and I want to hear your ideas in getting 1% better, is that it’s also a mindset shift. I’m guessing you have to be a little bit humbler. You have to put your ego away because you had this mantra that there is always a better way to do things. 

Even if you thought you were already doing it the best way or you had an idea, you didn’t necessarily go with your own idea. You also went with others’ because you had this mindset that there’s always a better way.

Michael Abrashoff  20:10  

I had the great honor of being selected to be the military assistant to the Secretary of Defense. His name was William Perry. I was his number two assistant. He’s my role model for leadership because he led with a sense of humility. I would come to call his leadership style as “excellence without arrogance.” 

I learned it from him to have that sense of humility. Maybe their way is different than the way I would do it. But if it’s going to get us there, I’m going to let go. I’m going to let them do it their way. Sometimes I was surprised that their way was better than the way I would have prescribed. 

Other times, it may not have been, but they learned along the way. When they were done, I’d say, “Okay, what did you learn? What would you do differently next time if you have to do this again?” 

Instead of telling them what their shortcomings were, I let them self evaluate. They tell me what the shortcomings were, and then they knew how to do it better the next time.

Sean Murray  21:08  

That’s great. It reminds me of Jeff Bezos. He talks about this idea of “disagree and commit.” If an idea comes up in an executive meeting, and he disagrees, or the executive team disagrees, they don’t necessarily shoot it down. 

If they feel there’s enough passion, enough ownership of the outcome, and enough belief that this idea could really play out, they will play the card that they call, “disagree and commit.” 

They’ll say, “Oh, it’s probably not the way I do it, but I’m going to say, go ahead and do it, and I’ll support you.” It has led to some incredible innovations.

Michael Abrashoff  21:41  

If Jeff Bezos had telegraphed what the outcome he wanted in advance or the path he wanted to take to get to the outcome, they would have steered their thinking to his way of what path he wanted to take. And again, this is what I learned from William Perry. 

In briefings, he never once led on which way he was leaning in making a decision. He would let the briefer do the briefing. The briefer would give four options as to which path to take. When the briefer was done, William Perry said, “Let me see if I understand all the relevant points that you were trying to get across.” 

If he missed something, that gave the briefer the opportunity to fill in a gap that William Perry didn’t get. And then, William Perry said, “Let me summarize the four options you’ve given me.” The briefer had the ability to say, “You’re wrong on this one option.”

Once everything was out and the positions were well known, only then would William Perry make his decision. A lot of times, if they think you’re leaning towards one scenario, they will slant their brief. They’ll try to make the stats work to what you’re thinking. I have a feeling that Jeff Bezos doesn’t do that. Instead, he lets them chart the course. That’s why he’s so successful. 

Another reason why Jeff Bezos is so successful is because he must have read “It’s Your Ship.” When I took command in 1997, I found that my people were spending entire days in and out of meetings. They didn’t have time to get their work done. 

I declared Wednesdays as “No Meeting Wednesdays.” It was your day to get what your priorities were. I’m not going to schedule any meetings. You do what you want. I think in the last couple of years, Bezos has implemented the same thing. On certain days of the week, there are no meetings. It gives people a chance to work on their priorities instead of spending their entire days in zoom calls.

Sean Murray  23:43  

I love that idea. I think we need more of that. The other thing you mentioned about William Perry was his time management. He always started meetings on time and ended it on time. I think you mentioned something like you never saw him leave a meeting and say, “We need to have another meeting about this.” Is that right?

Michael Abrashoff  23:59  

He hated meetings that had no definitive outcomes. To him, it was a waste of his time. There was a clear expectation that there would be a resolution at the end of the meeting. That’s what you had to drive for. It is to present facts that would give you a resolution.

Part of my job was to keep track of exactly how he spent his day down to the minute. I would put on a pie chart. On Friday, before he went home, he would look at this pie chart of where he spent his time during the week. 

Sometimes you can get wrapped up over an issue that may be a $100 issue, when you have a $100 million issue hanging out over here that you’re not spending time on.It allowed him to focus. He could rebalance for the next week if he got sidetracked on something that didn’t provide the value that he should be spending his time on.

Sean Murray  24:51  

What else did you learn from William Perry that you applied to your experience leading the USS Benfold?

Michael Abrashoff  24:57  

Well, he’s the one who taught me to improve 1% a day. Between me and the Secretary is the Senior Military System. It is typically a three star. My job was to push paper. I wasn’t in a leadership position. I was a paper pusher. 

Everyday, a 4-foot stack of paper would *inaudible* the Secretary of Defense’s office. My job was to get it down to 8 or 9 inches of stuff that I thought was important for the Secretary of Defense to see. I would highlight it. I would take this 8 or 9 inches of stuff and put it in the General’s in-basket.

From my desk, I could watch the General work. At the beginning, he threw 90% of what I thought was important in the burn bag for destruction. He never gave me any feedback as to why he didn’t think it was important. The Secretary of Defense’s position I imagine is pretty stressful. It’s an intense work environment. He just didn’t have time to give me feedback. 

One day, I decided, “You know what? I’m going to get my own feedback.” At 8:30 every night, when he went home from work, I’d go into his office, take his burn bag, dump all the material out onto his desk. I’d compare everything of mine that he sent on to the Secretary with what he tossed.

What I wanted to do was to start thinking like a three star. And so, by training myself to find out what was important to my boss, I got the 8 or 9 inches of paper down to maybe 1 or 2 inches. I’d sit there and watch him rubber stamp it. He’d send it right on to the Secretary.

I’m feeling better about myself. My self esteem is going up. I’m thinking that I’m going to continue to play the game. Before the General ever made a decision, I would try to anticipate what that decision was going to be. If he made the same decision that I made, it was “Gee, I can think like a three star.” 

If he made a different decision, it meant there was a gap in my training. I needed to go fill it. What this enabled me to do was to start thinking like the boss and anticipate what needed to be done before he ever knew he needed it. I could be there with a solution.

He started to trust me. He put me in charge of the Secretary of Defense communications team, the trip planning team, and the security detail. I had 45 people reporting to me. I’m 34 years old. The Secretary of Defense’s office had 45 people reporting to me. Historically, it was an individual contributor job. 

The General never gave me any feedback. I got it from his wife. She came in one day. She came back to my desk. She said, “I want to thank you for everything you’re doing for Paul because for the first time since he’s had this job, he comes home at night happy.”

That’s what leadership can get you. It is people lifting burdens off your shoulders, so that you can go home at night happy.

Sean Murray  27:43  

I really like that lesson. Whatever role you’re in, think like the role that’s above you. Think like your boss. Put yourself in your boss’ shoes. Try to anticipate decisions. Try to determine what they’re thinking about and what information they need to be successful. You’re already making a step towards your next promotion. 

Michael Abrashoff  28:04  

Absolutely. 

Sean Murray  28:05  

You’re talking about thinking like a boss. You also talk about acting like a leader. When you act like a leader, you mentioned in the book that you lead by example. Can you give some examples of that? How did you lead by example at the USS Benfold?

Michael Abrashoff  28:20  

In addition to being one of the worst performers, it was also one of the dirtiest ships. There’s no such thing as a good dirty ship in the US Navy. When I would walk down the passageway, if I saw trash on the deck, I’d bend over and pick it up. I guarantee you, no captain in the Navy ever picks up trash. 

But if I walk past something that’s not right, and make no effort to fix it, that means I approve of it. I knew people were watching me. When they saw me picking up trash, they became embarrassed that the trash was there to begin with. They stopped putting it there. They started taking greater pride in their work environment and in themselves. That all led to greater performance.

Sean Murray  29:03  

You also tell a story about eating last. That reminded me of servant leadership. That is serving those who serve you. Where did that idea come from? Was it hard to do at first?

Michael Abrashoff  29:15  

I learned it from my three star in the Pentagon. Whenever we were out in the field visiting troops, he always ate last. One day I said to him, “General, what’s up with this–the Navy officers go to the head of the line?” He said, “Commander, in the army officers eat last. That way, if we run out of food, it’s the officers that go without it, not the people on the front line.” 

I started thinking, what a simple, but powerful signal to let your people eat first, and you go to the end of the line. I never cut to the head of the line, although I could have. But my officers watched me go to the end of the line. Pretty soon, they were going to the end of the line just ahead of me.

It’s about having the humility to know that you may not generate every great idea. If you’re intellectually curious, you can pick up great ideas from others. This was a great idea I picked up from my Army General.

Sean Murray  30:13  

Another theme you talked about in the book is this idea of integrity. We talk about that in The Good Life. One of the quotes that we like from Warren Buffett is “Reputation: it takes 20 years to build, but you can lose it in 5 minutes.” 

Integrity became a pillar to your leadership at the USS Benfold. Here’s a quote from you. You said, “You can never go wrong if you do the right thing.” Can you talk a little bit about that? How did integrity play a role in turning that ship around?

Michael Abrashoff  30:39  

The other thing I had was, if what you’re doing appeared on the front page of The Washington Post tomorrow, would you be proud or embarrassed? If you’re proud, I don’t care what the regulations say. We can do it. If you’re embarrassed, don’t do it. Bring me the ball, so I can make the final decision. 

Nobody ever gets fired for doing the right thing. If your intentions are good, you’re striving to be the best, and you come up a little bit short, I’m not going to fire you. But if you’re involved in lying or covering something up that may not make you look good, or financial mismanagement, those are things I can get fired for. And so, you better not be participating in it as well. 

So for me, it’s understanding what’s right and what’s wrong. And then, driving the whole organization to have that same mindset that we don’t lie, cheat, or steal. We come to work with integrity. We may come up short once in a while, but that’s the goal each and every day. 

People look for that. If they see you taking shortcuts, it gives them the “okay” to take shortcuts as well. And that’s when you create anarchy. It is when your people think they can do things without your approval or your permission because you’re demonstrating that you’re doing it to your chain of command.

Sean Murray  32:01  

I love that story. I just want to reinforce that integrity starts at the top of the organization. People will look at every move of a leader. If they sense a lack of integrity, it opens up all kinds of potential gaps or gray areas that people will squeeze into. 

You also talk about this principle, which really struck me. I find it sometimes hard for myself when leading my organization or leading in my community. That principle is you try to always look at yourself or point at yourself first if there was a problem, and ask yourself, “What was potentially my role in this challenge?” You look inward first. Can you talk about that?

Michael Abrashoff  32:45  

On my last day working for William Perry, he brought me into his office. He sits me down and says, “No matter how hard you try, your ship is never going to be perfect.” He said, “You’re going to have disappointments every day. Whenever you’re disappointed in an outcome, I want you to remember one thing, assume your crew wanted to do a great job, and if you don’t get the results you’re looking for, don’t blame them first. Instead, look inward and ask yourself what you could have done differently.” 

Did you clearly communicate the goals? Did you give them the training necessary to be successful? Did you give them the time and the resources to do a great job? But most importantly, did the process support them in delivering the results you were looking for? 

That was some of WIlliam Perry’s last advice that he gave me. Whenever something didn’t work out, I assume my sailors wanted to do a great job. I would look inward to see what I could have done differently to have generated a better outcome.

Sean Murray  33:47  

Wow, what a powerful message. And to do that, did you have to find a quiet space? Did you write in a journal? 

Sometimes I see leaders just reacting when something’s wrong, and immediately, they’re just reacting. They’re jumping on people. They’re blaming others. They’re blaming trends outside of the organization or whatnot. Sometimes it’s hard to find the space. You’re going to need a little time to reflect and have that conversation.

Michael Abrashoff  34:15  

One of the perks of being the Captain is that in each bridge wing of the ship, I have my own chair. That was my quiet time. I watched every sunset and sunrise on that ship. That was my quiet time to reflect on where we’re going and what I need to prepare myself for.

If you’re constantly running from meeting to meeting, you may think that you’re busy in getting stuff done. But if you don’t have that time for reflection about where you’ve been, where you need to go, and how you’re going to get there, you may not have the discipline necessary to anticipate what the future looks like. How do you chart a course to get your organization to meet that future?

Sean Murray  35:00  

I think that time is so important. I think it’s hard nowadays with our phones and with the distractions that we have. It’s hard to create that space and have time to think, reflect, and get ready for the day to operate in a way that’s in accordance with your values and with the way that you want to be a leader.

Michael Abrashoff  35:19  

A lot of times we think activity is progress. A lot of times activity is just flailing about. Is that your $1,000 an hour work, or are you doing $10 an hour work? When I sit there and reflect, it’s “how can I do $1,000 dollar an hour work and not get wrapped up and distracted by $10 an hour work?”

Sean Murray  35:40  

Another principle that you talked about in the book is this idea of seeing things through the eyes of the crew? Where did that come from? How did that play out in the USS Benfold?

Michael Abrashoff  35:50  

I was walking around the ship one day. A sailor came up to me and said, “You know, Captain, we have a term to describe the organization on this ship.” He said: “This ship is like a tree full of monkeys. You’re the monkey at the top of the tree. Every branch has different levels of monkeys. We’re the monkeys in the bottom branch.” 

He said: “When you look down from the top of the tree, all you ever see are smiling faces coming back at you. When we look up from the bottom branch, we have an entirely different view of the organization.”

That’s when it hit me. I’ve got a diverse workforce. It was the first ship built from the keel up to accommodate both men and women. It’s totally diverse. Each group speaks a different language. It was then I had to put myself in each group on the ship and view through their eyes what I was trying to do.

I realized I needed to up my game in communicating to them in their language. I had to know where we’re going, why it’s important, and why it’s in their own best interest. I can only do that when I put myself in their shoes and do the operation through their eyes.

Sean Murray  37:03  

Did you change how communication flowed to the ship?

Michael Abrashoff  37:06  

I have a public address microphone right at my desk. If I got a great idea from one of the interviews on the spot, I would hit the button. I would say, “Benfold, this is the Captain. This is the idea I just got. This is who I got it from. It makes sense to me. We’re going to implement it right now. I want your full support.”

It wasn’t until after I left the ship that I found out that one of the nicknames the crew had for me was “Mega Mike” because they said there wasn’t a microphone I could not walk past without talking into. That’s what we as leaders do, especially in difficult times. It is not to retreat to our office, but to get out the megaphone and communicate what we need to do to stay safe in tough times.

Sean Murray  37:51  

I love that story, “Mega Mike.” I bet cheers went up when some of those ideas got broadcast.

Michael Abrashoff  37:57  

It was more like they were more stunned.

Sean Murray  38:00  

They were like, “What is happening here?” It was never seen or heard before, right?

Michael Abrashoff  38:05  

It had never been done before. I felt sorry for my officers because they had to react to the public address announcement. I wanted to show the sailors that I heard their messages in these interviews. If I had to take time out to get the officers together to tell them this is what we’re going to do, it would have slowed down that momentum. 

A lot of times, the officers heard for the first time a change in policy. If I should have been militarily correct, I let them know about it first or the crew know about it. But I got the desired effect.

Sean Murray  38:41  

You were in massive change mode at that time. Sometimes you just have to do things.

Michael Abrashoff  38:46  

And I was in a hurry. I’m not going to wait two years to get something done. I want it done now.

Sean Murray  38:52  

Another counter intuitive move you made was supporting this idea of fun. When I think about a captain on a ship, I don’t think about someone who’s that concerned about fun. 

You did want to ensure that people had an enjoyable time on the ship. You wanted to make sure that they were having fun. It wasn’t that things were out of control. Can you talk about the impact it had on morale?

Michael Abrashoff  39:17  

I was talking to one of my former officers last weekend. He is now a two star. I’ll never forget what he told me. He couldn’t wait to wake up in the morning and get to work because he enjoyed it so much. 

Work does not have to be a 4-letter word. How we structure it can be both hard work, but also some fun. We tried to sprinkle in fun to break up some of the monotony and the drudgery. It showed them that we cared. We were making an effort. 

We had karaoke every other Friday night. We had first class events, steamship round, and buffalo wings. The rules on karaoke night was that the Captain was not authorized to sing. There was no country music on my ship. I’m not a country music fan, so I banned it on karaoke night. You know, just stupid stuff that you can show your people that you want to create a great environment. It has to be sincere.

We’ll be smoking cigars on the flight deck every Thursday afternoon at the close of business. No matter what your rank was, you can go out there and smoke the cigar. You just bond and share stories with each other and try to create a family atmosphere. It doesn’t cost a dime. It shows our people that we care about them.

Sean Murray  40:38  

In closing, I’d like to go back to this idea of our collective experience today, which is our experience in COVID. There’s a lot of uncertainty in our lives and uncertainty facing leaders. 

I can only imagine that you dealt with uncertainty as a naval officer. Your experience at the USS Benfold has probably shaped how you think about sailing into uncharted waters. What can you tell leaders today as we try to navigate through COVID?

Michael Abrashoff  41:08  

A ship like USS Benfold when we’re at sea is typically underway no more than 21 days continuously. We go into port for 4 or 5 days to recover. It’s very intense and arduous.

One time we were doing an operation that required us to be 45 days at sea straight. After about day 30, I was worn down. I was feeling down. I was wondering when it was ever going to end. And then, I caught myself and said, “Gee, if I’m feeling this way, then my people have to be feeling this way as well.” I need to pull myself up, dust myself off, and be that role model to help us get through this. 

2020 sucks. It is a lousy year all the way around. There’s no sugarcoating it. But if we let ourselves get down, we become complacent. Accidents can happen when you become complacent.

I’ve got friends, who, because they now have zoom, are doing ten 1-hour zoom meetings a day. They think that they’re making progress. When in reality, they’re just wasting time. We need to focus on how to make the operation that we currently have as ruthlessly efficient, so that people have the bandwidth to execute the mission. 

There’s going to be uncertainty. Parents are working from home and can’t get childcare. How do you educate your kids when they can’t go to school? I mean, these are genuinely tough issues. There’s no one size fits all.

We, as leaders, need to understand what each person is going through. No situation is alike. You’re going to have single people working for you that have no kids. They can work remotely from wherever. But if you’ve got kids, you’ve got additional challenges. We, as leaders, need to understand that and factor that in scheduling our day. We need to have the understanding of our people for what they’re going through. There’s tremendous uncertainty. 

We, as leaders need to chart that course of where we need to be, so that we can continue to control our own destiny. But if we let ourselves get down, then our people are going to get down as well. Leadership is what’s going to get us through this.

Sean Murray  43:26  

I really like that answer. It speaks to that servant leadership that you talked about at the USS Benfold–not eating first, but eating last, supporting the people who we’re trying to lead, seeing things through their eyes, helping them get through this, and not letting ourselves get down. We still have a long way to go. 

Mike, where can people find out more about what you’re doing now, how you’re helping organizations, how you’re helping build leaders, and what you’re writing about these days?

Michael Abrashoff  43:55  

I’ve got a consulting group. It’s apgleadership.com.

Sean Murray  43:59  

Mike, this has just been a wonderful conversation. Thank you for being on The good Life.

Michael Abrashoff  44:04  

My pleasure, Sean. Good luck to you.

Outro  44:07  

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