Saturday, October 2, 2010

Check in the box training

“If a Sailor, who I consider to be the most perceptive creature on the face of the Earth, sees something that’s just being done just to check a box, that’s exactly how they’re going to treat it, and it really needs to be much more thoughtful than that.”

Admiral Gary Roughead, Chief of Naval Operations

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Sailors these days do the bare minimum just to get by. No one cares or even has any pride in what they do. They just want the paycheck that they do not earn. What can I do as an E-5 to make some change? You scold someone and now days they go crying to the upper chain of command. The Navy needs to quit putting CRY BABIES in the Navy!

Anonymous said...

Somehow I think the Admiral has forgotten the life he used to live as a junior and mid-grade Officer. I can see his discussions with Sailors on all his outings are simply, "a check in the box."

Greg said...

At first I didn't see the relationship between the Anonymous comments and the original statement. I think you are saying that the sailor should accomplish training because of a sense of personal pride, but there are obviously some other frustrations coming out. I'm in my 29th year and saw as much disconnect (in certain situations) between my tasks and the mission in 1982 as I do now. Not much has changed in that regard. It is a leadership issue. Good leaders make sure that sailors understand the importance of what they are doing. That directly translates into performance. You simply have to connect people to their jobs to get them to perform at their highest levels. When a sailor sees that you are performing evolutions, not to learn and demonstrate ability, but to "pass" they just go through the motions. I did. This is an integrity problem that may or may not be at the command level. Each one of owns this problem.