There are few words recently more frequently heard than “unprecedented.” Unprecedented times, unprecedented deployments, unprecedented challenges. These are challenging times, to be sure: Ships at sea for more than 200 days; ships in port with their crews confined on board; shipboard deployments with no end dates. However, they are not unprecedented. All of this has happened before. Consider the open-ended deployments of World War II, Ernest Shackleton’s passage across the Antarctic, or the parachute rides down into “the world of Epictetus,” as Admiral James B. Stockdale wrote, of Vietnam-era aviators ejecting into captivity.
The current COVID-19 pandemic and its consequences on ship schedules drive us deep for inspiration, but we cannot fall victim to the hysteria of the moment. We must not fix our leadership on the breathless claims of how we are experiencing something that has never happened before. We are not explorers crossing the seas into the unknown—but we may draw strength from their example. While well-meaning, reactions to this aura of unprecedented are ultimately harmful to our sailors and detrimental to our leadership.
The harm of “unprecedented” arises from the sense of helplessness it engenders and the misguided actions that leaders may take in response. It is harmful to attempt to create a sense of certainty by eliding uncertainty. It is counterproductive to “protect” sailors by withholding information. The Stockdale Paradox states that one “must never confuse faith that you will prevail in the end—which you can never afford to lose—with the discipline to confront the most brutal facts of your current reality.”[i] The Navy must empower its people to confront the facts of their realities.
Information is like air, and sailors need it comparably. If leaders do not provide clean air, sailors will breathe dirty air instead: smoke deck rumors on board ship, or clickbait news online. False certainty leads to suspicion of hoarding information—“They aren’t telling us everything”—or a perception that leadership is feckless in the face of chaos. Both are corrosive to trust.
Leaders should communicate uncertainty when it exists. Express possible courses of action, outcomes, and impacts. Discuss motivating factors driving the uncertainty. If the full details cannot be divulged because of classification, then leaders should say so. Vague promises drive cynicism. U.S. Navy sailors are not children: They possess no shortage of inner strength to weather these storms. Restricting information in the name of “protecting mental health” is ultimately counterproductive. The root of psychological wellbeing and unit integrity—trust—is not nurtured by hiding bad news. Trust is impeached by a perception of anything less than forthrightness.
Some argue that sailors do not care about details, or do not need to know potential courses of action. The trust built by sharing information fills a deeper need then simply promulgating details. A sailor does not need to recite every item read at quarters to benefit from being at quarters with teammates and leadership. You may not remember last week’s wardroom menu; this does not mean you didn’t need to eat.
Writing in Harvard Business Review, Nathan Furr, Kyle Nel and Thomas Zoega Ramsoy quoted John Keats to describe the oddly-named “negative capability”: “The ability to be comfortable with uncertainty . . . rather than to become so anxious by its presence that you have to prematurely race to a more certain, yet suboptimal, conclusion.” While they were addressing the problem of leading transformation, leadership under the current uncertainty presents similar challenges. Nobody knows the end game of the pandemic. Neither the captain nor the crew of an indefinitely extended “bubble ship” knows when they will return home. Attempts to “control the narrative,” or to fabricate a perception of certainty are misguided.
Furr and his coauthors went on to outline key traits of “transformation-capable teams” successful under these conditions: Those able to “sustain focus, agility and optimism in the face of uncertainty for prolonged periods of time.” As wartime is the definitive environment of uncertainty, the tests posed by COVID-19 are not as far from the mark. The pandemic has reminded us that the Navy must develop leaders and sailors who are capable of agility and comfortable with uncertainty.
It would be decidedly suboptimal to dig in behind the shield of “unprecedented,” waiting for a return to normal. The problems posed are not ones of public affairs strategy or narrative control, but rather endurance and sustainment. We must not distract ourselves with managing perceptions. Negative capability—comfort with uncertainty—persistent agility and optimism. These are the traits that sustain the ultimate force multiplier: Trust. Leaders armed with these attributes will not need to worry about controlling the narrative, for their sailors will be equipped to confront their own realities.
Endnotes
[i] James C. Collins, Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap . . . and Others Don’t, William Collins, 2001.
