A Lesson from a “Ferocious” Leader

Back in 1968 I was just finishing grad school and reporting to active duty with the Navy.  The first assignment was for several weeks of damage control school at the Navy Base in Philadelphia, followed by reporting to the Engineering Department of the USS Shangri-La, an aircraft carrier in Mayport, Florida.

One day, talking with some of my classmates at damage control school, I mentioned my coming assignment to the Shangri-La.  That prompted a quick comment from one who had been in Mayport that “Ooh, I hear the engineering officer on the Shangri-La is ferocious.  He eats Lieutenants for breakfast.”  It was not a cheerful prospect.

When I reported aboard, what I learned is that the engineering officer was simply very focused on running a good engineering department.  He had no tolerance for anyone from other departments who would hijack our people and resources from the engineering mission.  After all, we had electricians, welders, and a machine shop that could do favors and special projects.  But he would have none of it.  Those poor souls from other departments who tried to get special favors were the ones eaten for breakfast.  For those of us in the department, he expected us to do our very best.

After a refitting period, the ship began to go through sea trials and readiness tests.  The job for the new hands was to become qualified for various watches, and for me and several others that meant Engineering Officer of the Watch.  The routine things were easy enough.  It was the catastrophe’s that required a lot of study and mental rehearsal.  They didn’t happen very often at all, so real practice was difficult.

Eventually, I was deemed qualified ready to stand watch solo.  In truth, I had some serious doubts about whether I was fully ready for whatever might happen.  I suspect I wasn’t alone in that feeling, among the new junior officers.

As we began one of our major exercises before a Mediterranean deployment, the engineering officer, Cdr. Donald Bullock Polatty, gathered his officers in the log room.  He described the rigors of the exercises ahead and asked for our best effort.  Then he said he wanted to be informed of anything that went wrong that affected the capability of the ship.  Day or night, 24/7, we were to call him to inform him of the problem.

With that direction firmly latched in my mind, I stood the long, very hot and noisy engineering watch down in the bowels of the ship in Main Engine Room #1.  For several weeks, nothing particularly exciting happened.  Then early one morning, somewhere around 0230, a critical piece of equipment failed.  It was now time to do my job, to inform Cdr. Polatty.  I can’t remember just what the failure was, just that it qualified as a call to our boss.

So I dialed his stateroom number and reported “Sir, this is Ltjg. Kampe on engineering watch, and I just want to let you know that the sky is falling.”  I described the situation, but I suspect the general flavor was that I reported that the sky was falling.  And he replied “Thank you Mr. Kampe for letting me know…”  I breathed a sigh of relief that I had done my job, and he had accepted the news so calmly, until he finished his sentence – “…and what are you doing about it?”  And the blinding flash hit me that the real job is to do something about it!  Make something happen.  I was embarrassed at that point, but quickly assembled the general plan I had in mind.  Now I hadn’t talked with anyone yet to even know if the plan made sense.  But the Cdr. seemed quite calm about it and replied, “Thank you, Mr. Kampe.”  I breathed another sigh of relief, until he finished that sentence “…and when will you be done?”  Now I was rather floundering on a highly uncertain plan and no feedback from the people who could do the work.  Still, I gave him my best estimate “about 3 hours.”  By now he absolutely knew I was far from on top of the situation.  Yet he simply said “Thank you, Mr. Kampe.  Please let me know when you’re done.”

And in that simple phone call, I learned more vividly than any other experience in my life, that it isn’t knowing what’s wrong that counts, it’s doing something to make it right.

Of course, he now had an engineering officer of the watch working very hard to get the fix done.  I learned in every problem-solving encounter in the future, he had the same 3 questions:  What’s wrong?  What are you doing about it?  When will you be done?  The whole department understood.  You made sure you were ready to answer all three questions…and be quick about getting to that point.  I believe that’s why his team could keep a very frail ship together and meet every commitment.

The broader observation was that I don’t recall ever seeing him chastise or abuse anyone for a failure.  It was simply very clear that he expected each of us to take care of problems in our areas.  If we needed extra help, he would make sure we had it.

One of my most appreciated moments was just that, a moment in passing.  We were off Roosevelt Roads, Puerto Rico and Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, doing our pre-deployment exercises.  That’s basically the inspections and readiness exercises required prior the ship’s deployment.  Inspectors check everything. Deficiencies are noted, and we work to correct them.  Our division, one of five in the Engineering Department, had 6 deficiencies listed.  A couple of divisions were in the 100 deficiencies range.  We had very good Chiefs for each of our division teams, and they had done good work to be ready.  Yet I also knew that the inspectors focused more intensely on those other divisions, because problems there can be the really big ones.  The whole experience is intense – a hot, sweaty climate, long hours, drills one after another, and the quest to do better every day.

The ‘moment’ came late one evening as I passed Cdr. Polatty as he sat in the Wardroom.  His words were simple – “By the way, Mr. Kampe, I see in the deficiency report that your division has only six.  Thank you.”  That was it.  It was enormously reassuring that the effort made a difference, was noted, and appreciated.

Oh, that original problem early one morning – we did get it fixed, on time.

Months later, Cdr. Polatty had a serious back problem and left our ship with no fanfare.  The character of our Engineering Department changed.  Yet the experience under his leadership and example remains in memory; he was one of the very finest bosses I’ve had.