Dec. 7 Survivors: Favorite Authors, Books

By Bill Doughty

History tells us that many Sailors who were awake on the morning of Sunday, Dec. 7 – 68 years ago – were eating breakfast, heading to religious services, writing letters or reading.

Pearl Harbor Survivor Ed Johann was 17 years old on Dec. 7, 1941, young enough to have just gotten his tonsils out. On the morning of the Pearl Harbor attack he was working on a motorboat, getting ready to shuttle Sailors from ship to shore.

Before the war he’d read mostly westerns by Zane Grey and stories by Louis L’Amour.
After the war he read military history books. “I have over 100 books about Pearl Harbor – paperback and hard back,” he said. “Everybody should read more.”

The oldest living Medal of Honor Recipient, John W. Finn, who is also a Dec. 7 1941 Survivor, visited his namesake, at the Ford Island Boathouse on Dec. 6, 2009. (The JOHN W. FINN is a biodiesel-fuel boat, one of several at Naval Station Pearl Harbor, that takes thousands of visitors on any given day to the USS Arizona Memorial.)


John Finn told me his favorite author prior to WWII was Ernest Thompson Seton – author, artist and naturalist. “I always loved books about wildlife,” Finn said. Seton was a renowned conservationist, instrumental in preserving wilderness for future generations.

Art Herriford, National President of the Pearl Harbor Survivors Association, visited the Arizona Memorial on Dec. 7, 2009. There, he said, “Any time I come to Pearl Harbor it’s with reverence. I remember happy times before the attack. The attack on Pearl Harbor changed everything. It changed the whole world, one way or another.”

Art said, “I read H. Allen Smith. He wrote a series of books. And I read a lot of humanitarian-type books.”



Survivor William K. Anderson said he read mostly magazines in the 1930s and 40s – like Popular Mechanics and various sports magazines.

“I was always interested in sports,” Bill Anderson remembers. “I read a lot of Zane Grey, too. I was a cowboy back in those days.”

Ret. Capt. R. E. Thomas liked Edgar Rice Burroughs as a young man.

Thomas was an ensign on USS Nevada and directed anti-aircraft fire against Imperial Japanese planes on the morning of Dec. 7, 1941.

During the 1940s he mostly read non-fiction, he said, but one of his favorite genres of fiction was historical fiction exemplified by C. S. Forester’s series of Horatio Hornblower novels.

“I was a big fan… I tried to emulate that as a naval officer,” he remembers. “In history, Horatio Hornblower was modeled after Admiral Nelson of the British Navy.”

Two Sailors stand duty together at the Quarterdeck of the headquarters building where I work.

OS2 Mikhael Davis reads fiction and non-fiction. She just finished Kite Runner and Three Cups of Tea. Before reading those two Navy Professional Reading Program selections she finished James Clavell’s Shogun. Now she’s reading Abraham Rabinovich’s Yom Kippur War.

Her shipmate, BM2(SW/AW) Matthew Tutt, is a science fiction fan and avid reader of westerns by writers such as Zane Grey and Louis L’Amour and fantasy by Robert E. Howard and Edgar Rice Burroughs… some of the same authors on the reading lists of Sailors on Dec. 7, 1941.

Here's what CNO Adm. Gary Roughead said recently about the "imperative" of education for Sailors:

"Always be looking to expand your horizons, expand the depth of your knowledge…believe that everyday you live, you will learn something new…the drive to learn should never end and it also opens great opportunities."

UPDATE: Halsey’s Typhoon II -- Integrity

By Bill Doughty

For former chief petty officer (retired lieutenant commander) Archie DeRyckere, the leadership lessons of Typhoon Cobra -- “Halsey’s Typhoon” -- are personal and last a lifetime.

We linked DeRyckere’s website, Typhoon Cobra 1944 on our last blog post. He sent the following email to Navy Reads:

Sir,

That is interesting.

The heroism by Captain Plage and his

ship should be interesting to patriots.

I have been earnestly attempting to have Captain Plage awarded the Medal of honor for his performance as he definitely saved the life of myself and 54 others.

President Gerald R. Ford supported my efforts, to no avail. President (then-Lt.j.g.) Ford saved the USS Monterey(CVL 26) in typhoon cobra.The ship was being consumed by a fire on its hangar deck from stem to stern and Captain Ingersoll had been ordered by Admiral Halsey to "abandon ship".

The captain said "to seventy foot waves. I have a better idea; Jerry go down to the hangar deck and put the fires out."

President Ford collected the dead and injured and proceeded to fight fires for five-and-one-half hours, put all fires out and the ship continued to fight to victory in Tokyo Bay.

President Ford was one of our finest athletic Presidents, a legend on ski slopes and one of our most professionally proficient Presidents. He never, to my knowledge, received a medal for saving the USS Monterey.

Respectfully,

LCDR Archie G. DeRyckere, USN (Ret.)

Lt.j.g. Jerry Ford playing basketball on Monterey, June 1944.

Faced with Halsey’s directive to abandon USS Monterey (CVL 29), Captain Ingersoll said, “No. We can fix this.” Authors Drury and Clavin write, “Now, with a nod from his skipper, Ford donned a gas mask and led a fire brigade below. Aircraft gas tanks exploded as hose handlers slid across the burning hangar deck. Into this furnace Ford took his men, his first order of business to carry out the unconscious survivors.

“Hours later, he and his team emerged burned and exhausted, but they had put out the fire,” Drury and Clavin write.

Thirty years later, Vice President Gerald Ford became the 38th president of the United States after President Nixon resigned in the wake of the Watergate scandal, leaving the nation in a storm of turmoil.

The authors of Halsey’s Typhoon report that Ford thought about Typhoon Cobra on the morning of Nixon’s resignation.

USS Monterey in Typhoon Cobra

“I remembered that fire at the height of the typhoon,” Ford wrote, “and I considered it a marvelous metaphor for the ship of state.”

More leadership lessons in the wake of a storm: just contrast Nixon’s character as a leader with Ford’s integrity.

On Saturday, Nov. 14 Northrop Grumman Shipbuilding and the Navy marked the keel-laying of the Navy’s state-of-the-art aircraft carrier: the Gerald R. Ford.

President Ford’s daughter, Susan Ford Bales, the ship's sponsor, attended the event, as did son Michael Ford.

Both said their father learned of the naming before his death nearly three years ago.

Former President Ford, himself, said, when he learned of the honor, "It is a source of indescribable pride and humility to know that an aircraft carrier bearing my name may be permanently associated with the valor and patriotism of the men and women of the United States Navy."

The new carrier, scheduled for delivery to the Navy in 2015, will be the first in the Ford-class series, all designed to bring improved warfighting capability in support of the Navy’s Maritime Strategy.

Susan Ford Bales, said on Nov. 14, “Much has been written about Dad and his integrity. For him the question was always straightforward: What was best for the American people? Period. As the history books have begun to explain, Americans have come to admire his integrity...”

Lt. Jerry Ford, second from right, front row, with USS Monterey team.

To learn more about the shipmates bound together by Typhoon Cobra, visit Archie DeRyckere’s website, http://www.typhooncobra1944.net/

Typhoon Cobra - Nimitz & Leadership '...Lessons of'

If you don’t read the entire review that follows, do yourself a favor and read Commander in Chief, U.S. Pacific Fleet ADM Nimitz’s confidential letter of Feb. 13, 1945. It’s a thoughtful, reasoned and balanced treatise on accountability in time of war. It shows why Nimitz was such a great leader -- a man whose emotional intelligence matched his analytical abilities.

Fleet Admiral Chester A. Nimitz

Halsey’s Typhoon by Bob Drury and Tom Clavin

Review by Bill Doughty
Their decks, already top-heavy with armaments and equipment, were pushed nearly vertical in mountainous seas. Sixty-five years ago, caught in a giant storm, the Sailors of U.S. Third Fleet fought wind, water and waves trying to escape their own sinking ships and surrounding sharks. Some lost the fight.

Halsey’s Typhoon, the True Story of a Fighting Admiral, an Epic Storm, and an Untold Rescue is the gripping account of Typhoon Cobra and its aftermath.

Characters like Adm. William “Bull” Halsey, Adm. John “Slew” McCain (Sen. McCain’s grandfather), Capt. Henry Lee Plage, Capt. James Marks and Chief Quartermaster Archie DeRyckere (one of the true heroes of the tale, who retired as a Lt. Cmdr.) are revealed, warts and quirks and all.

VADM "Slew" McCain and ADM "Bull" Halsey, Dec. 1944.

Why were the ships in the path of the huge storm? How does a typhoon form and why is it so dangerous? What’s it like to be thrown off a ship into 90-foot waves in a storm with 150-mph winds? The authors address these questions through extensive research and interviews.

Although this book is not currently included on the Navy’s Professional Reading Program, it is on the informal must-read list of many Navy leaders. These leaders also value the lessons of history brought forth in books, including all the way back to one of the most well-known books in history, Homer’s Iliad, written around the 8th Century B.C. Here’s a quote from the Iliad, used on one of Halsey's Typhoon’s title pages:

Bursts as a wave from the clouds impends,

And swell'd with tempests on the ships descends;
White are the decks with foam; the winds aloud
Howl o'er the masts, and sing through every shroud:
Pale, trembling, tir'd, the sailors freeze with fear;
And instant death on every wave appears.

Unidentified destroyer during Typhoon Cobra.

Halsey’s Typhoon is not the first book about this famous incident in Navy history.

Capt. C. Raymond "Cal" Calhoun, skipper of the USS Dewey (DD 349) at the time, was an eyewitness to history and wrote a gripping account, Typhoon: The Other Enemy, in 1981. Highly recommended.

There have been other books, written by apologists or accusers, including several other first-person accounts -- even one co-authored by Capt. George Kosco, Fleet Aerologist at the time of the storm.

Typhoon Cobra formed and hit as the Third Fleet was moving ever closer to Imperial Japan. The Navy was achieving success using McCain’s “Big Blue Blanket” strategy, modeled after a U.S. Naval Academy football defense, of interweaving radar to defend against kamikaze (divine winds) attacks.

The name kamikaze came from the Shinto belief that the gods intervened twice in the 13th Century, sending separate typhoons against invading Chinese armadas -- drowning thousands of Mongol soldiers and sailors.

The Imperial Japanese warriors believed the gods were on their side and that they were ordained to win the war.

Ultimately science triumphed over superstition.

Halsey’s Typhoon narrates the lessons of history.

(Today, as a direct result of the devastating storm in the Philippine Sea, the Joint Typhoon Warning Center protects the U.S. Pacific Fleet. In the years after the war weather stations were set up in the Caroline Islands, Philippines, Iwo Jima, Okinawa and Guam.)

Communication has improved. Command-and-control incorporates maritime forecasts as a top priority to ensure the safety of Sailors. Nimitz addresses in his letter, "Lessons of," that leaders must take all information into account, but must also rely on their own intelligence.

This book is purposely a vital guide to good leadership. Compare the fearless bravery of destroyer escort USS Tabberer’s CO Capt. Plage -- whose interactions were generous, even-handed and caring -- with Capt. Marks, CO of destroyer USS Hull. Marks is shown as petty and controlling. The reporters suggest he was the basis for the Capt. Queeg character in the 1952 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel The Caine Mutiny by Herman Wouk.

Plage defied convention and came to the rescue of survivors treading water, fighting sharks and clinging to rafts and debris. Marks became paralyzed and failed to respond.

True wisdom during Typhoon Cobra was revealed in acts by brave leaders who acted correctly -- not blindly -- in the face of unimaginable terrors.

This Veteran’s Day, we think of all the men and women who have served selflessly in uniform in recent and distant wars.

Halsey’s Typhoon reminds us of some of the lessons learned -- and taught -- by the veterans of World War II. And, it introduces us to some of the heroes we continue to honor.

“...Lessons of”: The book touches on the role of Fleet Adm. Chester A. Nimitz -- one of the greatest heroes in our nation’s military history. Nimitz’s confidential letter of Feb. 13, 1945, just two months after Typhoon Cobra, while not included in Halsey’s Typhoon, is available at the Navy’s History and Heritage Command site.

Dr. Betances: "You Can't Lead if You Don't Read"

How important is reading?

Ask Dr. Samuel Betances, diversity advisor to Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Gary Roughead, and three U.S. presidents...Betances, who conducted "Strengthening the Navy Through Diversity" training for nearly 1,000 people at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, Oct. 13-15, talks about the power of books...and words...and mentors...and, most importantly, diversity.

The cover of Pulitzer Prize winner David McCullough's book John Adams flashes on the screen early in one of Dr. B's training, along with this quote from Adams:

"Freedom is a wonderful thing, provided you have the courage to defend it."

So there it is, plain and simple. Diversity is freedom...

* Freedom from discrimination, from harassment and from a hostile workplace.

* Freedom for an equal opportunity to achieve.

* Freedom to be respected.

Two books about respect that Dr. Betances recommends: Back off by Martha Langelan and Diversity Toolkit by William Sonnenschein.

In his training, Dr. Betances shares his personal journey from high school dropout to educated scholar with two post-graduate degrees from Harvard University, consultant to two U.S. presidents.

His education started with a caring mentor who had the courage to confront him and say, "It's not intelligence you lack; you don't have enough words."

As Dr. Betances points out, people in poverty use an average of 1,500 words. People in the middle class, especially those who were read to as children, use 3,500 words.

In order to succeed, one must read...

As a very young man, Betances was encouraged to read "the literature of resiliency" - the memoirs of others who faced difficulties: people in death camps, under slavery or in relocation camps.

Two books he says changed him forever: The Narrative of an American Slave by Frederick Douglass ("a book to share with your entire family") and Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl.

These books opened his mind and helped him sharpen his critical thinking.

As a better thinker he is able to recognize cultural shifts, discard faulty assumptions and recognize not only the letter of the law but also the spirit of the law.

By the way, that's the difference between equal opportunity and diversity, according to Dr. B.

EO is the law; diversity is the spirit of the law.

It's not good enough to enforce laws against illegal discrimination; we must actively prevent legal discrimination, where members of a preferred group are included in a so-called "circle of trust," to which outsiders are not welcome.

Are there good and bad Circles of Trust?

As Dr. Betances points out, studies revealed in the works of Malcolm Gladwell (author of Blink, Tipping Point and, especially, Outliers) prove that those who are included in a group - for whatever reason - are
more likely to succeed.

Those who are included and made to feel welcome in an organization will succeed.

Those who get informal coaching in a complex organization like the Navy are better equipped to retain what they learn in a classroom.

And, "If your organization is complex," says Betances, "you need diversity."

As part of his training, Dr. B. plays a CSPAN clip of The Director of National Intelligence, Retired Adm. Dennis Blair, former Commander in Chief of U.S. Pacific Command.

Admiral Blair recognizes the benefits of "being as diverse as possible so that we can better understand people around the world."

Such thinking should be intuitive, and intuition is often undervalued. So says Malcolm Gladwell in Blink.

Gladwell is mandatory reading at the Naval Academy, under the leadership of Vice Adm. Jeff Fowler.

This year the Naval Academy has achieved record-breaking numbers of minority accessions - more than one-third of the class of 2013. The people who have the biggest advantage at the academy, according to Betances, are the children of military families, regardless of gender, economic background or other factors.

Why?

Because those children from military families are part of a greater, wider circle of trust; they are made to feel welcome in the organization. They get the informal coaching and mentoring and one-on-one time with experienced people who care.

"We increase our cultural competencies in informal networks," says Betances. And cultural competencies are keys to success.

Want your child to succeed?

In a sidebar discussion between training sessions, Dr. Betances shared this advice: "Have your son or daughter become a tutor. Have them teach someone. The person they help will leapfrog forward, and the tutor, your son or daughter, will catapult to the front."

Dr. Betances: "You can only keep what you give away."

Back to books...

Is that one of the hidden benefits of reading, that books - often freely available, filled with insights and ready to teach us - can be our mentors?

(I'll have to read more about that...)

Other books discussed or recommended by Dr. B.:

The Nature of Prejudice by Gordon Allport

The Disuniting of America by Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr.

Making the Impossible Possible by Bill Strickland

Shattered Sword by Jonathan Parshall and Anthony Tully

Women in the Military by Maj. Gen. Jeanne Holm, ret.

Future Think by Edie Weiner and Arnold Brown

Go For Broke by C. Douglas Sterner

Rising Sons by Bill Yenne

Women Pilots of World War II by Jean Hascall Cole

Reel Bad Arabs by Jack G. Shaheen

The Other Face of America by Jorge Ramos

Our Separate Ways by Ella LJ Edmondson Bell and Stella M. Nkomo

Cane Fires by Gary Y. Okihiro

Leading from the Front by Angie Morgan and Courtney Lynch

The World is Flat by Thomas L. Friedman

Hot, Flat, and Crowded by Thomas L. Friedman

Ten Steps to the Head of the Class by Samuel Betances

How important is reading?

"If you don't read, you can't lead."

The Navy Reading Program recommends titles tailored to various levels of leadership.

"Negotiating With Iran: Wrestling the Ghosts of History"

NPR's Scott Simon interviewed John W. Limbert, professor of International Affairs at the U.S. Naval Academy, this weekend about his new book, Negotiating With Iran: Wrestling the Ghosts of History.

Ambassador Limbert, who was held as an Iranian hostage for 444 days 30 years ago, offers his perspective on a dialog with Iran. Is negotiation equivalent to surrender or appeasement or weakness?

NPR's Michele Kelemen interviewed Limbert for a story late last month, too, focusing on the importance of listening, showing respect and demonstrating a willingness to engage... President Barak Obama says he would like to make some kind of direct contact.

This weekend, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates says changes to the U.S. missile defense plan will offer better protection than a previous proposal even if intelligence forecasts on Iran prove wrong.

Here Comes Everybody by Clay Shirky

Review by Bill Doughty

Superfreakonomics comes out soon, as we learned earlier this month when our blog and Roxanne Darling’s photo from USS Nimitz were featured on the New York Times .com’s Freakonomics blog. Meantime, here’s a book in a similar vein...

Here Comes Everybody grabs you from the first chapter. What happens when someone loses her phone in the back seat of a taxi and the finder of the phone refuses to give it back?

The unfriendly, recalcitrant phone-finder gets a virtual butt-whupping, thanks to the power of social media to share information, encourage cooperation and foster collective action. The story is hilarious.

Clay Shirky fills this topical book about social networking with lots of stories, anecdotes and reports that illustrate the tectonic (“tech-tonic”?) shift we’re experiencing thanks to technology. Among his examples:

• How collective action exposed the Catholic priest sex abuse (and institutional coverup) scandal because of shared information via the Web, e-mail and blogs in 2002.
• How airline passengers who experienced poor customer service pooled information and resources to bring about a passengers’ bill of rights in 2006.
• How, thanks to Twitter and QQ (China’s largest social network), the world quickly became aware of the massive earthquake in Sichuan Province on May 12, 2008. Shirky reports that a Wikipedia page was created 40 minutes after the quake. The page provides a comprehensive review of the quake and its aftermath, including the controversy surrounding construction of the buildings and access to information within China.

Coming after publication of this book is another illustrative example of social media’s power: street protests in the wake of this year’s elections in Iran, fueled by Twitter and other sites.

Shirky explains how shared awareness can bring about social action in the information age.

In 1989 small protests in Leipzig, East Germany grew steadily till 400,000 people turned out as a “flash mob,” pictured above, leading to the downfall of the communist government and the destruction of the Berlin Wall.

The lesson for repressive states was: “Don’t let even small protests start, and don’t let the documentation get out.” Reading this gives you an appreciation for our founders’ wisdom about freedom of expression and freedom of assembly, among the inalienable rights of all people.

As Shirky puts it, “With the arrival of globally accessible publishing, freedom of speech is now freedom of the press, and freedom of the press is freedom of assembly.”

But, to paraphrase Spider-Man creator Stan Lee, with great freedom comes great responsibility.

Shirky notes that social systems cannot be of value without some sort of governance, and the best form of control is self-control from a feeling of love and devotion.

Wikipedia shows the overall effectiveness of collective governance out of a passionate devotion to truth. Individuals can edit, but a group can provide democratic oversight.

Free expression through collaboration and cooperation has replaced a great deal of institutional planning and bureaucratic control -- another part of that tectonic shift we’re all experiencing.

Shirky provides an example from military history:

In May 1940, the German army was smaller than France’s. The Panzer III and IV tanks were smaller and less armored than the French Char Bs. But, Germany won decisive victories in its Blitzkrieg, or “Lightning War” attacks because of one difference -- radios.

Communication transformed standalone tanks in to a coordinated, networked group weapon that required a much higher degree of autonomy among commanders coordinating actions in the field.

Which is not to say the Germans in 1940 had the right message... just better technology and tactics for their time.

Technology can be abused by people, whether invading another country or refusing to return a cell phone.

Social media can be misused by cyber-vandals posting false information on Wikipedia or bullying someone on Facebook.

But, collective goodness in people can police the commons, tell the truth and provide governance; that’s ultimate freedom. Freakonomics comes to a similar optimistic conclusion about collective goodwill.

Other cool stuff in Here Comes Everybody:

• Homophily and “Small World” pattern show the effects of probability underlying the six degrees of separation.
• Social media can connect everyone through a disproportionately few people, called “connectors” by Malcolm Gladwell in Tipping Point.
• The “Nash Equilibrium,” Pareto as relates to social networking, the “Birthday Paradox,” and homeostasis of group structures, among other laws and principles.

The last two words of Here Comes Everybody are “epochal change,” a great way to describe our collective experience as the millennial generation comes of age.

This is a time in history when those of us born prior to 1980 need to unlearn much of our assumptions, according to Shirky: that news about politics and announcements about jobs come from newspapers; that music comes from stores; that conversations are only by phone; that complicated things like software and encyclopedias have to be created by professionals.

Luckily, as Here Comes Everybody makes clear literally and tangibly, for people of all ages there is still a place in this world for books.

Note: My friend Nancy Harrity, introduced me to this book, along with Groundswell by Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff, another really good read on a similar topic, written from a business organization standpoint. In September 2009 Nancy is finishing a gig as public affairs officer for Pacific Partnership 2009, a Navy mission with international partners that builds friendship and promotes peace. Here Comes Everybody is not on the Navy's Professional Reading Program, but it would be of interest to anyone in or out of the military trying to put social media in context.

Freakonomics - A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner

Review by Bill Doughty
I would not recommend Freakonomics to anyone who knows exactly how the world works. Don't read it if you already have the answers to all of life's questions. It's not for people who are easily offended, either. However, for the rest of us, read on...

(Freakonomics at sea)

Written by a completely out-of-the-box economist named Steven Levitt, with help from New York writer Stephen Dubner, Freakonomics challenges conventional wisdom and assumptions on both sides of all fences.

Freakonomics key points:

"Knowing what to measure and how to measure is the key to understanding modern life," and "if morality represents the ideal, then economics represents the actual world."

Through measurements and analysis, and without being moralistic, Levitt spends most of the book presenting evidence of dishonesty in the actual world - cheating by Japanese sumo wrestlers, Chicago school teachers, day care parents, online daters, funeral directors, and bagel buyers, among others. His conclusions are based on facts, metrics, and other data, and they are compelling.

The bad news: Many people will lie, cheat, and abuse power.

The good news: With the right incentives, the vast majority of people are, and remain, honest.

So what are the right incentives?

What do you think?

Freakonomics teases the reader to formulate his or her own opinion, but provides ways to step up and see over the fence.

Navy Reading Program aboard USS Nimitz

Challenging conventional wisdom and superstition, this book promotes critical thinking. Take, for instance, the issues of abortion and gun control and their relevance to crime. Without making any outwardly moral judgments, Freakonomics explores these and other red-hot issues like the death penalty, crack cocaine, discrimination and the role of parents in raising children.

Some chapters may make you laugh, shake your head, or read passages aloud to your friends and family. A friend of mine couldn't resist writing arguments in the margins of his dog-eared copy.

Here are a few things you can discover in Freakonomics:

You'll see evidence that drug-dealing gangs have a similar business structure and hierarchy as McDonald's.

You'll learn that the Ku Klux Klan was a largely ineffectual group by the late 1950s, undermined by a children's television show.

You'll read the story of Robert Lane and two of his sons - one he named Winner and the other Loser. Which young man did well in life? How important is the name your parents gave you?

You'll see whether having lots of books in the home contributes to success later in life - which is intriguing information for supporters of the Navy's Professional Reading Program.

Freakonomics delves into the science of "cause and effect," "correlation," "nature and/or nurture," "fear," and the power of incentives in influencing behavior.

The three "basic flavors" of incentives according to Levitt are economic, social and moral. They are often most effective when combined such as in the U.S. anti-smoking campaign.

But, as asked earlier, what are the "right," most effective incentives in life?

Though not stated outright in the book, here’s what Freakonomics suggests: You can incentivize honesty, hard work, and good will by trusting in people, listening to them, and showing them love.

It’s that simple and that profound.

You don’t have to agree with all of the conclusions in Freakonomics in order to appreciate the authors’ courage in raising controversial questions, challenging assumptions and opening a dialog about critical, skeptical thinking.

Freakonomics is one of many great reads at the Navy Professional Reading Program. You can learn more about the program here.

For a cool Freakonomics essay by Tipping Point author Malcolm Gladwell click here.

To follow the Twitter-like Freakonomics blog at The New York Times, click here.

Special thanks to Roxanne Darling and Nathan Kam for use of their photos from an August 2009 embarkation to USS Nimitz. Roxanne left a really nice comment after the July 12 interview post with Prof. Jackson. I hope you'll scroll down and take a look.

What Warriors Read -- to Learn, for Escape?

By Bill Doughty

Catching up this week, after the interview with Professor Jackson, manager of the Navy Professional Reading Program. I want to highlight comments received by two Sailors a while back that I didn’t want to get “lost in the sauce”...

“Christine,” a public affairs officer, and CAPT Hansen, officer in charge of Navy embedded training teams, posted these comments to my review of The Kite Runner in May. In a few words they say so much -- about religion, father-son relationships, diverse viewpoints and book recommendations for families when loved ones are deployed -- above all, putting things in context:

I don't know if these are universal, but before I left, people recommended "Lone Survivor," which is Marcus Luttrell's account of the battle that killed the rest of his Seal team in the mountains of Afghanistan. Also recommended were A Thousand Splendid Suns and Three Cups of Tea. I'll confess that I've only gotten to Lone Survivor myself (I read The Kite Runner awhile back), but the others are on my list.

I'm a huge reader -- my Kindle is my prized possession here, right behind my laptop. I don't watch a lot of television, and I haven't even looked at the 300gb of movies I brought with me. Instead, I read a lot of fluff -- pure escapist nonsense. Some of it with more literary merit than others. I do like to read the books that I learn something from, but it's also important to have the fun reads.

Christine

========================================

Your comment wrapped up Kite Runner like the crib notes of a good book report. I like the way that you tied up the analogies for me. The book was riveting for me on two personal paths - spiritual and relational. It was interesting to reflect on my adherence to and divergence from my religious beliefs. Seeing the son attempting to be himself and please his father, whom he respected immensely brought me to reflecting on my relationship with my father, growing up, and my relationship with my son.

The Thousand Splendid Suns is even more poignant regarding the place of women in Afghan society.

Both books are must reads to get prepared for a deployment here. The service member must remember though that people are individuals. Although there is societal adherence to Islam, there is some variation as to how conforming people are just as in the U.S. people profess one religion or another, but live varying degrees of it.

Three Cups of Tea is recommended for those deploying too. It is much more positive than the other books mentioned here. Spouses and loved ones remaining behind should read Three Cups so that they have something positive to contemplate in the absence of their service member.

Dennis M. Hansen

OIC NAVY ETT

Other perspectives...

From Tikrit, Iraq a friend wrote to me that folks he knows are reading escapist books like Twilight and Clash of Kings. He said in an email, “We just read the books people send us.” Graphic novels are a hit with some of the Americans serving there. Speaking of Twilight, I heard on a podcast last week that, with the U.S. economy in a downturn, romance novels are back in vogue.

Like Christine said, fun reads are important too.

Back at my office in Hawaii, my colleagues and I sometimes talk about books around the watercooler, where a co-worker I respect suggested reading Lionel Trilling. I checked out Trilling’s Beyond Culture: Essays on Literature and Learning and found a fascinating thinker. Trilling’s decades-old essays were well worth dusting off and examining. He dissects T.S. Eliot, George Orwell, Mark Twain and Hemingway, among many others.

Mark Twain could help readers escape and learn... Was he America’s greatest writer?

A Conversation with the Creator... of NPRP

Captain John Jackson, SC, USN (ret) has been the program manager for the Navy Professional Reading Program since the program was first envisioned by the CNO. Jackson is a full professor at the Naval War College, in Newport, Rhode Island. Prior to his retirement from the Navy in 1996, he was a supply and logistics specialist with more than 27 years of experience both afloat and ashore. He holds advanced degrees from Providence College and Salve Regina University; is a graduate of the Management Development Program at Harvard University; and he completed the College of Naval Command and Staff in 1983. His doctoral research addresses the influence of technology on the human condition. We interviewed him exclusively for Navy Reads blog but encourage others to publish this interview about the origins of the Navy Reading Program.

How did the NPRP get started? Who had the idea for it; what was the spark that got it started?

Shortly after being named as CNO, ADM Mike Mullen requested the Naval War College to develop a Professional Reading Program that was more than just a list of suggested titles of books to read. Over the fall of 2005 and the spring of 2006, we developed the “matrix” structure of what became the Navy Professional Reading Program (NPRP). The Program consists of 6 areas of skills/competencies needed by all Sailors:

- Critical Thinking

- Joint and Combined Warfare

- Regional and Cultural Awareness

- Leadership

- Naval and Military Heritage

- Management and Strategic Planning

Within each of these areas, books are recommended for various grade levels, although every Sailor is encouraged to read any book in the NPRP Library, as well as other books of merit. The overall library is divided into various collections, as an aid to those readers who are looking to focus their reading on books of particular relevance at their particular career point. The collections are:

• Junior Enlisted Collection

• Leading Petty Officer Collection

• Division Leaders Collection

• Department/Command Leaders Collection

• Senior Leaders Collection

We formed a Navy Professional Reading Program Advisory Group, and nominated 60 primary titles to the Chief of Naval Operations for his approval. Once approved by ADM Mullen, we obtained funds, purchased over 65,000 books, and distributed them to 900 locations around the fleet. The official kick-off was in October 2006, when the Navy gave itself a birthday present: The NPRP.

The first complete NPRP Library was hand delivered to the oldest ship in the Navy, USS Constitution, in celebration of the Navy’s 231st Birthday.

The “spark” that got it started came directly from the Chief of Naval Operations, and it continues to have the personal interest and support of ADM Roughead and Master Chief Petty Officer of the Navy Rick West.

How many people collaborated on recommending books in 2006?

The NPRP Advisory Group included representatives from the Naval Academy, the Naval Postgraduate School, the Naval War College, the Naval Historical Center, and the Senior Enlisted Academy. We also got input from the U.S. Naval Institute, the Commander, Naval Installations Command (which operates base libraries) and other sources. Altogether, over a dozen individuals considering several hundred books before the final 60 titles were approved by CNO. Many of the books that did not make the cut for the primary library are now listed as “Supplementary Suggestions” on the NPRP website.

What were some of the criteria for selecting titles?

• The books must be currently in print, and thus available for purchase and distribution.

• All titles must address one or more of the skills/competencies in the program matrix.

• The books should cover topics and issues of enduring value.

Do you have any anecdotes or stories about how the NPRP helped individuals? Have senior Navy leaders told you the program is helpful?

In 2007, a survey was conducted by the Navy Personnel Research, Studies, and Technology organization. Seventy-five percent of the senior leaders surveyed said that “The NPRP will make the Navy of tomorrow better than the Navy of today.” Aboard USS Vella Gulf (CG-72), the CO established a “Heritage and History Leadership Essay” contest where Sailors could win cash awards for writing about books from the NPRP. The skipper of USS Stockdale (DDG-106) asked for a NPRP library during their pre-commissioning work-up, since he felt these books would help shape his crew into the cohesive fighting unit they are destined to become.

You've quoted CNO Adm. Gary Roughead as saying the NPRP should be used as a "starting point." Can you give us short list of recommended additional titles, beyond what's on the original 2006 list?

In February 2009, CNO released the first revision to the NPRP, which we call NPRP 2.0. This revision added five great new titles to the NPRP library:

Lone Survivor by Marcus Luttrel

Aircraft Carriers at War by James L. Holloway, III

The Elephant and the Dragon Robyn Meredith

Forgotten Continent by Michael Reid

Six Frigates by Ian Toll

We also recommend Wired for War by P.W. Singer (about the robotics revolution) and Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortensen (about promoting peace through education).

Who is recommending additional titles as the program evolves? Would you accept recommendations from Sailors and Navy civilians? (If so, how could they make those recommendations?)

The Program Office at the Naval War College receives emails and letters nearly every day with book suggestions. Our Advisory Group also exchanges messages about new books, and we get suggestions from faculty members at NWC, NPS and USNA. Suggestions can be forwarded to us at: navyreading@nwc.navy.mil.

What's on the horizon for the NPRP?

We are experimenting with e-book readers such as the Kindle to see if this technology is a good way to get our books in the hands of our readers. We have purchased “Playaway”-brand audio-books for patients in Navy hospitals who cannot read, or hold a book, but still want to participate in the NPRP. We are hoping to sponsor author book signings with our partners at the Navy Exchanges, and we continue to make our website www.navyreading.navy.mil as interesting and functional as possible.

You've said elsewhere that you encourage people to renew their fighting spirit through the power of professional reading. Would you expound on why reading is important for our Navy and our nation?

In early 2009, CNO noted in a Navy-wide message:

“Reading, discussing, and understanding the ideas and concepts found in the NPRP will not only improve our critical thinking, it will also help us become better Sailors, better leaders, and better citizens. As President John Adams once warned, "A fighting spirit without knowledge would be little better than a brutal rage." I encourage all personnel to renew their fighting spirit through the power of professional reading.”

Reading is important because it allows people to benefit from the lessons learned by others, going back literally thousands of years. An old sage once said “You can never live long enough to make all the mistakes yourself”! Good books entertain, illustrate, and educate. They open a door to the past, they explain what is happening today, and they project what may happen in the future. You only need to read about the actions of the men and women in Navy-blue who went before you to understand that we are all part of an organization much bigger than ourselves, and with a tremendous legacy on which we can build. Thomas Jefferson once wrote: “I cannot live without books”! Every avid reader feels the same way.

Do you think books could become "dinosaurs" in the age of social media, electronic games and cable/Internet TV?

Modern technology is great, and any tools which improve communications between individuals are positive things. Even so, the book (in hard-copy, electronic format, or in audio) still has a place in everyone’s life. A book provides a level of detail on a subject that no movie can match; it energizes the reader’s imagination, so the concepts are tailored to the experiences and expectations of each individual; and a printed book is compact, permanent, easy to carry, and needs no batteries!

What are some brand new titles you'd recommend as good Navy reads?

Six Frigates by Ian Toll (fairly new) - about founding of the U.S. Navy; Leave No Man Behind by George Galdorisi and Thomas Phillips about Combat Search and Rescue; Shattered Sword by Jonathan Parshall and Anthony Tully about the Battle of Midway; and Lincoln and His Admirals by Craig Symonds about President Lincoln’s relationship with his naval commanders during the Civil War.

Any final thoughts you’d like to share about the Navy Professional Reading Program?

Every indication is that the NPRP has been warmly embraced by our Sailors who are interested in their professional development. In addition to the books which are widely available in lending libraries aboard all ships, in squadron ready-rooms, and at base libraries and liberty centers around the fleet, these books are available for sale at reduced prices in all Navy Exchanges and by using the NEX on-line and telephone ordering systems. Since the program began, over 60,000 books have been purchased by Sailors who wanted to create their own professional libraries.

You can read them in hard-copy…. You can read them as e-Books…. You can listen to them as audio-books. The Navy Professional Reading Program is accessible to everyone who wants to participate and as the program’s motto says, it will help “Accelerate your Mind.”

Special thanks to Professor John E. Jackson. Read more from Professor Jackson at the Naval War College. We welcome readers' comments about NPRP and the books in the various collections; also, your suggestions for this blog are always appreciated. -- Bill Doughty

Honor, Courage, Commitment In 1776

1776 by David McCullough

Review by Bill Doughty

One of the many benefits of the Navy’s Professional Reading list is finding books that bring history to life.

Such is the case with David McCullough’s 1776, a compelling, lively story of the fragile beginnings of our nation and how the United States nearly didn’t make it.

McCullough introduces us to George Washington, King George III, and Benedict Arnold, as well as lesser-known but equally colorful characters like Major General Charles Lee, Washington’s deputy.

About Lee: “He was a spare, odd-looking man with a long, hooked nose and dark, bony face. Rough in manner, rough of speech, he had nothing of Washington’s dignity. Even in uniform he looked perpetually unkempt . . . He had been married to an Indian woman, the daughter of a Seneca chief,” writes McCullough. “Lee was also self-assured, highly opinionated, moody, and ill-tempered (his Indian name was Boiling Water), and he was thought by many to have the best military mind of any of the generals, a view he openly shared.”

Using hundreds of quotes from archived letters, diaries, and newspaper accounts of the time, McCullough shows how the honor of individuals – Americans, “Loyalists,” and the British – was tested in battle. He describes the commitment of leaders and volunteers in fruit orchard battles, city sieges, and long marches through forests in the dead of night. He reveals the courage of the mostly volunteer militia against overwhelming odds, facing the British army and Hessian forces.

Honor, courage and commitment come together in the story of Henry Knox of Boston. Knox was a self-educated bookseller from Boston who enjoyed reading about the “military art” and who became a colonel in Washington’s army.

“Colonel Henry Knox was hard not to notice,” writes McCullough. “Six feet tall, he bulked large, weighing perhaps 250 pounds. He had a booming voice. He was gregarious, jovial, quick of mind, highly energetic – ‘very fat, but very active’ – and all of twenty-five.”

McCullough writes: “The army that had crossed in the night from Brooklyn was, in the light of day on August 30, a sorry sight to behold – filthy, bedraggled, numb with fatigue, still soaked to the skin, many of them sick and emaciated. The army that had gone off to Brooklyn cheering was no more.”

Knox had the idea of bringing 58 mortars and cannon from Fort Ticonderoga in New York to the outskirts of Boston.

Traveling over snow-blanketed hills and across ice-covered rivers, cutting down trees and using sleds, Knox and his team succeeded in bringing the heavy guns (believed to be 120,000 pounds in total) to Washington. Knox’s heroic act helped deal a powerful and demoralizing early blow to the British.

1776 shows the few victories, but it includes painful details of the losses and the almost hopelessness of the situation at times.

The capture of more than a thousand American prisoners in Brooklyn was part of a terrible campaign in New York, including a retreat into New Jersey.

Thomas Paine famously wrote in The American Crisis:

“These are the times that try men’s souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: it is dearness only that gives everything its value.”

Paine's writings unquestionably inspired the leaders, warriors and patriots of the time. Washington is said to have ordered Paine's words read throughout the Continental Army.

The tide for Washington turned, thanks to freak weather conditions, some political crises on both sides of the Atlantic, and a timely capture of British vessels carrying resources all helped turn the tide for the colonies.

Logistics played a key role in determining the outcome of the war, according to military leaders and historians worldwide, and the story of 1776 and logistics still resonates with allies of the United States today.

In 2007, Vice Adm. Yoshinari Kawano, Commander of the Maritime Materiel Command of the Japan Maritime Self Defense Force, spoke at the Supply Corps Birthday Ball at Yokosuka, Japan. He talked about the heroism of 1776 from a logistics perspective.

Kawano said he thinks Americans won the Revolutionary War for these reasons: Britain’s long supply lines, blockades against British supply vessels by America’s allies (France, Spain, and the Netherlands), and George Washington’s leadership in capturing British ships laden with provisions and ammunition.

“With this triumph in the campaign, Washington made the Congress acknowledge the importance of building the Navy, and eventually led to the birth of the Supply Corps,” Kawano said.

“What may be said in the summary of these historical events is that the United States won against the Kingdom of Great Britain because it won the war of supply.”

In the May 2009 issue of Seapower, Admiral Gary Roughead, U.S. Navy’s Chief of Naval Operations, discussed the importance of logistics now and in the years ahead.

“Our ability to move significant amounts of logistics at sea and throughput them at sea is going to be important in the future,” Roughead said.

Learning the lessons of history and putting history in context is one of the benefits of the CNO’s professional reading program.

Our beginnings were so remarkably tenuous...

In 1776, McCullough writes: “The war was a longer, far more arduous and more painful struggle than later generations would understand or fully appreciate.”

“The year 1776 . . . (was) a year of all-too-few victories, of sustained suffering, disease, hunger, desertion, cowardice, disillusionment, defeat, terrible discouragement, and fear, as they would never forget, but also of phenomenal courage and bedrock devotion to country, and that, too, they would never forget.”

The beginnings of U.S. military core values and ethos...

McCullough concludes, “Especially for those who had been with Washington and who knew what a close call it was at the beginning – how often circumstance, storms, contrary winds, the oddities or strengths of individual character had made the difference – the outcome seemed little short of a miracle.”

Reading 1776 made me want to pick up Power, Faith, and Fantasy – America in the Middle East, 1776 to the Present by Michael B. Oren (2007).

Oren’s book shows that while the 13 colonies fought for their independence, American merchant vessels became a target of the mighty British fleet, North African pirates, and other countries’ navies. This set the stage for American naval hero John Paul Jones, Thomas Jefferson’s engagement of what would become the “Middle East,” and the legacy of the Barbary Wars: “. . . to the Shores of Tripoli.”

But that’s another read.

A version of this review was originally published in the Navy’s Supply Corps Newsletter. In researching links for this posting, I stumbled across an amazingly detailed and provocative blog about the history of this period, a Boston perspective: Boston 1775; worth checking out! Coming soon on Navy Reads, an interview with the chief creator of the Navy Professional Reading Program...

Why Women Should Rule the World

Don’t women already rule the world? My first guest blogger on Navy Reads… Lt.j.g. Theresa Donnelly puts Dee Dee Myers’s Why Women Should Rule the World in perspective. For more information on Theresa’s take on women and diversity in the Navy – and a full report on the recent Sea Services Leadership Association symposium – you may wish to visit GI Jess’s blog. No question about Navy's commitment

to diversity.

Guest Perspective on SSLA Symposium

by Lt.j.g. Theresa Donnelly

The Sea Services Leadership Association symposium, held June 18-19, honored women leaders, presented networking opportunities and promoted mentoring in the Navy, Marine Corps and Coast Guard.

For a list of keynote speakers, please check out my more detailed blog post on another friend’s blog (GI Jess). For Bill’s Navy Reads, I wanted to concentrate on how Dee Dee Myers opened my mind to a “woman’s place” in this world.

Dee Dee Myers, who comes from a Navy family, spoke about being the first female White House Press Secretary in the first two years of President Clinton’s administration in 1992 and 1993.

All attendees got free copies of her book, “Why Women Should Rule the World” (for which she kindly stayed afterwards and signed) and in her book, as well as in her speech, she brought up many interesting observations about women in the workplace. For example, women tend to be more collaborative and consensus building than men. Also, companies who employ more women tend to offer more perspectives, fresh ideas and varied experiences. In her book, Myers cites several examples where women have enabled peace processes in war-torn countries and have been crucial to the rebuilding of nations, such as Rwanda after the 1994 genocide. She sites numerous examples of the positive impact women have made in business, politics and education.

But, even with those great examples, I still found some of the statistics about women in business disheartening, like that only 2.6 percent of heads of Fortune 500 companies are women, Or, that only 16 percent of seats in the House and Senate are filled by women.

Even in the Navy, with all the initiatives to facilitate more women in the Navy’s highest positions, the number of female CMCs was quite disappointing. According to Master Chief Jackie DiRosa, director, CMC Management Office “We have 57 female CMCs, out of approximately 760 CMCs total (AC/FTS numbers). We have nearly 160 female Master Chiefs of which 57 are CMCs. However, keep in mind that MCPOs are one percent of the total force...nearly 3000 strong. Yet out of nearly 3000 MCPOs, only 160 are female.”

These numbers alone demonstrate that women still have a long way to go in being equally represented in the workforce. Especially, when one considers that (as mentioned in Myers book), “women (in the U.S.) now earn 60 percent of all bachelor’s and master’s degrees.”

So my question is, if the U.S. has so many educated women, why are they not in the top political, medical, educational, military and other professional positions? The book (which I devoured on my plane ride back to Hawaii) cites many reasons including not enough women who ask for promotions and how many women feel forced to leave their jobs because of their difficulties balancing having a family with their work life.

Much progress has been made in terms of women, but many small subtleties still exist. I feel these can be setbacks to women’s advancement, such as the informal networks men have like a golf outing where talks of promotions can (and do) happen. Or, another example might be when a man re-words an idea that the lone women just said in a meeting. These are the type of barriers we discussed and ways women can overcome these obstacles.

Myers also spoke of her time as press secretary as a great experience, but said she still lacked the authority to really have the kind of power she needed to perform certain functions, and that many times she was left out of some very important decisions she needed to convey to the press. She had many reservations about taking the job because President Clinton assigned George Stephanopoulos as director of communications, making Myers a back-up briefer. This was the first time in history the job was split up in this fashion, and it led to a lot of overlap between job duties.

Stephanopoulous, now chief Washington correspondent and anchor of ABC News’s This Week, writes, “Smart, funny, and tough — Dee Dee Myers may not have ruled the world, but she held her own at the highest levels of the White House. Here she shows how she did it, what she learned, and what all women should know about how to succeed and lead in a world where the deck is all too often stacked against them.”

Mary Matalin, former counselor to President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney, writes, “Women around the world are rewriting history at a ferocious pace with or without permission. Though provocatively titled, Why Women Should Rule the World is no polemic, but a deeply researched, evocative rendering of this transformation in progress. Dee Dee’s own personal and professional history is a frontline testimonial to women creating their own reality and in so doing changing the world’s.”

Myers’s book follows in the footsteps of Torie Clarke’s Lipstick on a Pig, a great read, also from behind the scenes in the White House.

In Lipstick, Clarke writes about her experience as press secretary to Senator John McCain, serving on the staffs of Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush, and working in the Pentagon as Assistant Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs during President George W. Bush’s first term in office, for Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. Clarke offers a clear-eyed treatise on the need for honesty and transparency in government. -- Bill Doughty

Father’s Day Perspective

By Bill Doughty

My grandfather fought in “The Great War,” World War I – the one that was supposed to end all wars... He fought for Germany, and had a jagged scar from a French bayonet that went through his arm, shrapnel in his neck and scars on various other parts of his body.

He remembered the horrors of the trenches – the gas, the terror, the gangrene and the rats. A quiet, creative and spiritual man who before and after the war made a living as a chef in Europe and in the States, my grandfather was also physically very strong and powerful.

He and my grandmother escaped Germany after the war, just as the German economy imploded but, thankfully, before the Third Reich’s talons clawed out of the ashes.

So that they could start a family in the United States, free and safe, my grandparents had to say goodbye to their loved ones in Germany. In most cases it was a forever goodbye.

I was about 10 when my grandfather and I looked at his old black-and-white coffee-table-sized book about WWI. Now, you can find similar types of books, but with better photography, printed on better paper. They’re easy to find in the bargain section at Borders or Barnes and Noble, but in 1964 there were no such mega book franchises, and books were more valued and valuable, or so it seems.

Like today, in 1964 war raged in remote areas of the world, including in a place whose name we were all learning: Vietnam. It was the year the Beatles and the Ford Mustang made their debut in the U.S., plans were announced to build the New York World Trade Center, and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was awarded the Nobel Peace prize.

But, this post isn’t about war and peace, per se, or about that big old picture book, or even about my beloved grandfather.

It’s about perspective.

In a way, it’s about our understanding of history, too.

I was born in 1954, the year the Supreme Court ruled in Brown v. Board of Education that segregation of schools was unconstitutional. It was also the year Tolkien published two of his Rings books, William Golding published Lord of the Flies, and Hemingway won the Nobel Prize for Literature.

If I subtract my current age, 55, from the year I was born, we go back to 1899, the 19th Century! It was the year the Spanish-American War ended (our Senate ratified the Paris Peace Treaty by only one vote on Feb. 6, 1899), the Philippine-American War, also known as the Philippine Insurrection, started and Ernest Hemingway was born. Old Man and the... See?

Back another 55 years – 1844, the year the first telegram was sent, James Polk defeated Henry Clay and the Mexican-American War, though not officially proclaimed, was in full effect. One year later, 1845, the U.S. Naval Academy would be established, the U.S. would annex Texas and Frederick Douglass would ignite the anti-slavery abolitionist movement with his writings, fueled a few years later with the publication of Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin, a book Abraham Lincoln said helped start the Civil War.

Go back one more chunk of 55 years, and it’s 1789, the year of our first presidential election, in which George Washington was elected to the first of his two terms and John Adams became the first vice president – just 13 years after Thomas Paine’s Common Sense and the signing of the Declaration of Independence.

The point is not that I’m old (that’s besides the point)... Getting older gives you perspective.

So, now I imagine the perspective my grandfather had, his understanding of the world and history and the love he had for his adopted country. Like most American families, we enjoy our gifts of freedom because of generations who sacrificed so much.

It’s intriguing to consider some of the great thinkers in literature and science, using my own lifespan so far of (only) 55 years as a yardstick. Those authors’ voices don’t seem so far away. They seem more relevant and alive than ever.

Think how many advances there have been since 1789, 1844, 1899, 1954 – not just in technology but also in our understanding of the mysteries of the universe and the mind. These mysteries can sometimes be revealed in books, now with an even greater diversity of voices from which to learn.

As a nation we are still riding the wave of the Enlightenment and its direct effect: the beginning of the United States of America.

What will we say about 2009? Who can even imagine our world in 2064, 55 years from now?

Will we learn the lessons of the past? Or, as we read from Santayana and Huxley, are we condemned to repeat our history?

I wonder what my late grandfather would say. He and my grandmother certainly applied the lessons of history and, in doing so, provided a better world for their descendants.

Happy Father’s Day, Pop-pop.

Coming soon, an updated review of David McCullough’s 1776.

Reading Hope for the Future

Three Cups of Tea
by Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin

Review by Bill Doughty

When sailors stationed in Afghanistan and Iraq were asked what they were reading, the book on almost everyone’s list was Three Cups of Tea - One Man’s Mission to Promote Peace... One School at a Time.

Three Cups is the story of humanitarian Greg Mortenson’s achievement, starting with nothing, to build 78 schools in Pakistan and Afghanistan over the past 16 years. Building those schools has empowered young people, especially young women – in the backyard of the Taliban.

Mortenson, current Nobel Prize nominee, is scheduled to speak aboard the USS Midway Museum in San Diego on July 1, 2009.

Mortenson shows how tolerance, moderation and education – from a position of respect and perseverance – are the strongest ways to confront blind fundamentalism.

Describing a meeting in Skardu with members of his diverse team – a refugee from India-occupied Kashmir, a member of the Ismaeli Sect, Sunni and Shiite Muslims – he says:

“We all sat there laughing and sipping tea peacefully,” Mortenson says. “An infidel and representatives from three warring sects of Islam. And I thought if we can get along this well, we can accomplish anything. The British policy was ‘divide and conquer.’ But I say ‘unite and conquer.’”

Mortenson was challenged by local officials many times to prove he wasn’t trying to convert Muslims, to either Christianity or an entirely American way of life.

Through his actions he proved he only wanted to open opportunities for education. His achievements in doing so are a tribute to his late sister, as readers learn early in the book.

In order to achieve his vision, Mortenson learned local customs, demonstrated deep respect for disparate belief systems and showed humility and caring – not out of a position of weakness but, as in martial arts, out of what Relin calls “steely-mindedness” of resolve, power and strength.

Mortenson earned a reputation through demonstrated good deeds. That reputation opened doors along

the way.

By showing respect for cultural and tribal ways, Mortenson proved his goal was simple yet profound:

“I don’t want to teach Pakistan’s children to think like Americans,” Mortenson says. “I just want them to have a balanced, nonextremist education. That idea is at the very center of what we do.”

Education/empowerment, especially of women, leads to peace in a region where one out of three babies dies before the age of one.

“Once you educate the boys, they tend to leave the villages and go search for work in the cities,” Mortenson explains. “But the girls stay home, become leaders in the community, and pass on what they’ve learned. If you really want to change a culture, to empower women, improve basic hygiene and health care, and fight high rates of infant mortality, the answer is to educate girls.”

Education is also the best antidote to Wahabi madrassas, “beehive” indoctrination camps of extremism that teach a messianic puritan form of Islam. Wahabi-ism fuels Al Qaeda and followers of Osama Bin Laden and justifies hatred, violence, terror and violation of women’s rights.

Mortenson’s work through his Central Asia Institute is possible because of international and American business leaders, ordinary citizens and even school children (Pennies for Peace).

Mortenson also credits his success to the critical support of Muslim leaders, such as Syed Abbas, supreme leader of northern Pakistan’s Shia:

“The true core tenants of Islam are justice, tolerance and charity, and Syed Abbas represented the moderate center of Muslim faith eloquently,” Mortenson said.

For Westerners who misunderstand or stereotype Muslims, Mortenson says:

“Most people who practice the true teachings of Islam, even conservative mullahs like Syed Abbas, believe in peace and justice, not in terror. Just as the Torah and Bible teach concern for those in distress, the Koran instructs all Muslims to make caring for widows, orphans and refugees a priority.”

Written with journalist David Oliver Relin, Three Cups offers great attention to detail as it explains key moments in history in the region in the 90s and into this century.

The authors show the rise of the Taliban, the tragedy of the conflict between India and Pakistan in 1999 and the meaning of the murder of Ahmed Shah Massoud in Afghanistan, just days before 9/11. Described as his country’s Che Guevara, with a face like Bob Marley...

Ahmed Shah Massoud was known as the Lion of the Panjshir, for the ferocious way he had defended his country from Soviet invaders, repelling superior forces from his ancestral Panjshir Valley nine times with brilliant guerilla warfare tactics.

Mortenson was in Pakistan to build more schools when, on Sept. 11, he was awakened by his bodyguard and told, “A village called New York has been bombed.”

Despite the dangers, Mortenson’s work through CAI continues.

His talk at the USS Midway Museum July 1, open to the general public, is community-based education in Central Asia, according to a press release. Proceeds will be donated to CAI, Mortenson’s non-profit organization.

The Wall Street Journal reported last year that Mortenson has attracted the notice and readership of Adm. Mike Mullen, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and other military leaders who have sought his advice.

One of his biggest civilian supporters, Jon Krakauer, reclusive author of Into Thin Air, introduced Mortenson for a CAI fundraiser shortly after the attack of 9/11. Krakauer began his introduction by reciting William Butler Yeats's “The Second Coming”:

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold,

Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,

The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere

The ceremony of innocence is drowned;

The best lack all conviction, while the worst

Are full of passionate intensity

Bowa Johar, a Balti poet, leads Chapter 16 of Three Cups of Tea:

No human, nor any living thing, survives long under the eternal sky. The most beautiful women, the most learned men, even Mohammed, who heard Allah’s own voice, all did wither and die. All is temporary.

The sky outlives everything. Even suffering.

Three Cups of Tea shows the importance of literature, literacy and librarians, even in the faraway mountains of Pakistan, and the power of one man to move people to move mountains to help people.

A highlight of the narrative is when Mortenson brings his wife and mother to the inauguration ceremony of his yellow-painted school in Korphe.

The jeeps parked by the bridge and, as the procession of Westerners crossed it, the people of Korphe cheered their arrival from the bluff above. The small yellow school, freshly painted for the occasion and festooned with banners and Pakistani flags, was clearly visible as the group climbed to Korphe.

Under a blue sky and surrounded by the world’s biggest mountains, Mortenson’s bright yellow school, like a small yellow ribbon, inspires hope for the future.

I write this on Flag Day. Mortenson speaks aboard Midway just before Independence Day weekend. As we read and reflect on the meaning of patriotism, perhaps it's good to think about how education, empowerment and enlightenment lead to liberation and freedom from oppression.

What’s on your summer reading list?

Chasing Salvation: The Kite Runner

Review by Bill Doughty

Kite flying in Afghanistan is expected to draw blood. That’s one revelation in Khaled Hosseini’s masterpiece The Kite Runner.

Blood links together the main characters, so there's little surprise when, early on, the “hero” ends up with blood on his hands, both literally and metaphorically.

Will he find redemption?

All of the main characters have deep flaws; they must come to terms with their circumstances in a violent society: internal implosion, Russian occupation, Taliban corruption, war.

It’s clear that this book is on the Navy’s reading list because of its power to introduce us to Afghanistan’s culture and history, where honor and tradition in a patriarchal caste society is a double-edged sword -- grounding people but grinding them, as well.

Afghanistan is a place where respect, loyalty and honor are absolutes... depending on your point of view.

This is the story of a father/son relationship, where a young man learns what it means to have moral courage and take a stand.

The book moves from the greener, freer past of Afghanistan to the dusty oppression of today.

Here’s how a character describes the Taliban's version of Sharia (Muslim religious law) midway through the novel:

“They don’t let you be human.” He pointed to a scar above his right eye cutting a crooked path through his bushy eyebrow. “I was at a soccer game in Ghazi Stadium in 1998. Kabul against Mazar-i-Sharif, I think, and by the way the players weren’t allowed to wear shorts. Indecent exposure, I guess.” He gave a tired laugh. “Anyway, Kabul scored a goal and the man next to me cheered loudly. Suddenly this young bearded fellow who was patrolling the aisles, eighteen years old at most by the look of him, he walked up to me and struck me on the forehead with the butt of his Kalashnikov. ‘Do that again and I’ll cut out your tongue, you old donkey!’ he said.” Rahim Khan rubbed the scar with a gnarled finger “I was old enough to be his grandfather and I was sitting there, blood gushing down my face, apologizing to that son of a dog.”

The violence depicted can be excruciating, especially at the start and end of the hero’s journey of redemption. But the blood-letting is balanced by the sensual prose describing a peaceful pre-war Afghanistan:

We sat against the low cemetery wall under the shade thrown by the pomegranate tree. In another month or two, crops of scorched yellow weeds would blanket the hillside, but that year the spring showers had lasted longer than usual, nudging their way into early summer, and the grass was still green, peppered with tangles of wildflowers. Below us, Wazir Akbar Khan’s white-walled, flat-topped houses gleamed in the sunshine, the laundry hanging on clotheslines in their yards stirred by the breeze to dance like butterflies.

The Kite Runner explores the relationships between Afghanistan and Pakistan. It shows how India’s influence abounds in references to food “tandoor,” tea “chai,” and music and entertainment. We come to understand more how the cultures evolved long before some of these countries were created.

Like great literature, this novel is filled with allegory and irony, pathos and hope.

Anyone touched directly or indirectly by events in Afghanistan (which means anyone) will benefit by reading this novel and understanding some of the cultural differences -- and similarities -- presented.

I’ve already started Khaled Hosseini’s follow-up novel, A Thousand Splendid Suns . . . no surprise that it too starts with flawed characters in a melancholy world.

Will they find redemption?

(Which books do Sailors and Marines recommend for long deployments? What titles should be on Navy Exchange book shelves for military spouses? Which children's books make the best read-alouds for deployed moms and dads to record? We hope to explore each of these questions -- and more -- in the months ahead. And, there are plenty more book reviews to come. Your comments are always welcome!)

For more information about the Navy Reading Program: http://www.navyreading.navy.mil/

Mind-Expanding Diversity in San Diego

By Bill Doughty

Are good athletes, high achievers and strong leaders born that way or are they developed - or both?

The question was posed by Rear Adm. Patrick McGrath, the Commander of Naval Air Forces Reserve at this past week’s Fleet Diversity Council in San Diego.

The Council, led by Navy Capt. Ken Barrett, was entitled “The Power of What If?: An Open-Minded Approach to Diversity.”

Rear Adm. McGrath shared the insights of Malcolm Gladwell, author of Blink, Tipping Point and Outliers.

In Outliers, Gladwell shows how an accident of birth may give an arbitrary advantage in size and experience to children who play organized hockey, an advantage that continues into their pro careers.

Those born in January, February and March, right after the age-class eligibility cutoff of Jan. 1, are naturally bigger and stronger than the younger kids, so they get more playing time and coaches’ attention.

The same circumstances occur in baseball and soccer, creating bias against kids with the “wrong” birthday, according to statistics cited in Outliers. Last December ESPN verified the stats for National Hockey Players, showing that 158 players had birthdays in Jan., Feb. and Mar., while only 97 players had birthdays in Oct., Nov. and Dec.

Gladwell is one of the authors featured in the Navy’s Reading Program. His work keeps coming up in the context of diversity and the Navy’s achievements at recruiting, retaining and rewarding its total force.

Are we moving toward a "tipping point" in understanding, accepting and implementing diversity now that the Navy has been selected as one of America’s Top 50 employers?

At the Diversity Council Rear Adm. McGrath and DiversityInc CEO Luke Visconti spoke about the business of diversity: get the best people and keep the best people... and listen to alternative voices.

As the Chief Executive Officer for DiversityInc, Mr. Visconti is a renowned lecturer who has appeared on FOX, MSNBC, CNBC and NPR. His magazine DiversityInc has a circulation of more than 200,000.

Key business points from Mr. Visconti:

-- Diversity management increases engagement; engagement drives innovation and productivity in quantifiable, measurable ways.

-- Representation, recruitment and retention are linked.

-- Communication and mentoring are critical.

Next, communication expert Dr. Steve Robbins gave a powerful talk about critical thinking as an antidote to unintentional intolerance.

A flexible, adaptable and engaged mind - one that reads! - is better able to overcome adversity and become a better leader and achiever.

Be more mindful and less mindless...

...It’s good business.

Recently, the CNO recognized the Navy’s Strategic Diversity Working Group which received the 2009 Diversity Council Honors Award. Adm. Gary Roughead said, “Your demonstrated results and commitment toward measurement, accountability, communication and education have set the standard for others to follow.”

The group met in San Diego Apr. 29 after the Fleet Diversity Council, where they planned community outreach events and conducted other Navy Diversity business.

It was a busy week for Navy diversity professionals, many of whom attended the 29th annual professional development and training symposium of the Association of Naval Services Officers (ANSO) nearby.

Lt. Lori Campbell, of Navy Recruiting District San Diego, speaks with members of the La Habra High School Navy Junior ROTC program at ANSO's Youth Outreach Program Apr. 28, 2009. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 3rd Class David Smart)

Once again, books were part of the discussion. Sailors, Marines and Coast Guardsmen were treated to a keynote speech by Joachim de Posada, author of Don’t Eat the Marshmallow...Yet! -The Secret to Sweet Success in Work and Life.

Attendees also received a copy of Juan Gonzalez’s Harvest of Empire - A History of Latinos in America, which the New York Times called, “A serious, significant contribution to understanding who the Hispanics of the United States are and where they come from.”

Some key points from Dr. de Posada’s book and motivational talk:

-- “Each morning in Africa a gazelle wakes up and knows it must run faster than the fastest lion, and each morning a lion wakes up knowing it must run faster than the slowest gazelle.” But, applied to competition and cooperation between countries, “Technology has made this world a level playing field.”

Community Outreach: Cmdr. Yvette Davids, of the Association of Naval Services Officers, presents a certificate of commendation to Cadet Seaman Emmarow Taledo, a freshman in the Navy Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps , at Junipero Serra High School for maintaining a 4.0 grade point average. (Photo by MC2 Daniel Taylor)

-- “If people feel passion for what they do, they will do well.”

-- Successful people are willing to delay gratification (“think long term”), keep promises, assume responsibility/accountability and “do what unsuccessful people are unwilling to do.”

-- Teamwork: “None of us is worth more than the sum of all of us.”

Of course, there was a lot more happening at ANSO all week long, with participation by numerous flag officers, senior and junior officers and enlisted leaders and people from all three naval services. Vice Adm. D.C. Curtis, Commander, Naval Surface Forces gave a passionate talk about Maritime Strategy and leadership empowerment at a luncheon on Apr. 30.

A big part of ANSO's agenda was reaching out to the community, including a youth outreach program with a Coast Guard vertical delivery demonstration, a Marine Corps weapons booth and K-9 (working dog) demonstration, Navy SEALs demonstration and Navy SPAWAR static display.

Kids from different schools and organizations around San Diego County grab Navy gear at the youth outreach program during ANSO Apr. 28, 2009. (Photo by MC3(SW/AW) David Smart)

For more information about ANSO and to learn how to join, visit their website at www.ansomil.org.

Diversity Update...

We just had to share this great photo from the Naval Service Training Command, Navy City Outreach, Chicago; the photo was taken June 10 at the Rickover Naval Academy commencement :

Valedictorian and Cadet Commander Jaqueline Duarte is overcome with emotion during her remarks to the first graduating class of the Rickover Naval Academy in Chicago. Mrs. Eleanor Rickover walked from her seat on stage to provide Duarte with a much needed hug and words of encouragement. Duarte will be leaving for Plebe Summer at the U.S. Naval Academy in 19 days. (Photo by Lt. Jeffrey S. Gray.)

We’ve been mining from the diversity vein since the beginning of this blog and have seen how the Navy Reading Program relates... Next we’ll turn the page to The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini. An awesome read.
What's on your book shelf?

Hōkūle‘a

This week I had the privilege of participating in a Native Hawaiian Cultural Communications Course at Mokapu -- Marine Corps Base Hawaii (Kaneohe), sponsored by DoD. Key points: Our similarities outweigh our differences; understanding each other helps build trust and partnership.

We all respect and protect our environment: Malama kekahi i kekahi; Malama Aina. We respect and protect the earth: Malama Honua.

I've had the link to the Hokule‘a blog on Navy Reads (under Maritime/Voyages) since shortly after starting these reviews and discussion.

The most recent posting on the Hokule‘a blog is a Q&A about their recent voyage to Palmyra. Fascinating insights and brilliant imagery.

From the Hokule‘a blog:

"For more than 30 years, voyagers aboard Hokule‘a – the iconic traditional Hawaiian open-ocean canoe – have combined the wisdom of their ancestors with modern insights to navigate a course for our future. Embracing the concept of Malama Hawai‘i (caring for and protecting Hawai‘i), these explorers have reconnected to their heritage while helping to foster a community committed to peace, caring and a healthier world.

"Now, Hokule‘a and her sister vessels will begin an eight year voyage to circumnavigate the globe to find answers, through exploration, on our journey toward a shared destination – a healthy and sustainable Earth for future generations. With Hokule‘a as a catalyst for global attention and local action, the worldwide voyage is a journey that will chart a new course for sustainability."

(Photo: Mike Taylor)

By the way, two books from the Navy Reading Program came up in discussions or as an actual part of Native Hawaiian Cultural Communications presentation: Covey's 7 Habits of Highly Effective People and Malcolm Gladwell's Tipping Point. Both were brought up in the context of relationships/connections and developing and building trust. Maritime Strategy!

Voices from WWII Come Alive: Doolittle Speaks

History buffs, this comes to us courtesy of USNI.org:
Japan’s late-1941 attack on Pearl Harbor left America feeling vulnerable, and Japan invincible. On April 18, 1942, American pilots – flying from the aircraft carrier USS Hornet – cracked Japan’s confidence. Led by Lieutenant Colonel "Jimmy" Doolittle, their daring raid on Tokyo was the first WWII strike against the Japanese homeland. In 1983, U. S. Naval Institute historians recorded a conversation with Doolittle as part of an oral history project. Until weeks ago, the tapes of that interview sat hidden on a dusty shelf. Rediscovered and digitized, we’ve posted them so you can hear in his own voice, the man who made history with the "Doolittle Raid."

Some other great related links:
Navy.mil's the Course to Midway
Naval History and Heritage Command on The Battle of Midway
PBS on The Perilous Fight

Two recommended books from the Navy Reading Program about WWII in the Pacific:
Eagle Against the Sun
Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors

"Accelerate Your Mind"

The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People 

By Stephen R. Covey 

Review by Bill Doughty

This is more than a book review. That’s because the ‘7 Habits’ is more than a book...

Covey calls his groundbreaking work a “companion in the continual process of change and growth.” He challenges readers to take his “companion” with them on life’s journey, integrating his seven habits at home and at work to build relationships, strengthen leadership and chart a course.

No wonder The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People was selected for the CNO’s recommended reading list. Covey’s insights about character often dovetail with senior leaders’ strategic guidance; the Navy’s core values of honor, courage, and commitment; and Navy Ethos. In fact, he spends a lot of time talking about courage. “High courage and consideration (of others) are both essential to win/win,” Covey says. 

Think of the best leaders you’ve known, the most respected colleagues and co-workers. Chances are, they have a win/win approach to leadership (more about that later). . . 

Using diagrams and models Covey takes us through the interlocking pieces of his 7 habits. 

Habit 1, “Be Proactive,” is all about empowerment, the ability to control your environment – making good choices and determining the course you will navigate. 

Habit 2, “Begin with the End in Mind,” gets deeper into character and values, recognizing that people who have a sense of purpose are indeed highly effective. For Sailors, Marines and civilians serving in the Department of the Navy, the CNO’s Guidance for 2009 reinforces the Maritime Strategy as the Navy’s purpose – “sustaining combat readiness, building a fleet for the future and developing 21st Century leaders.” The Maritime Strategy, “A Cooperative Strategy for 21st Century Seapower,” puts the ‘operative’ in ‘cooperative’ for “Security, Stability, Seapower.”

 

Habit 3, “Put First Things First,” discusses organization and implementation or, as CNOs and Fleet Commanders have put it, “focus on execution.” Covey says that principle-centered leadership comes from practicing the principles of personal management, and draws this distinction: “Management, remember, is clearly different from leadership. Leadership is primarily a high-powered, right brain activity. It’s more of an art; it’s kind of a philosophy.” He shows us that we have to manage our lives and our selves before we can lead others. 

Habit 4, “Think Win-Win,” begins the evolution to independence and eventually to the ultimate goal, interdependence. Here it’s all about cooperation, teamwork, and consideration for others – creating a paradigm of high trust and a vision that is positive and proactive. 

Habit 5, “Seek First to Understand, Then to Be Understood,” is Covey’s very powerful communication message about the importance of listening, summed up in the popular maxim: “People need to know how much you care before they care how much you know.” 

Habit 6, “Synergize,” talks about the creativity that comes from bringing all the habits together to open new possibilities for us, our parents and children, and our leaders and coworkers. Covey thinks this can change people and society itself. “Could synergy not create a new script for the next generation – one that is more geared to services and contribution, and is less protective, less adversarial, less selfish; one that is more open, more trusting, more giving, and is less defensive, protective and political; one that is more loving, more caring and is less possessive and judgmental?”

 

Habit 7, “Sharpen the Saw,” is the habit of balanced self-renewal, completely in line with the Navy’s emphasis on continually training, maintaining, educating, and learning. These are the basics of the seven habits in what Covey calls his “companion.” For many readers, this is not new information, but it can reinforce and strengthen already good habits. 

Personally, I re-read one or two chapters from time to time, once after a 2007 podcast of “Talk of the Nation – Science Friday” with Ira Flatow on National Public Radio.  The show’s topic was “Can Thoughts and Actions Change Our Brains” – a fascinating discussion of some pioneering work in neuroscience called neuroplasticity (changeability of the brain).

In essence, science is showing how our brain can change in response to our life experiences and even the very thoughts we think. 

Behavior can change the way our brain works – even structurally. Whether it’s called “mind over matter,” “the power of positive thinking,” “the power of prayer and meditation” or “cognitive behavior therapy (CBT),” it is thinking about thinking in a different way for a better outcome. CBT might as well be called “Covey’s Better Thinking.” 

Neuroscientists are proving that cognitive behavior therapy can help people suffering from depression, obsessive-compulsive behavior and post-traumatic stress disorder. (Check out the great discussion about PTSD and traumatic brain injury, mentioning neuroplasticity, in a Bloggers Roundtable discussion on PTSD from Jan. 2009.)

CBT can even help with brain motor cortex functions in stroke victims. Interestingly, the development of neurons occurs in patients who are self-motivated, not forced . . .  which brings us back to managing ourselves and leading others. 

Nearly everyone can benefit from knowing we can have a lot of control over our own destiny. New discoveries in neuroplasticity reinforce the importance of a positive worldview and the value of education and reading . . . which brings us back to the Covey “book.” 

Covey’s philosophy really is more than a book. It has become synonymous for open and trusting management systems and with how individuals can make good choices about behavior and lifestyle, based on a win-win model of leadership and a positive view of the world . . . which brings us to Covey's blog, a good 7th habit tool.

Stephen R. Covey’s The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People is in the “Management and Strategic Planning” section of the Navy Professional Reading Program Guide. 

For the love of books...

Just a quick post and a shout-out to the Navy Exchange for promoting the Navy Reading Program and offering substantial discounts -- 35 to 40 percent off publishers' list prices.

Here's their press release.

Note that books are also available on line through the Navy Uniform Web Store; NEX says no charge for regular shipping. Naturally, this service is for authorized patrons only.

We'll be posting our next book review soon.

Aloha,

Bill

Welcome Aboard! / Review: Implementing Diversity

Books are still alive and well...

This blog of book reviews and discussion is for those who care about reading and who love the Navy. It is inspired by the Chief of Naval Operations’ Navy Professional Reading Program, launched by Admiral Mike Mullen and continued by Admiral Gary Roughead. It is dedicated to the sailors, civilians and families who serve in, for and with the U.S. Navy. Books selected for review/discussion are from the Reading Program.

Your comments are welcome!

Speaking of which...

In the hopes of promoting diverse views in this blog, I’ve chosen an influential book about diversity for this first posting.

Book Review: “Implementing Diversity” by Marilyn Loden

How to Identify, Value and Implement Diversity – For Everyone

Review by Bill Doughty

One of the first things Marilyn Loden does in her ground-breaking book is identify diverse types of people in an organization. Not by color or gender. Not by age, ethnicity, orientation or religion. Instead, she breaks people into distinct groups: “innovator,” “change agent,” “pragmatist,” “skeptic” and “traditionalist.

Which are you?

Key to implementing diversity, Loden shows, is to understand how you and others in your organization deal with change as one of these types.

“Innovators” and “change agents,” as you’d probably guess, are the sparkplugs and accelerants to change in an organization, but they are in the minority, she says.

“Pragmatists” and “skeptics” can be resistant to change, and “traditionalists” may try to put the brakes on innovation and change. Loden shows that pushback by some groups may be due to misunderstanding…and fear.

“Within every organization people respond to new ideas in distinct and predictable ways, based on differences in individual tolerance of perceived risk,” says Loden.

So, before implementing diversity she says that organizations need to understand the value of the concept.

Loden notes that valuing diversity means respecting and including all people in a flexible, supportive environment.

She says it’s not top-down and reactive but, rather, opportunity-driven and proactive. It’s not a quick-fix but, rather, a comprehensive systematic approach. And, it’s not “one size fits all.” Instead, it’s customized to individuals.

Which is why implementing diversity takes into account the various personality types that exist in any organization and why diversity cannot be implemented most effectively through typical “EEO” or “affirmative action” channels.

According to Loden, implementing diversity comes about through long-term cultural change that is inclusive, not exclusive, with leadership showing how diversity benefits everyone.

Chairman of the Joint Chiefs (former CNO) Admiral Mike Mullen says, “Having the cultural skills, having the diverse backgrounds in order to literally achieve our mission is really critical. That is why diversity is a strategic imperative…I believe from my heart that diversity strengthens the very fabric of who we are.”

Chief of Naval Operations (CNO) Adm. Gary Roughead recorded a podcast on diversity on Feb. 27, 2009.

"In the military and in the Navy, it's important that we are a diverse organization because we have to represent what I call the face of America. As our population changes and the percentages of majority-minority changes... we we have to reflect that same demographic in our Navy,” Roughead said. “We're stronger because of the different perspectives and ideas that people bring to bear."

Admiral Robert F. Willard, Commander of the U.S. Pacific Fleet, called diversity a key leadership issue in one of his Rat-Pac Report podcasts.

“Diversity is critical to the future of our Navy. Frankly, it’s critical to our readiness now,” said Willard.

“When we talk about a diverse workforce, we’re talking about a total workforce so it includes those of us in uniform, those of us that are in reserve status, our civilians and our contractors – every race, every ethnicity, and recognition that gender in our Navy is valued and promoted. We must all be able to see ourselves reflected both up/down and across the Navy.”

Such endorsement from top leadership in an organization is critical, according to Loden, who shows that diversity is an inalienable concept with special meaning for all humans.

“Regardless of what core identities we each have, we all want to be happy, respected, and loved. In the workplace, we want to be recognized for who we are and appreciated for what we do. We want to feel comfortable with those with whom we work. We want to believe that our ideas and opinions are valued and that they influence important decisions that affect us and our work. These are basic desires that we all share, the common ground we stand on...”

Loden’s book includes tools such as assessment and implementation checklists. She gives good, pertinent case studies of implementation successes as well as failures.

Common sense alert: As diversity is implemented, don’t ridicule or purposely shut out anyone, including white male employees, who have traditionally been in the majority of the workforce, she advises.

“When people believe they are ignored or excluded from full participation they put less energy and less of themselves into making the process work.” That statement applies to all groups.

A good strategy, says Loden, is making a business case for diversity – showing the economic benefits of valuing diversity.

For the military, that case is made by senior leaders, military and civilian bosses, chiefs, LPOs and individual deckplate Sailors who tie diversity to readiness and credible leadership.

Valuing and implementing diversity, according to Loden, is good for business.

“The benefits to organizations and individuals are closely aligned,” says Loden.

“Because a welcoming and rewarding work environment produces superior human performance, it is in the employer’s best interests,” she writes.

Once organizations are on the road to implementing diversity, Loden maps out how to accelerate change in the last five chapters of the book: “Laying the Groundwork for Change,” “Reaching the Segments,” “The Diversity Curriculum,” “Best Practices Across Organizations,” and “Towards Full Adoption.”

“Implementing Diversity” is an easy read and important for anyone who is confused about what diversity is – and isn't. It’s most important as a how-to guide for implementing the concept and doing it right … for everyone.

Chances are, your command or nearby library has a copy of this book. Need some suggestions for your reading list? Visit the Navy Professional Reading Program’s web site at www.navyreading.navy.mil