Vindication of the Bad Apple.

I was but a wee NUB (Non Useful Body) aboard the sweet Lady J. when I was exposed to some of the worst leadership available to man.

I was preparing for my first underway and I was frustrated with the long hours I was spending at work (from around 6 am to 6 pm, on a good day). I had a new baby, and a wife who was not yet accustomed to the submariner's lifestyle, so I believe I had some grounds to be frustrated. My direct superior, MMC (SS) JC ***** (I have omitted his last name to protect what little reputation he may have... I don't want to directly commit slander), approached me in one of my surlier moods and asked what the matter was. I, believing he was a sympathetic soul since he had a family of his own, spilled my guts and proceeded to divulge my fears and insecurities. His response will stick with me for the rest of my life, and I apologize for the crudeness but such is the way of the Submariner.

"Stop your fucking bitching. They didn't come in your God damned sea bag did they? You are a fucking Submariner, start acting like it and stop being such a pussy."

Never mind the rest of his inadequacies as a leader, this single point defined how I felt about the man.

Some time later, after I got my fish,  Chanse and I were sitting around in the Engine room shooting the breeze, occupying ourselves amidst the boredom of being underway, when up walks JC. He scolded us for being lazy and sent Chanse off to do some menial task. After we left JC vented to a senior mechanic, Luke, about how I was such a bad influence on the newer guys because I didn't align with his view of what the Navy should be and because I fostered a thirst for knowledge rather than verbatim compliance. He then uttered a phrase that would brand me for the rest of my time on the sweet Lady J.

He looked at Luke and said, "I don't want Runkel hanging around with our NUB's anymore. He is such a Bad Apple... he just doesn't get it." After he left Luke, a good friend of mine, regaled me of this exchange, and from that day on I was "the Bad Apple," a moniker I wore proudly.

Shortly after I was dubbed The Bad Apple my entire division left, and I was the most senior ELT on the boat. Over time new guys came in and I was responsible for training them and helping them acclimatize to submarine life. I had no idea how to do any of that, but I did know how not to do it...JC was a good role model in that respect.

A year or so later JC had left the boat and Jimmy Sitz was on his way out. We were slated to get a new boss, but there was going to be a gap of a few months where we would be leaderless. Jimmy Sitz recommended me to the position, despite protests from the Chiefs that I was too junior to lead. Eventually the Captain and Engineer saw that I was the only option, and concluded that I was better than nothing. My oral board consisted of three extremely knowledgeable men trying to find holes in my knowledge and technical expertise. An hour and a half later I was done and awaiting the verdict.

The Captain called me in to inform me that in his X number of years he had never sat on an oral board that went as perfectly as mine. Normally there would be some questions left unanswered that would need to be looked up, but I had made such an impression on him and the rest of the board members that I left nothing to be desired. He qualified me on the spot.

When we pulled in to port my first call was to JC. He had told me once that I would never qualify LELT because my attitude was so poor. He didn't answer, so I left a voicemail. I haven't heard back from him yet.

I went on to lead my guys for two months. In those two months I drove a hard line with my guys, I ensured the work was done to the standard Jimmy Sitz set for us, and I listened to them. My goal was to foster a working environment where they could come to me with any problem and I would help them deal with it.

My time in the Navy, and especially my time with JC, has reinforced and developed the mottos I live my life by. JC's biggest contribution was reaffirming that knowing how not to do something is as important as knowing how to do it. I have had a long time to think, out there under the deep blue wet thing, and in my ponderings I have come to the realization that, even though JC was the worst boss I have ever had, he still taught me many valuable lessons. Most of the lessons he taught me are centered around how not to be a leader, and how to alienate those above and below myself in the leadership totem pole.The great thing about my interaction with JC and then Jimmy Sitz is that I have seen both ends of the spectrum of leadership. I know what I want to be, and i know what I don't want to be, so in a way I owe JC a thank you card or something.

An idea and ingenuity

As an add on to my previous discussion on Public Relations (Got Milk?), I would like to continue with a discussion of PR from an actual company rather than a movement.

The company Nasty Gal (not what it sounds like) has been growing from humble beginnings since its inception in 2006. Today it is worth millions of dollars, most of which can be attributed to the close relationship and down-to-earth attitude of the owner Sophia Amorusa.

With a fledgling company it is difficult to spend the big bucks on marketing to reach a target audience. As with my milk toting friend, Ms. Amorusa went with the free marketing of Myspace and now Facebook, Twitter, Instagram. Here she works closely with her customers to ensure their needs are being met, presumable operating under the notion that a happy customer is a repeat customer.

Working so closely with her customers is apparently paying off, her business is growing, money is flowing, inventory is cycling through, and word is spreading. The ability to please her customers is an artifact of the scale of her business. The larger her company becomes the harder it will be to please all of her customers, so there will come a time that she will only please a majority.

For now her marketing strategy seems to be inclusive enough to reach her target audience, the novelty of expanding the customer base through word of mouth is genius. It creates the feeling of exclusivity, like the customer knows something others don't.

In the end, I hope this company succeeds, for no other reason than it exemplifies the American Dream.

Techtonics

The art of group leadership is tricky to master. There is always one person who wants to pursue their own agenda. While this may be a good thing in certain situations, it is almost always a distraction to the other members of a group, and it more often than not slows any progress to a crawl.

This can be exemplified in our government. We elect individuals to positions of great importance in hopes that they will carry out our wishes and speak for us. The unfortunate point that invariably comes about is the elected officials tend to go about their own way in the name of their constituents. If their actions were truly the desire of their constituents congress would not have an abysmal approval rating.

It is understandable that any approval rating will not be 100%, but something above a majority would lend more confidence to the system. The current approval rating not only hints at congress's failure to uphold the value of the American people, but it screams it from the tallest peak. The question begging to be asked is why are they still in office? Why do we still gladly suffer these fools?

The simple answer is that the American people do not believe they can make a difference with their vote. They believe that one little vote will not change the course of history. Yet we are thirsty for change and we desire, as expressed in the low approval rating, a new crop of people to alter our future. There in lies the crux. We want a change but we don't enact it. Are we afraid of revolution? Do we fear reprisal from our elected officials?

No, it is not us who should fear them, but they who should fear us. We, the American people, have all the power. We elect them, we tell them what we want, we demand their compliance. The fact that they do not follow our instructions is grounds for termination. We have given them ample opportunities to change their tune and improve our country yet they have continued to bicker and fight like children.

The fact that they continue to argue over the most minute detail should tell us that they are not willing to change, and a compromise that would lead us into a desirable future is not even on the horizon. This squabbling and mud slinging show a group of individuals who care more about their paychecks than their country. They care enough to increase their pay and benefits while the military looses theirs. They care enough to line their own pockets while the average American is scrimping and saving. If the justification for their pay increase is the work they do then my six year old should earn their pay, she can squabble and bicker about petty things just as well as they can. The difference is that my children will eventually reach a compromise

 No government official should wield the power to increase their pay, that power should come only from the people they represent. We, the people, have more power than we realize. We are slowly wiping the sleep from our eyes and we don't like what we see. We, the sleeping giant, will find a new group of people to lead us, a group that will better represent the hard work and resiliency the American people are forged from.

Then, when the dust settles, and the newly elected officials are left to their own devices, and we go back to sleep, the corruption and fighting will continue. Without diligent management from those who place them in power, every elected official will slide into the darkness of corruption. The only thing that dictates the rate of this slide is the moral fibers of those within the system.

Got Milk?

I have a friend who is obsessive (not in a bad way) with breast feeding. It is not only a matter of her breast feeding her kids, oh no. She feels the need to post pictures and articles and (at one point) pictures of a baby staring at a nipple to her facebook profile. While it is slightly unsettling to have a surprise boob pop up on a mostly PG site like facebook, it is also a wonderful medium to get her point across.

There has been a large movement recently to remove the taboo of whipping out a boob in public to feed a child. If you think about it for more than a few seconds it is pretty easy to see that it is not a big deal. Am I forced to eat only at home? Am I forced to cover my head with a fancy shawl when I am chowing down on some delicious waffles (although sometimes things can get pretty messy)? No, of course not, that's a dumb rule that would be impossible to enforce. So why should we make mothers cover their baby munching on some life nectar? Plus, have you ever tried to breath for any length of time with your face under the blanket? I can only imagine how uncomfortable inhaling a porterhouse would be if I were forced to be nestled under my covers.

Side bar,  boob feeding is free, no potential side effects from formulas... only unadulterated nourishment.

It is not surprising that a country fueled by Chicken McNuggets and Quarter Pounders houses people against feeding our children the healthiest food possible. Still, the mothers fight on. The public relations campaign waged by mothers everywhere has sought to empower the breast feeding mother. Nurse-ins have been staged to admonish businesses for kicking nursing mothers out. Nursing mothers have made the local news more than a few times. But still the war wages on.

In the end, my friend has waged a successful PR campaign on behalf of breastfeeding, and nursing in public more specifically. She has taken the taboo out of this act and shown me that it is no different from me snacking on a big juicy, slightly tart, Granny Smith apple while strolling through the mall.

Her other crusade, cloth diapers, is not going as well though. I still don't know how you can justify reusing something that was once covered in toxic goo.

Where the Grickle-grass grows.

The trick to playing the Economy game is to diversify your portfolio, and that's just what media companies have been doing for as long as media has existed. The simple reason is profit, the in depth reason is building a market to reach more people to increase the companies profit.

The easiest way to understand why a firm would desire to grow beyond it's current state can be found whilst analyzing the complexities of the Thneed market.

"I meant no harm. I most truly did not.
But I had to grow bigger. So bigger I got.
I biggered my factory. I biggered my roads.
I biggered my wagons. I biggered the loads
of Thneeds I shiped out. I was shipping them forth
to the South! To the East! To the West! To the North!
I went on biggering...selling more Thneeds.
And I biggered my money, which everyone needs."

Here we see the Once-ler's desire to increase the profits results in an increase in production. Through innovation (the Super-Axe-hacker is capable of chopping down four Truffula Trees in one smacker), Low prices (a Thneed sells for the low cost of $3.98), and versatility of his product ("A Thneed's a Fine-Something-That-All-People-Need! It's a shirt.It's a sock. It's a glove. It's a hat. But it has other uses. Yes, far beyond that. You can use it for carpets. For pillows! For sheets! Or Curtains! Or covers for bicycle seats!") the Once-ler seems to have a great product made from quality material ("The touch of their [Truffula Trees] tufts was much softer than silk. And they had the sweet smell of fresh butterfly milk."). The problem with the business model, other than the lack of sustainability, is his company is wrapped up in a single product. If he were to expand his operation to selling the Truffula fruits, a staple in the diet of the Brown Bar-ba-loots, or possibly a perfume made from the extract of the Truffula tuft he would have increased his share in the market for multiple items.

The ultimate downfall of the Once-ler and his Thneed company can be traced to Once-ler's ignorance of the Law of Unintended Consequences. If the Once-ler had been more of a fan of Adam Smith he may have known that his company, a precursor ot O'Hare Air, was falling victim to his own size.

When the Once-ler announces his intentions to continue "Biggering and BIGGERING and BIGGERING and BIGGERING, turning MORE Truffula Trees into Thneeds..." he does not count on the limitations of his business being reached. When the last Truffula Tree is felled reality crashes down onto our poor friend, the Once-ler. His company is wrecked, his family abandons him, his one companion, the Lorax, leaves him with a "sad, sad backwards glance."

A direct parallel can be drawn to today's businesses. To ensure continued success in a market and fiscal growth, a unique product is not enough. Proper planning and acquisition of other outlets to ensure profit flow is a necessity to growing a business beyond self sustaining.Even a diversity of offered products will increase the profit margins.

Big companies know this, and are capable of this. It is easier for them to buy other companies to obtain their product or idea, whereas a smaller company has more barriers to entry and competition due to smaller coffers.

All economics aside, the Once-ler should have practiced more conservation. If a Thneed is truly something that everyone needs, it is worth the extra time and money to plant a few trees.

A narrative based on The Lorax, by Dr. Seuss. 

Bring me that Horizon

Each one of us is inspired by many different things. We can be inspired by the actions of an individual, by a speech, by an emotion, for a cause, or for an idea. Each instance of inspiration can be specific to the person, or to a whole group, it all depends on the alignment of the group or the individual.

In some cases the individual is inspired to inspire others, and thus a leader is born.

Margaret Mead said "Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has." She is absolutely correct, nothing changes unless we, and people of like minds, can get together and decide to enact the change. While an individual may make the difference it is harder to ignore a group, and unfortunately we will be ignored until we reach that critical mass that allows us to increase our influence beyond our immediate company.

There is a movement within our country to reduce the number of Veterans who are unemployed. A noble and worthy cause to say the least, but it seems that we are going about it in a slapdash haphazard way. We entice our young into Military service with promises of free college, guaranteed employment, pride in a job well done, and the promise of the American Dream. True, some join out of a sense of duty to their country, but others still see the military as a path to a future they cannot attain on their own.

We love the idea of Veterans. The crusty old guy from Dubya Dubya Two with stories of hardship and sacrifice brings about a sense of nostalgia and pride in our country that is hard to match these days. Admittedly the Veteran has drawn a better lot now than in the times of my Grandfather, but there is still much ground to be covered. We pigeon hole Veterans into a general image of a camouflage wearing, assault rifle toting, sand encrusted soldier hardened from sights they cannot unsee. This is simply not a true depiction of our fighting men and women. There is no specific category that all Veterans fit into. Even within one branch of service Veterans are as different as night and day.

The point of all this is that there is something to be done, and someone needs to stand up and speak for these men and women, someone who knows what it is like to be separated from their family for a long period of time, someone who knows how to do without. Not an elected official who is only concerned with the bottom line, not an elected official who has never served our country with full confidence that they would give their life to see her remain free. We need someone, or a group of someones, to be that small group of thoughtful, committed citizens who elicit a change in our way of thinking. The desire to help our Vets is there, we see it as bumper stickers, military discounts, military appreciation days; we need to harness this desire and transform it into progress.

There are two fundamental things that this country needs to reevaluate it's approach on; education and it's support for those who sacrificed for us. Not that those are the only things we are lacking, but they are the two that are recurrent throughout recent memory.

The winds of change are billowing at our backs, it is up to us to shift our sails and ride where they may take us.

The things you own end up owning you.

Consumerism is capitalism's ugly step sister.

When I was growing up the who's who of Harbor View Elementary school could be determined by the brand of shoes they wore. Air Jordans, Reebok's, Adidas were the pumped up kicks of the day. If you wore Pay less specials you weren't even on the fringes of cool. This continues today in a more muted and subversive way, I haven't heard anyone making fun of me for the clothes that I wear lately.

We watch ads where perfect physical specimens wear a certain brand of undies, we watch movies where our hero drives a certain car and our sports stars drink their electrolytes from a certain manufacturer. Is it too much to say that we are saturated with marketing? Even our Facebook profiles have ads on them.

Joe Camel was the face of cigarettes for a generation, as was the Marlboro man. They both went the way of the Dodo. Joe was killed off when we started to get wise that a cartoon character was the perfect way to sell cancer sticks to kids. The Marlboro man fought a bigger battle, seeing as he kept buying the farm it was harder to sell his image of manly invulnerability.

The demise of these key players in advertising was brought about, in part, by an increased public awareness. We are becoming aware that sometimes the media lies to us, especially when they stand to make a buck or two. Why else would they imply that a certain underwear will make you appealing to the opposite sex? The name of the game is making money, and they play on our insecurities, fears, and desires. We all want to be healthy wealthy and wise, so if the guy on television is one of those because he eats a certain brand of cereal then, by golly, I will too.

We are wising up to the fact that not everything on the tube is true, and that we should do our research. For instance, the link between genetically modified foods and cancer has shown a positive correlation, and not just in California. What does this mean for the average American, are we all doomed?

The benefit of this study and others along similar veins, is that we are becoming informed. We now go to the super market knowing that the Twinkies are not the best source of Calcium, or that Soda may be detrimental to our teeth. We are learning that the key to longevity is not wearing C.K. underoos, or smelling of Dior, but rather taking care of ourselves.

Downwards and Backwards

The trick to successful leadership, in my experience, is to avoid extremes. There is no way you will make everyone happy all of the time, but you can keep everyone at a mild level of agitation.

You see, people don't operate at the extremes. There is no benefit to leading the extreme Conservative or extreme Liberal forces into battle. Either way you still have an entire portion of people who have a strong disdain for what you are trying to accomplish.

If you can walk closer to the middle you can alienate fewer people and provide a more effective form of leadership. The middle is a nice and comfortable place for most people. There are common threads running through both sides of any argument, and it is at the extremes that they fray. In the middle, however, those threads are the strongest, and are more flexible.

For example, not everyone has the same views on the color white. Some prefer an eggshell approach, while others prefer a glossy true white, but they agree on the benefit of painting their walls some form of white. It allows for easy identification of muddy child prints and crayon treasure maps as well as brightening rooms. Rather than fight over the hue of walls, it seems like the mature and progressive thing to do is find a shade that offends both parties equally. It gives everyone the satisfaction of knowing their opponent didn't get their way, as well as putting some paint on the wall. Win win in my book.

Today marks a potential catastrophe brought to us by the extremes. The sequester we are facing right now could be solved if both sides of the same coin could agree on a plan that everyone hates mutually. Rather than try and get their way like a pissed off teenage girl they should realize that there are more important things than being right. A thriving economy and voter happiness are the first things that spring to mind when I think of generally important issues facing America.

I cannot pretend to predict the future, but I am willing to bet that there are more than a few congress men and women who will not be in office next time around. While people want their opinions heard and their voices counted, they do not want, as a whole, to throw a wrench in the works and grind our economy to a halt.

In the end, congress will pull something out of their derrieres that will be passable enough for another few months or even years, and then all the squabbling and bickering across the aisle will start up again. I don't agree with it, but until I am voted into office it won't change.