They don’t ordinarily go together, but in carrier aviation they often do:
Of all activities studied by our research group, flight operations at sea is the closest to the “edge of the envelope”–operating under the most extreme conditions in the least stable environment, and with the greatest tension between preserving safety and reliability and attaining maximum operational efficiency. 3 Both electrical utilities and air traffic control emphasize the importance of long training, careful selection, task and team stability, and cumulative experience. Yet the Navy demonstrably performs very well with a young and largely inexperienced crew, with a “management” staff of officers that turns over half its complement each year, and in a working environment that must rebuild itself from scratch approximately every eighteen months. Such performance strongly challenges our theoretical under standing of the Navy as an organization, its training and operational processes, and the problem of high-reliability organizations generally.
An interesting read and good find by David Foster of the Chicago Boyz.
The “old dinos” had it in 1987 and before, and it appears the USN still has it today. Fingers crossed.
We mustn’t ignore our allies the UK and France, although, IMO, they can’t persist at operating their carriers the way the USN does theirs. We know the Russians tried and failed and the CHICOMs are looking hard at doing it sometime in the future. Says something for America, eh?
Naval Aviation’s good and a better working bidness than CITIBANK!
b2
Lex…did they pretty much get it right, or are there any important aspects of the way the organization works that they left out?
They did, David – as b2 points out – they certainly did in the late 90′s. Which was about the peak of operational strain on a carrier flight deck. Aircraft numbers have gone down since then but there are some new intangibles that’d I’d like to see re-addressed by a similar group. The impact of the FRP for example. Longer and more frequent deployments. The Millennial generation of Sailors. Billet cuts and reduced redundancy as we seek efficiencies pretty much everywhere. Net-centric warfare.
From the outside looking in, it does seem almost magically complex. But from the inside looking out, we’ve strong traditions, and exceptionally strong senior enlisted cadre and a tried and true training process. All of which are under strain.
Fascinating article. Their comments about a carrier being an organic structure and the amount of on-to-the-job training makes REAGAN’s achievements the last few years all the more impressive to me (1st deployment 2006, then quick turn-around for another, yes?).
Heh. Just read that Millennial link. Don’t remember where, but I recently read something on the subject from a business perspective… said pretty much the same thing about Millennials–spoiled, demanding and anti hierarchy of any kind.
Wonkette’s comment is intentionally obtuse, implying the Navy is racist. *rolling eyes*
#1 B2 “Naval Aviation’s good and a better working bidness than CITIBANK!”
Sadly, I dunno ’bout that…least not for all.
Disgraced and resigning (fired) Citibank CEO Prince was paid nearly $26 million last year. What’s worse, he receives a $40 million severance package for his ineptitude and failures.
Gotta love that supposed, capitalist ‘free market’ system that so well rewards failure. (gack!)
Lex, The study that resulted in that article was done in Carl Vinson CVN 70 in ’84. I’m still in touch with one of the authors. Bob
Motivation has a great deal to do with it, I suspect.
I know that when I performed real-time advisory support to an aircraft operating in range of enemy missiles, I tended to pay attentin quite sharpish.
Enough so that in the standard interview line of questioning, “How do you deal with stressful situations?” I tend to reply that “I don’t anticipate encountering any stressful situations in the position I’m applying for. While I understand and appreciate the importance and immediacy of financial losses, and fully intend to put forth a consistently above-average product and effort to ensure my emlpoyer’s success, it isn’t a patch on keeping an Air Force Pilot alive when bad guys are shooting at him.”
-L