The Six Thousand Mile Screwdriver

We are past the middle of October, and it's definitely starting to look and feel like Autumn here in the Midwest.  Two events of major historical significance occurred during the month of October, and both have important lessons for leaders.  The first was the Cuban Missile Crisis, which took place sixty years ago from October 16, 1962 to November 20, 1962.  We've been hearing a lot about this particular crisis, as several political analysts and historians say that we are closer to a nuclear confrontation now with the events taking place in the Ukraine than we have ever been since the Cuban Missile Crisis (most of these same analysts and historians also think that we were much closer then than we are now).  Leadership during the Cuban Missile Crisis has been analyzed in a number of excellent books, including Irving Janis' Groupthink: Psychological Studies of Policy Decisions and Fiascoes, Graham Allison'sg Essence of Decision, and Robert Kennedy's Thirteen Days: A Memoir of the Cuban Missile Crisis (co-written with Arthur Schlesinger).  Hopefully, I can come back to a discussion of this crisis in the future.  However, today I want to discuss the second event of major historical significance that occurred in October, the United States invasion of Grenada, which occurred in October 25-29, 1983.

I came across a discussion on the Operation Urgent Fury , the U.S. invasion of Grenada in an article by Karl Weick (one of the early founders and thought leaders on High Reliability Organizations) in the journal Industrial Crisis Quarterly ("Mental models of high reliability systems").  The article itself was a little too technical for me, but I was fascinated by Weick's mention of something that the operational commander of the operation, Vice Admiral Joseph P. Metcalf, said at that time that was relevant to the discussion of High Reliability Organizations.  Apparently VADM Metcalf was involved with the U.S. evacuation of Saigon in 1975 and recalled that the on-scene commanders were forced to deal with "the six thousand mile screwdriver", which he defined as "the minute direction of the day-to-day operations of a field commander by higher and remote authority" (the key words being higher and remote).  In other words, the "boots on the ground" military leaders were being micromanaged by their supervisors in Washington, D.C.  

If you've been following my blog for any length of time, you will recognize the HRO concept of "Deference to Expertise" here (or in this case, the absence of deference to expertise).  It's a theme that I've come back to on numerous occasions because I thoroughly believe in it (and hopefully embrace it).  No one likes to be micromanaged.  Front-line leaders have the most up-to-date knowledge and situational awareness of what's happening on the battlefield, even with the ever present "fog of war".  Why then would a military leader thousands of miles away think that he or she could make better decisions than someone who is right there seeing events unfold directly in front of them?

VADM Metcalf was a strong believer in the concept of "Deference to Expertise".  However, he also believed that the front-line leaders at least partially controlled whether they were micromanaged from afar by the "six thousand mile screwdriver".  He wrote, "There is a natural tendency for higher authority to move down and attempt to control local actions from afar.  In this day of instant communication from and to anywhere in the world, combined with the high stakes involved, the local commander has an obligation to communicate information up if he expects to retain control.  Higher command authority must always have information, or they will remove control from the local commander."

How did he accomplish this?  Weick wrote, "To retain local control, Metcalf used situation reports, a command voice, explicit advance plans, staff warnings, and a party line to enact an environment up the chain of command that told him to do essentially what he wanted to do."  Metcalf explained further, "I organized the structure of decision making in a way that, I thought, would maximize the delegation of authority down to me, whereas below me, I delegated 'what' to do to my subordinates and they were responsible for the 'how'".  

First, Metcalf directed his staff to send at least two situation reports up to his superior officers every hour, whether there was anything to report or not.  These reports accomplished two things.  First, because they were so reliably sent twice every hour, they quickly became the single source of truth.  Conflicting information during a battle is inevitable, particularly given the "fog of war" mentioned earlier.  Regardless, Metcalf's superiors began to rely more on his situation reports to the exclusion of other, seemingly less reliable sources of information.  Second, the reports kept the staff at headquarters busy reading the reports, so that they couldn't tell him what to do (i.e., micromanage).

Metcalf assigned an experienced junior officer to man the secure phone from Grenada to headquarters in Norfolk, Virginia.  This same individual was the command voice during the entire operation.  Metcalf said, "The commander in chief and his staff always heard the same voice, a voice they knew and could relate to.  The object was to create the impression that, in fact, we were in control and knew what was going on."  Metcalf's strategy worked to perfection.

Controlling the channels of communication was important, but Metcalf also worked to control the situation through advance planning.  Operational plans were developed for the next day by 5:00 PM on the preceding evening, and Metcalf shared these plans with his superiors so that they could review his intentions in the context of his own assessment of strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats.  Finally, the fact that communication equipment was limited was fortuitous in a way, as Metcalf established a party line between Grenada and headquarters.  He said, "When either my call sign or Admiral McDonald's (Commander-in-Chief, U.S. Atlantic Fleet and Metcalf's immediate superior) went out over the circuit, the line was instantly cleared.  Captains of the ships huddled around the CIC to listen in, and this particular party line came to serve a very useful function.  It conveyed our intentions to those commanders, without having me having to go over them again individually with each captain...Everyone involved in the mission decision making knew the intended plans and the pressures on local command."  

I have read extensively on the concept of "Deference to Expertise", though this is the first time that I have come across what operational leaders can do to "manage up" in order to avoid being micromanaged.  While there is more to learn about how Metcalf led during the Grenada campaign, I will save that for another day.  I would like to leave this post with a final admonition from VADM Metcalf himself: "When you are in command, COMMAND!"