The naval profession, if you can call it a profession, is engineering. It isn’t a profession actually, because in a profession you have certain responsibilities; you can’t be dictated to in carrying out your professional duties. As long as a man will accept dictation in a technical matter, he is not a professional person. So the Navy is not really a profession.
I tried to say this in a speech several months ago. I didn’t mention the Navy in the speech, but I hoped there were some naval officers who read it who would be astute enough to realize that I was really addressing myself to them. The Navy is trying to run engineering matters on a military basis — by ordering things to get done. You can’t do that. The only people who can work that way are hacks. Professionals won’t do it. That’s one of the main things that is wrong with research and development in the military.
That was Admiral Hyman Rickover in a 1959 testimony to Congress, “Organization and Management of Missile Programs.”
Rickover argued that you can get plenty of talented people into government to help lead important programs. Government doesn’t have to go to outside organizations to pay higher salaries for the same job. However, that will take a major culture shift, and to get the flywheel started Rickover recommends slashing layers of bureaucrats who have authority to interfere but no responsibility to see the job done. Here’s Rickover:
Private industry is much more flexible than Government in many ways — living conditions, salary, and so forth. There is the frequent case, as you well know, of an individual who gets, say, X dollars in Government and then gets out to work for a company doing the same work at 2X dollars. But I believe the main reason he leaves the Government service is not so much the salary. It is because of lack of opportunity and too much interference in the Government.
If you could eliminate the excessive interference and make people feel that they are doing something useful and give them an equal chance to get ahead they will continue to work for the Government. I know that there is hardly anyone in my organization who is not constantly being sought to work in private industry at a higher salary, but they don’t leave, because superior people are attracted only by challenge.
ORGANIZATION AND MANAGEMENT OF MISSILE PROGRAMS HEARINGS BEFORE A SUBCOMMITTEE OF THE COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT OPERATIONS HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES EIGHTY-SIXTH CONGRESS FIRST SESSION FEBRUARY 4, 5, 6, MARCH 2, 3, 5, 13, AND 20, 1959
Leave a Reply