Institutional failure and my narrow military mind

Map of the path of the White House intruder

I spent five years of active duty in the Navy bouncing around the Atlantic Ocean practicing for things that were unlikely to happen and, in fact, never did.  I was Chief Engineer and later Executive Officer of a minesweeper.  If the Soviets had laid mines in Chesapeake Bay, we could disarm them.  Or, if a German U-boat had popped up in the Savannah River, we could help track it down.  Those things never happened; but, if they had, we were ready.

Does that seem foolish to you?  Well, not to me.  Readiness is critical to responding correctly when a crisis occurs. 

Perhaps it’s my military background that has caused me to have a common reaction to what many are calling institutional failure at every level of government. 

When a policeman shot and killed Michael Brown in Ferguson, MO, my first thought was…

… training and culture.

When an intruder made it into the White House despite five layers of Secret Service security, my reaction was…

… training and culture.

When two nurses who had treated an Ebola patient in Dallas, TX contracted Ebola themselves, I wondered about…

… training and culture.

What kind of training did Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson go through before someone pinned a badge on his chest?  Was it like we have seen on a TV show or movie?  You know, the trainee is tiptoeing through a faux urban landscape doing his or her best to separate the real threats from moms with baby carriages in a split second.  React incorrectly and you either kill the mom or get killed by a pistol toting drug dealer.   

Did Darren Wilson go through that kind of training?  How did he do?

My impression of the Secret Service has always been aligned with my view of an elite force, like the Navy SEALS or the US Marshall Service.  Longstanding tradition reinforces habits that lead to near flawless execution.  So, how does anyone hop a fence, run across the White House lawn and get halfway to the President’s living quarters before someone catches up with him?

Those trained for these professions go through some sort of thought reform aka brainwashing to reprogram the way they respond when faced with a deadly threat.  I am not engaging in hyperbole.  Our central nervous system is geared to trigger a fight or flight response when facing a threat, real or imagined.  Our adrenal glands secrete cortisol, causing us to react according to nature’s programming.  To overcome the instinct, we practice and drill until our brains are rewired to respond differently.  Brainwashing requires isolation and control, an environment found in boot camp or a police academy.

Nurses don’t all work for the same organization obviously.  However, their training requires the same kind of rigor.  Their effectiveness is the result of how well they absorbed their training and how well they are supported and enabled by the institution for which they work.  So, when the head of the Centers for Disease Control says we’re “rethinking” our response to Ebola and nurses say they’re not ready, we should be concerned.  That’s tantamount to going to war when soldiers haven’t been trained to fire their weapons. 

Maintaining a strong institutional culture requires ritualistic behavior; a concisely worded, well-understood, oft repeated mission statement, and respect for the long-standing traditions of an organization.  It requires that leaders tell compelling stories that are repeated in the ranks.  It is essential that people at the top solicit the opinions of people at the bottom to ensure they are getting the right training and the right support to perform the mission.  As Colin Powell put it, “Leadership is solving problems. The day soldiers stop bringing you their problems is the day you have stopped leading them. They have either lost confidence that you can help or concluded you do not care. Either case is a failure of leadership”.

Addressing these challenges requires a military approach to training and the visible presence of a credible leader with the authority to get the job done.  Imagine if the President had appointed the right person to be the “Ebola Czar”, he or she would have been on TV that day calming our nerves by telling us what will happen and how.  His or her mere presence and bearing would give us confidence.  We saw small samples of the impact of physical and visible presence when New York Mayor Bill DeBlasio visited the same restaurants and the bowling alley as Ebola patient Dr. Craig Spencer and when US Ambassador to the UN Samantha Power visited West Africa.

Imagine if the Ebola Czar (what’s his name?) evoked the power of those images.

WHO WILL LEAD?