Desiring Excellence

It seems as though the focus of my life on the ship, particularly as an officer, is correcting deficiencies. Our days are spent preparing for the next inspection, the next assessment, or the next certification. Since we are to always be inspection-ready and combat-ready, we are taught to maintain a critical eye, especially of our own ship/spaces/sailors. These self-assessments come in the smallest of ways, like in passing a sailor in the passageway and giving their uniform a once-over for sharpness; or in the big ways, like in preparing a ship for its deployment readiness certification.

We are taught that there is a standard, and that the standard must be enforced. So, each time you pass by a sailor who needs a haircut, a firehose stowed improperly, a passageway that has not been swept for days, etc, and do not do something to correct the deficiency, you are failing to enforce the standard. So what should you do? You stop the sailor and remind him to get a haircut. You report to the division responsible that their firehose needs to be restowed or their passageway needs to be swept. Then, the most important part. You go back and verify that the deficiency was actually corrected. It's not enough to just report it and "pass the buck." Some of the best words of advice for a young officer are those of the great President Ronald Reagan: "trust but verify."

I feel like I spend way too much of my time correcting deficiencies. Don't get me wrong--I know there will always be deficiencies to correct, but how do you move from the place of constantly pinging on people get their work done and be mindful of the details to getting them to actually take ownership of their equipment, their spaces, their responsibilities, so that I have less "deficiency correcting" to do? How do I inspire a sailor to do what they are supposed to do, not because they fear my watchful eye, but because they want to be excellent? And should I find a deficiency, that they be upset for not catching it themselves and desire to quickly correct it? How do we get to that point?

I will certainly spend my career, and beyond, figuring that one out. Until then, I try to instill in my sailors a desire to be excellent and to do the right thing simply by trying to be excellent and do the right thing myself. It's a challenge. But I don't quite know of any other way to do it than lead by example and hope that they will follow. Why settle for being great when you could be excellent?