a “Quaker meeting”.
Theodore Rockwell., The rickover efffect : how one man made a difference / 1992,
pp.231-232
In the spring of 1951, hostility and distrust were beginning to build up between Naval Reactors and its new partner, the Bettis laboratory run by Westinghouse. Efforts to pin the blame for this only exacerbated the problem, so Rickover called for a “Quaker meeting”.
“Do you know what I mean by that?” he asked.
Without waiting for an answer, he continued: “The Quakers have an excellent approach to thinking through difficult problems, where a number of intelligent and responsible people must work together. THey meet as equals, and anyone who has an idea speaks up. THere are no parliamentary procedures and no coercion from the Chair. They continue the discussion until unanimity is reached. I want you guys to do that. Get in a room with no phones and leave orders that you are not to be disturbed. And sit there until you can deal with each other as individuals, not as spokesmen for either organization.”
He sent Ray Dick, Bob Panoff, and Eli Roth to deal with three senior Bettis engineers, one of whom he named chairman. It took ten days to get past the barriers, but the process finally worked. You could not pin down what did it, but all agreed that things were permanently changed for the better after that.
p.232
Rickover tried the process again in 1952, with the GE people at the Knolls laboratory. Dick and Panoff joined Robert V. Laney, to bring the Bettis experience into play, but there never seemed to be the same degree of trust, and the process was abandoned after a few meetings. Relations between NR and Knolls grew steadily worse. It was a long time before a reasonably satisfactory environment was developed.
p.232
Some time after that, Rickover decided to try the process at home. This time he was concerned not with ..., but with the broader issue of how we could improve our way of operating. He called in a few of his senior people and said that he wanted us to get together, including some of his field reps, and have a Quaker meeting.
“Go somewhere with no phones and stay two or three days. Then give me a report of your conclusions. Do you have some place you can go? Don't go where there are kids or dogs. Some place isolated.”
member of the Sycamore Island Canoe club.
a completely isolated island, no phone, in the middle of the Potomac river.
The only way to get to it is to pull on a rope, which rings a bell on the island, and a guy pulls a raft across, hand over hand on the rope, and carries you back to the island the same way.
just six miles from downtown. We can get there in half an hour.
pp.232-233
“OK, go”
“What's the question, Admiral? WHat are we trying to answer?”
“Dammit, that's what you're trying to find out! We're working on all the questions we've identified. What ones have we missed? Getting the right questions is harder ── and more important ── than getting answer. Now go!”
So we went, and swam, and talked, and ate sandwiches, and surprisingly some useful ideas came out of it. The Admiral didn't always buy all our recommendations, but the mere process of unstructured talk among ourselves proved to be valuable. We did it several times.
“”─“”‘’•─“”
(The rickover efffect : how one man made a difference / Theodore Rockwell., 1. rickover, hyman george., 2. nuclear submarines ── united states ── history., 3. admirals ── united states ── biography., 4. united states., navy──biography, V63.R54R63 1992, 359.3'2574'092--dc20, united states naval institute, Annapolis, Maryland, 1992 )
____________________________________
Theodore Rockwell., The rickover efffect : how one man made a difference / 1992,
pp.231-232
In the spring of 1951, hostility and distrust were beginning to build up between Naval Reactors and its new partner, the Bettis laboratory run by Westinghouse. Efforts to pin the blame for this only exacerbated the problem, so Rickover called for a “Quaker meeting”.
“Do you know what I mean by that?” he asked.
Without waiting for an answer, he continued: “The Quakers have an excellent approach to thinking through difficult problems, where a number of intelligent and responsible people must work together. THey meet as equals, and anyone who has an idea speaks up. THere are no parliamentary procedures and no coercion from the Chair. They continue the discussion until unanimity is reached. I want you guys to do that. Get in a room with no phones and leave orders that you are not to be disturbed. And sit there until you can deal with each other as individuals, not as spokesmen for either organization.”
He sent Ray Dick, Bob Panoff, and Eli Roth to deal with three senior Bettis engineers, one of whom he named chairman. It took ten days to get past the barriers, but the process finally worked. You could not pin down what did it, but all agreed that things were permanently changed for the better after that.
p.232
Rickover tried the process again in 1952, with the GE people at the Knolls laboratory. Dick and Panoff joined Robert V. Laney, to bring the Bettis experience into play, but there never seemed to be the same degree of trust, and the process was abandoned after a few meetings. Relations between NR and Knolls grew steadily worse. It was a long time before a reasonably satisfactory environment was developed.
p.232
Some time after that, Rickover decided to try the process at home. This time he was concerned not with ..., but with the broader issue of how we could improve our way of operating. He called in a few of his senior people and said that he wanted us to get together, including some of his field reps, and have a Quaker meeting.
“Go somewhere with no phones and stay two or three days. Then give me a report of your conclusions. Do you have some place you can go? Don't go where there are kids or dogs. Some place isolated.”
member of the Sycamore Island Canoe club.
a completely isolated island, no phone, in the middle of the Potomac river.
The only way to get to it is to pull on a rope, which rings a bell on the island, and a guy pulls a raft across, hand over hand on the rope, and carries you back to the island the same way.
just six miles from downtown. We can get there in half an hour.
pp.232-233
“OK, go”
“What's the question, Admiral? WHat are we trying to answer?”
“Dammit, that's what you're trying to find out! We're working on all the questions we've identified. What ones have we missed? Getting the right questions is harder ── and more important ── than getting answer. Now go!”
So we went, and swam, and talked, and ate sandwiches, and surprisingly some useful ideas came out of it. The Admiral didn't always buy all our recommendations, but the mere process of unstructured talk among ourselves proved to be valuable. We did it several times.
“”─“”‘’•─“”
(The rickover efffect : how one man made a difference / Theodore Rockwell., 1. rickover, hyman george., 2. nuclear submarines ── united states ── history., 3. admirals ── united states ── biography., 4. united states., navy──biography, V63.R54R63 1992, 359.3'2574'092--dc20, united states naval institute, Annapolis, Maryland, 1992 )
____________________________________
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