Submarine quote of the month: June 2015

Background ---from interviews with CO USS Texas (SSN-775) and crew

Being almost entirely cut off from the United States, it really matters what’s in the box of new DVDs when they leave port. Submarine movies are out, because the audience nitpicks the details and they see enough submarine already. When they surface, the men find they are culturally out of touch. “What do you mean Robin Williams died? There’s a Taken 3?” said Senior Chief Glamm. “The only NFL game we saw last year was the Super Bowl.”   - Rodd Wagner, Forbes, 8 June 2015, Ice Cream and Individualism.

Author Wagner, is a self-described New York Times bestselling author of books about employees’ working relationships with their leaders, managers, and each other.

If the average workplace were sealed up for a few months, chances are when the doors were reopened, inside would be a circus. Assuming there hadn’t been a mutiny, no one would want to hear another word from the CEO or the rest of the leadership. Colleagues would be at each other’s throats. No one would sign on for another stint under those conditions. Little would have been accomplished.

Quote of the Month 

"But the Navy submarine fleet creates exceptional levels of accomplishment under trying conditions. Where they succeed, they do it not because they recruit super-humans, not ultimately through military compulsion, not because they have some trick to suspend the laws of human nature, but because a long history of failures and successes taught them how to combine the elements of leadership and support that gets non-quals their dolphins and makes serving undersea an invigorating experience, even if the Norwegian ice cream must be left behind."  - Rodd Wagner


Submarines are always silent and strange.