We had a BIG summer here in Boston. You may have heard. After we hosted some of the World Cup festivities, we cheered for the arrival of the Tall Ships, ranging in length from 35 feet (the Lewis H. Story, representing 350 years of Massachusetts shipbuilding history) to 379 feet (the Peruvian naval ship BAP Uniòn). They’re magnificent—and complicated ships to sail.
I had the opportunity to speak with an executive officer on one of the larger ships, a naval vessel. I asked about her ship (“How do you keep all the lines straight, there are so many of them on a ship your size?”), her 23-year Navy career, crew training, and crew recruitment. The last point was particularly interesting.
“From where do you recruit your sailors?”
“Typically as they come out of boot camp. They are young, strong, and relatively inexpensive.”
“How do you screen them?”
“Interesting question. We might interview 200 or 250 sailors in a given day to make the first cut. Then we do a second or third round of interviews to narrow the field further. And we have some other things we do.”
“What’s one of the most important questions you ask?”
“We ask, ‘Are you afraid of heights?‘”
“That’s a GREAT question to ask somebody who’s going to climb rigging on your ship.”
“Yes, that’s right. And that’s not the most important question.”
“What’s the most important question?”
“We ask them, ‘How do you know?’ A lot of sailors will say they are comfortable with heights. When we ask them, ‘How do you know?‘, they’ll say ‘Oh, I’m very comfortable flying in a plane‘ or ‘I’m comfortable going up a ladder to clear house gutters.’”
She smiled. “There’s a big difference between climbing 10 feet to a roof and climbing 150 feet to a wet spar on the mast of a pitching ship, particularly when you look down.”
And I thought, “That is an excellent question.”
We hear declarations all the time. “Business is good.” “The employees are happy.” “The new system is working.” “I’m ready.” “The client trusts us.”
Maybe.
Nick Miller is President of Clarity Advantage based in Concord, MA. He assists banks and credit unions to generate more and more profitable relationships, faster, with business clients, their owners, and their employees through better sales strategies and execution. Additional articles on Clarity’s web site.