Engineering Management International, 1 (1981) 13-78 Elsevier Scientific Publishing Company, Amsterdam -Printed In The Netherlands

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REFLECTIONS ON MANAGEMENT STYLE

David Cochran” Consulting Engineer, 6234 Masters Blvd., Orlando, FL 328 11 (U.S.A.)

ABSTRACT generally accepted methods, suggesting that

Management styles of three very success- there is room for a wide range of behavior

ful engineering managers are examined. in effectively managing people and tech-

They are considerably at variance with nical projects.

INTRODUCTION

In my many years of involvement in research and development in the General Electric Com- pan), I was exposed to avariety of engineering managers, Some were General Electric people, some were in customer or supplier organiza- tions with whom I had dealings, and some were in the government. Quite a few were very effective, operating according to generally accepted ideas of good management practice. On the other hand several of the technical managers I knew were outstandingly effective, and operated in unorthodox ways, quite con- trary to some of the generally accepted tenets of good management.

It intrigues me to reflect on their behavior and to wonder at their seemingly unlikely but very considerable success.

Here are some observations and specula- tions about three truly great engineering man- agers who did not go by the book. They are William Francis Gibbs, Hyman Rickover, and Gerhard Neumann. I knew them well, worked closely with each of them, and benefitted greatly from this association.

WILLIAM FRANCIS GIBBS

He was a marine architect and co-founder of Gibbs and Cox - the most prestigious com-

*Formerly a Vice President of General Electric Com- pany .

pany of ship designers in the business. Al- though they designed a variety of ships, their field of specialization was fighting ships for the U.S. Navy. For more than three decades they designed and supervised construction of all the U.S. Navy destroyers.

My association with Gibbs came about when General Electric entered the atomic power business in 1945, and, among other things, was considering the possibilities of atomic power for ship propulsion. We hired Gibbs and Cox to assist in these studies, and, in effect, Gibbs worked for me on and off during the next three years (I was thirty years old and Gibbs sixty-five at the time).

Gibbs was tall, thin, almost cadaverous in appearance. He was cold and haughty in demeanor. His language was florid, reminis- cent of Shakespearian prose, occasionally sprinkled with pungent profanity.

Gibbs ran a one-man show. I never met Cox, but I understood he

looked after the financial affairs of the firm. Gibbs presided over the technical work. He did the basic ship designs himself. There were several hundred engineers, draftsmen, pur- chasing agents, expediters, inspectors, con- tract administrators and others, to complete the designs, and to supervise the construction and equipping of the ships, which were built in several different shipyards.

Gibbs had no salesmen. He did the selling himself.

0167-5419/81/0000~000/$02.50 0 1981 Elsevier Scientific Publishing Company

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Naturally, Gibbs assigned the bulk of the actual detailed design work to his very expert teams of specialists, but he appeared to re- serve all of the decision-making to himself. He, personally, reviewed every design and questioned every choice made by his engi- neers. There seemed to be no such thing as delegation of authority in Gibbs and Cox. His people stood in awe of Mr. Gibbs. No one moved without his approval.

By the time I knew Gibbs, he had accumu- lated many years of experience, and he knew how he wanted things done. He did not agonize over decisions - they came quickly. He didn’t have an office desk. Rather, he worked standing up at a drafting table, in his austere office. Things didn’t pile up on that table, awaiting his consideration. He sent them back in a hurry.

Much of Gibbs’ work was in dealing with equipment suppliers to the ships he was building. These were the boilermakers, the turbinebuilders, the suppliers of valves,

piping, electric motors, communication equipment, and the myriad other items re- quired. Gibbs’ behavior toward the represen- tatives of these suppliers was uniformly con- temptuous. In his lexicon the words “vendor” and “bastard” were interchangeable. He de- manded more in terms of performance, reliability, and durability, than any of them thought reasonable, but he drove everyone relentlessly until he got what he wanted.

In the case of steam turbine propulsion for destroyers, Gibbs pushed the operating steam temperatures up from somewhere around 1200°F to more than 1800°F. He forced the boilermakers and the turbine builders to do extensive materials research and development to make possible this temperature increase. The fighting ships thus equipped had much better speed and range than their predecessors had.

A related, and even more important result, of Gibbs’ insistence on higher operating tem- peratures was this:

Companies who made boilers and turbines for electric power generation were encour- aged by their marine power experience with

Gibbs to move up the temperatures in land- based systems. It is not possible to quantify, but my feeling is that Gibbs, by his efforts to improve marine propulsion efficiency, made an inadvertent contribution to the power generation industry that has been worth billions of dollars to the consuming public.

Gibbs was an innovator of ship design methods. One of which he was most proud was the use of three-dimensional models of the ship’s interior. There is not much room inside fighting ships such as destroyers and sub- marines. In the ship construction yards, there was endless warfare among the electricians, the pipefitters, the communications installers, and the equipment riggers, over what went where. If the electricians got there first they would lay their cables along the easiest, most direct routes. Then the piping and the other items would have to be installed as best they could be in the remaining available space. Oddly enough, in actual practice, this matter of space allocation could not be completely resolved in the drafting room.

Gibbs’ solution was to build accurate 1/2Oth scale models of the ship’s interior spaces and to have accurately scaled models of all of the equipment, wiring, piping, etc. installed in the ship model. The model pipefitters fought it out with the model electricians and equip- ment installers, and all jurisdictional disputes were settled in the design office rather than in the shipyard. I saw many such models at Gibbs and Cox. They were beautiful to behold, and they had saved a great deal of time and money in ship construction.

The engineers I knew at Gibbs and Cox all were very capable and hardworking. They lived in fear of the old man, but, on the other hand, they were proud and loyal members of the organization. As I became better ac- quainted with several, I learned that at that time their pay scale was considerably lower than that in General Electric. I don’t think Gibbs bothered to find put what was going on in the world outside of Gibbs and Cox, and as long as no important persons quit, which they didn’t, he had no reason to be troubled about pay scales.

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ADMIRAL HYMAN RICKOVER

He is renowned as “the father of the nuclear navy”. He initiated and managed the program which developed the fleet of nuclear powered Polaris submarines, a vital part of U.S. strategic deterrent force. He developed the propulsion systems for the newer, larger Trident nuclear submarines, and for the giant nuclear aircraft carriers which are now the mainstay of U.S. sea power.

I first met Rickover in 1940 when he was a Lieutenant Commander, in charge of the minesweeping desk in the Navy Bureau of Ships. We in General Electric worked for him on the development of a timing device that would permit several magnetic minesweepers to synchronize their current pulses without radio communication. Soon thereafter I worked on a program which he initiated to measure the shocks experienced by sub- marines from nearby depthcharge explosions. Based on these measurements, shock testing machines were developed and applied to elec- trical equipment. Rickover, then head of the electrical desk in the submarine branch of the Bureau of Ships, forced the manufacturers of this equipment to redesign and develop every item until it could withstand the shocks of battle at sea.

After that I worked for several years on a program sponsored by Rickover for detecting mines by use of very high frequency under- water sound waves.

Finally, I again encountered Rickover when he obtained control of the Knolls Atomic Power Laboratory, where I was manager of engineering. Rickover directed the laboratory in the development of Sea Wolf, an early nuclear submarine having a sodium-cooled reactor. I worked in this program until 1951.

Rickover was a superb manager of technical work. He was not a creative, inventive engi- neer. Rather he was a skillful user of people - a brain picker. He recognized and respected technical expertise. He sought after and got good advice. He understood the uses of power and the importance of politics. To him the end justified the means, and often the means

were drastic. He was ruthless in his behavior toward his subordinates, the suppliers and contractors who worked for him, and toward anyone who stood in the way of his program.

I first heard of Rickover when it was told how a ventilator fan came apart in a ship for which he was responsible. Rick found that the failure was due to some missing rivets in the sheet metal fan housing. He went to the fac- tory where the fan was made and learned that the rivets were installed by a pieceworker. A few rivets were in concealed locations and were difficult to install, so the pieceworker had simply left them out. When the company refused to do more than reprimand the worker for negligence, Rickover swore out a warrant and had the man arrested for sabotage. He didn’t quit until the man was convicted and sentenced to jail.

Once, traveling with Rickover to a meeting at Allis-Chalmers in Milwaukee, I talked with him about his relations with subcontractors. “Dave”, he said, “You’ve got to know how to deal with these people. What I do is this: I constipate myself! I constipate myself for about three days before such a meeting as we are going to, and when I get there, I’m in the right frame of mind to have a constructive discussion. ”

Rickover deliberately practiced intimida- tion. He had a catalog of the failures and shortcomings of every contractor he dealt with. He would begin every discussion with a recitation of those failings appropriate to the people in the meeting and would not get into the subject of the meeting until his adversaries were sufficiently cowed and sub- dued by this review of their past sins. Kenneth Kingdon, then head of the Knolls Atomic Laboratory, once said to me plaintively, “Why does Rick begin every meeting by dumping a bucket of shit all over my head?”

Rickover worked terribly hard and he ex- pected everyone else to do so. A typical weekend would find him and his entourage of very bright young Naval officers meeting with Westinghouse in Pittsburgh on Saturday morning, with Babcock & Wilcox in New York late Saturday afternoon, at the General

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Electric laboratory Sunday morning, con- cluding with a three or four hour staff meeting in his Washington Navy quarters Sunday evening.

Rickover was not popular among his peers in the Navy. He rebelled against the stodgy, routine Navy way of doing things. He was a terrible gadfly there. Rick knew that some powerful people in the Navy would like to get rid of him, but he knew how to look after himself.

When he became aware of the possibilities of nuclear power for the Navy, Rickover knew it would never happen if left to the standard Navy system to manage, so he went to the Congress. He fastened himself onto the joint committee for atomic energy. One by one, he convinced members of the committee that he could develop the nuclear submarine if they would support him, and they did.

His love affair with Congress continues until this day. When he reached the normal Navy retirement age, he persuaded Congress to continue him in active duty, through an Act of Congress. This they have done each year, and today at age of 81 he still is in charge of nuclear power activities in the Navy.

Rickover not only used people, he used them up. At least one, and if my recollection is right, two of his young lieutenants died of heart attacks at an early age. A good friend of mine, who managed the laboratory for years under Rickover, died, a victim I believe of the prolonged stress involved in that rela- tionship. Rickover caused a number of people to be fired by contractors because they didn’t meet his standards.

Notwithstanding all of this, the people around him were intensely loyal. Even those who hated him, and there were many, re- spected his power, and worked very hard to produce the results he demanded.

Rickover was a shrewd judge of people. He somehow attracted the best and found ways to use them to achieve his ends. He was not interested in rewarding his subordinates. He felt that working on his project was in itself reward enough.

Rickover’s engineering accomplishment in

the development of nuclear submarines and nuclear propulsion for aircraft carriers is a monumental achievement. He truly has made a mark in history.

GERHARD NEUMANN

He came to General Electric after a colorful history in World War II. A German aircraft maintenance engineer in China, working for the Heinkel Aircraft Company, he was caught there at the outbreak of the war, and interned by the British. Later, he became chief-of-main- tenance for Chenault’s Flying Tigers, and was made a U.S. citizen by an Act of Congress at the end of the War.

Neumann worked as a test engineer in the aircraft engine division of General Electric and rose through the ranks to become Vice President and Group Executive of the Air- craft Engine Group, which he managed brilliantly until severe heart trouble forced his retirement two years ago.

General Electric has a management training center at Crotonville, New York, where it sends every potential or actual manager for indoctrination in the principles of manage- ment, according to modern theory. Gerhard resisted going to this school. Every time his name appeared on the next class roster, he found valid reasons why he could not attend. I believe he is the only officer of the Com- pany who did not go to Crotonville.

Neumann had his own style, which he was able to make work with good effect.

He seemed to me to be essentially a coun- terpuncher. He thrived on trouble. He was endlessly ingenious and creative in solving pro- blems. He went looking for trouble if none was apparent, because he knew that no program is perfect.

Neumann set up a reporting network that is unmatched in the volume of detailed in- formation which it generated for him. Every manager, sub-unit, unit, sub-section, section, department, and division head, was required to write to his superior a report of signifi- cant events in his area of responsibility,

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every day! These were called I.O.I.s, items of interest, and the flow of paper in this re- porting system was awesome.

Thus Neumann got reports about every particular event from several of his lieutenants every day. When the reports differed, which they often did, he called the reporters in for an explanation, and thrashed out the reasons. Usually this analysis led to some action items for the reporters.

Once I heard Neumann explaining his man- agement system to an Air Force general. He said, “I tell them ‘Don’t brief me! Just give me details! ’ ” And this they did. He read liter- ally hundreds of daily reports, loaded with details. Many were trivial, generated to meet his requirement of a report every day. Buried among them, however, were related items from which he could piece together a picture of how things were going, and frequently he could detect impending disaster far sooner than anyone around him.

Neumann walked the shop. He worried a lot, did not sleep much, and often at mid- night or 4 a.m. would be seen in the ,factory or test area talking to a mechanic or test technician. This was the head of a 26,000 employee, $2 billion a year business.

In his early years as manager, he did virtu- ally no long-range planning. He lived in the world of today. He wanted to build engines based on today’s technology and yesterday’s experience. Only, after much blasting from Company headquarters, did he have some longer-range plans and budget projections gen- erated, but I always felt he never really was committed beyond meeting this year’s sales and profit goals and fixing the troubles of our engines in the field.

Neumann tended, in his judgement of peo- ple, to prefer action to intellectual pursuit. He wanted people who were “bright-eyed and bushy-tailed” and so he occasionally bet on someone whose bright eyes were set a little too close together, leaving not enough room for gray matter in between.

He quickly got rid of those who did not meet his standards, however. Over the years, by trial and error, he chose a team of engineers

and managers who understood him and were able to work effectively under his rigid and demanding control.

By playing “catch up” in the aircraft engine business, Neumann did indeed catch up and brought the business to a position of profit- able preeminence in the industry.

OUTMODED BUT EFFECTIVE

Considering the effectiveness of these great managers, in light of modern theory, leads me to several thoughts :

They were great motivators. My understanding is that many modern

managers encourage employees to structure their own jobs, to set their own goals, to try to arrange situations in which the needs and desires of the employee are best served by his working toward the goals of the enterprise. Techniques of job enrichment, giving employ- ees a great deal of responsibility formerly re- served to the manager, are said to be most effective motivators. Indeed, the ultimate situation seems to find the manager primarily in the role of a cheerleader, applauding the creativity and individuality of his team mem- bers.

Not Gibbs, Rickover, or Neumann. Each in different ways, drove his people in

a relentless manner. Workers were afraid of the boss, afraid, with good reason, of what would happen to them if they deviated from what was expected of them. Indeed, much effort was spent in trying to figure out what the boss wanted, for sometimes it was not clear, but not to know was disastrous.

Yet, in spite of their fear of the boss, and, in some cases, the hatred they held for him, very few quit. They wanted to be associated with the great man and to be on the winning team. They were willing to work inordinately hard, to suffer indignities and scorn, and to forego many material rewards, just to belong.

I believe that the currently evolving theo- ries of managing people, i.e. management by objectives, job enrichment, mutual goal setting, etc., all are very helpful and useful in

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most situations. They seem particularly ap- propriate to help the very many engineers who end up in management positions for which their purely engineering skills and edu- cation have not equipped them.

On the other hand there are situations in which some of these techniques seem to get in the way. A brilliant, single-minded, engi-

neering leader, who knows exactly what he wants done, in a narrowly bounded situation (i.e. one project - a ship, a nuclear reactor, a jet engine) can produce results without in- voking these newer techniques. Lots of stick and very little carrot can work well when wielded by a great engineering leader. Witness Gibbs, Rickover, and Neumann.