Four Words to Remember

Monday was International Women's Day; a friend shared a post about Rear Admiral Grace Murray Hopper in honor of the day. It brought back memories.  

I had the honor to hear Rear Admiral Hopper speak twice.  Those talks were inspirational.  She wore her Navy uniform and told stories from her career -- about the early days of computers and what it was like to work with them, about being a naval officer, about the leap from Machine language to Programming languages.  

Many people remember the nanoseconds given to the audience during her talks -- a small piece of plastic coated wire.  The wire was 11.8 inches long, and represented the maximum distance light could travel in a nanosecond. She then showed a microsecond in comparison -- 984 feet of wire. We can't imagine it now, but for many years computing time was precious -- you worked hard to create efficient code, because there were people waiting to dump your program, done or not, when your time slot was up.  She gave out nanoseconds to remind engineers a microsecond was a lot of time to waste. 

I took some nanoseconds away from her talks, and often one has been tacked up on the wall in my office. In my case, it wasn't to remind me to write efficient code -- but to remind me of a more important lesson Admiral Hopper taught, one which has been foundational to my leadership.

Admiral Hopper told a story about a time early in her Navy career when her team was working incredibly hard. As I remember it, they were working very long hours, in a sterile environment (computers were finicky -- no cigarettes, no food, no drinks in the room) -- and there wasn't any place nearby where they could take a short break to eat or smoke.  To formally request a break area would have involved all kinds of explanations, requisition forms, and permission from multiple officers. It would have taken months.  Instead, she "liberated" some break room furniture from another area of the base.  She kept her team's spirts and productivity up, and they met their goal.  

Her impudence was noticed after the fact, and she duly and fully apologized. Neither she nor her team got in trouble. Of course, if they hadn't met their goal, it might have been a different matter. 

Her lesson:  "Ask forgiveness, not permission."   

For a young female engineer and team leader struggling to figure out how large organizations worked -- this was a revelation.  

It's not a "do whatever you want" credo -- there is context.  It can't be illegal or unethical or unkind. It can't have been explicitly forbidden.   It has to clearly be the right thing to do, in service of a common goal, with bureaucracy the impediment to getting it done quickly.  

You also have to be willing to take a hit for having stuck your neck out.  "I'm sorry, I was so focused on meeting our goal, I didn't realize I should have gotten VP sign-off before I did X"  Fill in your X -- sent a prototype home with an engineer who couldn't work long hours in the office, took over a conference room for a war room, authorized overtime, bought dinner when everyone stayed late.   Maybe the apology will be enough -- maybe you'll get a reprimand. It's a calculated risk. 

 More than once in my career, when I wasn't sure if I should give my team the go-ahead, those four words have echoed in my head, and given me courage to do the right thing. .   

I only spent a few hours in a room with Admiral Hopper;  her wisdom changed my life.