Communicate purpose and meaning: think your company is a tight ship? Consider how one captain turned traditional thinking on its head and made his ship the pride of the U.S. Navy. (Perspectives: Leadership).

The whole secret of leading a ship or managing a company is to articulate a common goal that inspires a diverse group of people to work hard together. That's what my sailors got: a purpose that transformed their lives and made USS Benfold a composite of an elite school, a lively church, a winning football team, and -- best of all -- the hottest go-to ship in the U.S. Navy.

When I took command, I kept walking around the ship trying to understand why everything seemed so desperately wrong, why there was no energy anywhere. It finally hit me that people were just showing up to collect a paycheck every two weeks. They were locking their passion and enthusiasm inside their cars in the parking lot and just bringing their bodies to work. No one had ever thought to give them a compelling vision of their work, a good reason to believe it was important. After all, we dedicate 60 to 70 percent of our waking hours to this thing called work. It would be terrible if we didn't believe that what we were doing made a difference.

So we spent some time and thought, and came up with a compelling vision that they could believe in. We began making improvements. And slowly they stopped leaving their enthusiasm in their cars and began bringing it to work.

MAKE YOUR CREW THINK "WE CAN DO ANYTHING"

On Benfold we used every possible means of communication, including private e-mail to key superiors; daily newsletters for the crew; my own cheerleading for good ideas and walking around the ship chatting; and topside light shows and loud music that expressed Benfold's exuberance. We also issued a steady stream of readiness missives for tasks that ranged from air defense to sea blockades. It wasn't unusual for me to send 10-page messages on how to improve our procedures. Our whole ship became a medium, sending a message of achievement and can-do optimism to the entire fleet.

Like any other work force, mine appreciated hearing from top management. That communication is another thing missing from many organizations today -- managerial silence seems to be growing just when fierce competition is forcing companies to reinvent themselves constantly. Change frightens workers, and their fears thrive in silence. The antidote is obvious: Keep talking. Tell everyone personally what's in store for him or her -- new goals, new work descriptions, new organizational structure, and yes, job losses, if that's the case. Explain why the company is making the changes. People can absorb anything if they are not deceived or treated arrogantly. Lies and arrogance create an us-versus-them atmosphere that poisons productivity.

I decided that before I launched any big new policy, I would ask myself how my sailors saw it. If it made sense from that vantage point, I probably had a pretty good policy. If it made no sense, I either had the wrong policy or I wasn't communicating clearly. If I had communicated clearly, people would understand, before they got involved, why a new policy was in everyone's best interest, which was how we got the crew's 100 percent support for nearly every change we made.

Some leaders feel that by keeping people in the dark, they maintain a measure of control. But that is the leader's folly and an organization's failure. Secrecy spawns isolation, nor success. Knowledge is power, yes, but what leaders need is collective power, and that requires collective knowledge. I found that the more people knew what the goals were, the better the buy-in I got -- and the better the results we achieved together.

FREEDOM CREATES DISCIPLINE

My interviews with the crew worked to empower my sailors to think and act on their own. But equally important, if not more so, was our follow-up process. In the interest of full disclosure and giving credit where credit is due, I will admit that I lifted this idea from the Army. Yes, the Army. Even a broken clock is right twice a day, and this idea was a keeper. It's called the After Action Review, or AAR. After every major decision, event, or maneuver, those involved gathered around my chair on the bridge wing and critiqued it. Even if things had gone well, we still analyzed them. Sometimes things go right by accident, and you're left with the dangerous illusion that it was your doing. We documented what we were trying to do, how we did it, what the conditions and variables were, and how we could improve the process in the future.

The ground rules for these sessions were that you checked your ego at the door, and that there was no retribution for any comments. I encouraged people to challenge or criticize anyone in the group; the most junior seaman could criticize the commanding officer. And they certainly took me up on that. One seaman told me, "Captain, your ship handling stunk today, and it made us do extra work."

Horrors, you may say. Whatever happened to taut captains and tight ships? Bring back the cat-o'-nine-tails. But intrepid sailors win wars; intimidated sailors lose them. Like most businesses, in the Navy there is no fat left on the bone. We no longer enjoy having extra people hanging around to take up slack. We have to get the mission accomplished with limited resources. The only way to do this is with a ruthlessly efficient organization. And if I was causing unnecessary work, then I wanted to know about it. If the crew had a problem with what I was doing, I wanted them to tell me so I could fix it or explain why I had to do things that way, thus expanding my crew's knowledge of limitations or requirements imposed on me.

When people saw me opening myself to criticism, they opened themselves up. That's how we made dramatic improvements. People could get inside one another's minds. They could work together for the best possible Benfold. The result? We never made the same mistake twice, and everyone involved got to understand the big picture.

During my last 12 months in command, I had many fewer disciplinary cases than in previous years. With one exception, I never fired or reassigned anyone. The exception was a sailor who had been caught smoking marijuana before I arrived. When the results of his urinalysis arrived, I had no choice but to throw him out; the sentence was mandatory at the time.

There was a corresponding dramatic drop in workmen's compensation cases, which can be an easy way for disgruntled sailors to be reassigned to a hospital; safety-related mishaps almost disappeared (we went from 31 to only two). When people feel they own an organization, they perform with greater care and devotion. They want to do things right the first time, and they don't have accidents by taking shortcuts for the sake of expedience.

Previously, people were fighting to get off the ship. Now they were fighting to stay aboard. That kind of desire translates into performance. I am absolutely convinced that with good leadership, freedom does not weaken discipline -- it strengthens it. Free people have a powerful incentive not to screw up.

Michael Abrashoff, a former U.S. Navy officer, takes an innovative, grassroots approach to leadership. While commander of USS Benfold, one of the most sophisticated and technologically advanced ships in the Navy's arsenal. Abrashoff grappled with the same issues of morale, retention, and communication that challenge many CEOs. His belief that leadership is a process that can be taught and learned is the basis for his current work with major corporations. He can be reached at [e-mail].

Adapted from It's Your Ship! (Warner Books, June 2002)