Thinking Big
Management Secrets of Captain Bligh: Part the Second
Why does the infamous Captain Bligh stand out from any bright, new project manager? He doesn’t. But how he lost control of his project and, maybe, how he redeemed himself can suggest some guidelines to think about.
1) Accept Every Objective
Bligh was smart and enlightened for his Age. He had direct South Seas experience under the great Captain Cook. He had worked his way up by merit, though he had to marry well before they would name him an officer. But in the peace-time British Navy of the 1780’s, assignments, let alone promotions, were hard to find.
Bligh had lobbied for a high profile project, such as the Breadfruit Project — bringing breadfruit plants from Tahiti in the Pacific to the plantations of the West Indies in the Caribbean, but he didn’t ask for the HMS Bounty. Bligh had been at sea captaining a merchant ship when the project was set up. The objectives of the project were many, including charting huge swatches of the Pacific, and (fitting Bligh’s personal goals) the chance to circumnavigate the globe.
He saw that the ship supplied was too small. The crew had to be tiny, even the captain’s cabin would become a plant nursery, and there wasn’t space or budget for any marines — key to keeping personnel in line. Bligh would even have to re-enter the Royal Navy as a lieutenant.
Bligh protested, but not for long. Like many a project manager, he assumed he could manage his way through any hardship. From the Admiralty’s point of view I suspect it was “Take the Big Chance you’d been whining for, you pencil-pocketed, 18th Century techno-geek, or buzz off.” (Translation mine.) Bligh leapt at the chance.
Hope Springs Eternal
He thought that if he was lucky, he could do it all — catch the right winds across the Atlantic, round Cape Horn, catch more winds across the Pacific, grab the breadfruit, sail those uncharted waters (maybe even uncharted LANDS), splash his patrons’ names all over his new maps, keep catching the right winds to cross the Atlantic again, deliver the breadfruit (plus pick up undiscovered flora and fauna at every stop), and skip back to London to accept the acclaim. Of course, if every project was that lucky, you’d just toss random IP into a blender, skip verification, and still hit specs and silicon every time.
The enlightened Captain Bligh planned to take advantage of all the science he’d learned. He would provide fresh food, demand they eat fruit, and order them to jump up and down to music (does your company have aerobics classes?). For his concern for their health the crew decided he was a nutter who was embezzling the salt pork and weevil-spiced bread they expected (try yanking the doughnuts out of an engineer’s hand and substituting grated cabbage).
Reality Sets In
Bligh’s luck didn’t hold. Adverse winds and storms slammed the Cape shut. He had to give up on circumnavigation (Missed Goal). It took ten months to back track, sail around Africa, and finally reach Tahiti for the breadfruit (Met Goal). However, the much delayed ship had lost the seasonal winds needed to chart the unknown area (Unmet Goal) let alone deliver the plants to the West Indies (Unmet Goal). Like a sail-powered space shuttle, it would take another five months to get everything back into alignment and re-launch. Meanwhile Bligh was taking out his frustrations the same way many troubled bosses do, on his crew.
Storm Flags Flying
Conditions on a late 18th Century ship were harsh and dictatorial by design. Communications were poor, revolutionary ideas beckoned, and petty grudges simmered. People with different skills and agendas were thrown together and bullied to be productive. Good thing our high tech, high-pressure project teams are not like that. Modern teams never fail to come together, do they?
Tahiti’s very welcoming society offered the hardened jack-tar’s vistas that regular life never could. (You’ll have to look them up yourselves; this is a family website.) They had instant status and were invited into the inner circles of the society. They were offered freedom and temptations beyond their dreams. But who would give up hard tack and humiliation for a life in Paradise? Discipline began falling apart. The Breadfruit Project workers were going native.
Meanwhile Bligh was living in denial. He seesawed back and forth, giving the crew freedoms and then taking them away. He screamed at any failure, regardless of fault. Even though he got over his temper tantrums quickly, the sailors and officers he treated like stupid children didn’t seem to forget.
A Call for Solutions
I’ll concede that his official project objectives (given his limited resources), may not have been his choice. But how he tried to follow them was. Have you ever been on or led a failing team? What do you do with overwhelming goals?
Next installment, we’ll look more closely at what Bligh methods and how they affected his crew.