see what they can do

Once a year, all Navy ships undergo a thorough assessment, in which outside inspectors validate the ship's readiness. The ship as a whole and the crew's abilities and proficiencies are rated in twenty-four categories, on a scale ranging from basic Level One to advanced Level Four. 

The purpose is to determine who much additional training the crew needs to be ready for combat. But if you assume that the higher a ship's level, the less time it would spend training at sea, you would be wrong. In fact, regardless of its readiness rating, every ship spends the next six months training at sea. 
Thus there was no incentive to reach Level Four, and in fact, no ship ever did. Level One was the required minimum, and that was usually considered good enough. 

Then Benfold came along.

Originally, my goal was to reach an overall rating of Level Two, but when I recognized the enormous potential of my crew, I raised the bar to Level Three, much to the chagrin of those who saw it as a quantum leap in their labor and my hubris. 

I must also admit that, in addition to my noble motive of making the ship as good as it could be, I wanted to blow my archrival out of the water. Their assessment was scheduled to begin the basic Level One. The CO had no idea that we were laying the groundwork to shake things up a little. In fact, we were about to rock his world.

Our first challenge was finding enough senior people to supervise the twenty-four areas of testing. My combat systems officer hit me with the unexpected news that we had only twenty qualified people who were not involved in other critical operations. 

Thinking fast, I said, "Fine - pick supervisors from the next group down. You don't always need a senior person in charge. It could be a young, third-class petty officer."

"That's never been done before," he said.

"See what they can do," I said. "The alternative is to do nothing, right? Let's assign senior people to the most demanding areas and work our way down to the junior ones. If we don't get Level Three in some categories, so what? We will get Level One or Two. We have nothing to lose."

As it turns out, the third- and second-class petty officers were so honored to be chosen that they worked hard enough for several of their teams to outshine those supervised by senior people. The search-and-seizure team was particularly impressive. We assigned it to one of the ship's most junior sailors because we suspected he had the ability to honcho it. The outside inspectors protested, saying they could not validate the work of an important team that wasn't headed by a commissioned officer. But I insisted, and the young sailor did such a fantastic job that the inspectors ate their words and placed us at Level Four in that category.

Breaking out of our stratified systems to trust the people who work for us, especially those at or near the low end of the hierarchy, was a useful, progressive change. It let us unleash people with talent and let them rise to levels that no one had expected, simply by challenging them: Make Benfold the readiest ship afloat. In that context, how could we not have done well?


D. Michael Abrashoff
It's Your Ship: Management Techniques from the Best Damn Ship in the Navy by D. Michael Abrashoff. Grand Central Publishing. 2007. p.146-148

be brief, be brilliant, be gone

“Be brief, be brilliant, be gone,” is oft-quoted and less frequently followed. The quote is often attributable to President Woodrow Wilson; however, several other luminaries have spoken to the theme. Here are a few of my favorites:

• “Be sincere; be brief; be seated.” Franklin D. Roosevelt.
• “Courage is what it takes to stand up and speak; courage is also what it takes to sit down and listen.” Winston Churchill
• “Grasp the subject, the words will follow.” Cato The Elder
• “Speak clearly, if you speak at all; carve every word before you let it fall.” Oliver Wendell Holmes

 

All of these quotes sound the same theme: 1) be strategic in your communication – ask what is the goal to be achieved? 2) be intentional – once the goal is determined select the words that will allow you to achieve that goal; 3) be impactful – be economic with your word choice since less is more; and, 4) leave the listener with the impact you intended.

Diana Peterson-More

"“Be Brief, Be Brilliant, Be Gone:” Maximizing Communication." Diana Peterson-More Blog. December 11, 2019

alongside fear

The things you have in mind in life, those goals you've set, dreams you've thought up, if you want to actually accomplish them, you'll have to do them alongside fear. 

Gary John Bishop

Unfu*k Yourself 2023 Day-to-Day Calendar: Get Out of Your Head and Into Your Life. October 30

understanding why

In our world, we usually focus on what we do and on consistently accomplishing tasks and goals. In a spiritual sphere, we have the opportunity to go beyond just doing things or achieving goals by understanding why we are doing them. If we can understand and connect that the reason behind our actions relates to our love for the Savior and our Heavenly Father, by taking advantage of these opportunities we will understand that even though doing righteous things like having Church activities or traditions and appropriately doing them is a good thing, when we connect them with the “why,” we will be blessed to understand the reason. It won’t be just doing good things or doing them right; we will also get them right.

For example, when you set a goal to read the scriptures, offer sincere prayers, or prepare an activity for your family or ward, is the real goal simply to accomplish these tasks? Or are these actions the means, the tools at your disposal, to achieve the true goal? Is the purpose merely to hold an activity because we have done it for many years and then check the box that we have completed it? Or, once again, are these the means we use to learn, to feel, and to connect with the Savior?

Please don’t misunderstand my point about having activities and traditions or setting goals and working hard to achieve them; there is nothing wrong with this. However, I invite you to open your hearts and minds to the opportunity and blessing of understanding why we do these things and how we practice our religion.

Ricardo P. Giménez

"My Love for the Savior Is My “Why”", General Conference April 2025

professor of happiness

While on a business flight several years ago, I found myself seated next to a man from the Netherlands. I was eager to visit with him since I had served in Belgium and the Netherlands as a young missionary.

As we became acquainted, he gave me his business card with the unique job title of “professor of happiness.” I commented on his amazing profession and asked him what a professor of happiness did. He said he taught people how to have a happy life by establishing meaningful relationships and goals. I replied, “That’s wonderful, but what if you could also teach how those relationships can continue beyond the grave and answer other questions of the soul, such as what is the purpose of life, how can we overcome our weaknesses, and where do we go after we die?” He admitted that it would be amazing if we had the answers to those questions, and I was pleased to share with him that we do.

Gary B. Sabin

"Hallmarks of Happiness," General Conference October 2023

what is it in ourselves that we should prize?

What is it in ourselves that we should prize?

Not just transpiration (even plants do that).

Or respiration (even beasts and wild animals breathe).

Or being struck by passing thoughts.

Or jerked like a puppet by your own impulses.

Or moving in herds.

Or eating, and relieving yourself afterwards.

Then what is to be prized?

An audience clapping? No. No more than the clacking of their tongues. Which is all that public praise amounts to – a clacking of tongues.

So we throw out other people’s recognition. What’s left for us to prize?

I think it’s this: to do (and not to do) what we were designed for. That’s the goal of all trades, all arts, and what each of them aims at: that the thing they create should do what it was designed to do. The nurseryman who cares for the vines, the horse trainer, the dog breeder – this is what they aim at. And teaching and education – what else are they trying to accomplish?

So that’s what we should prize. Hold on to that, and you won’t be tempted to aim at anything else.

And if you can’t stop prizing a lot of other things? Then you’ll never be free – free, independent, imperturbable. Because you’ll always be envious and jealous, afraid that people might come and take it all away from you. Plotting against those who have them- those things you prize. People who need those things are bound to be a mess – and bound to take out their frustrations on the gods. Whereas to respect your own mind – to prize it – will leave you satisfied with your own self, well integrated into your community and in tune with the gods as well – embracing what they allot you, and what they ordain. 

Marcus Aurelius

Meditations by Marcus Aurelius. Modern Library. 2003. P.72, Book 6, #16. Also see The Internet Classics Archive | The Meditations by Marcus Aurelius (mit.edu)

the applause you get

Profit is the applause you get for taking care of your customers and creating a motivating environment for your people.... When managers focus only on organizational indicators of vitality – such as profit – they have their eyes on the scoreboard, not the ball. Profit, a key aspect of organizational vitality, is a byproduct of serving the customer, which can be achieved only by serving the employee. So profit really is the applause you get from taking care of your customers and creating a motivating environment for your people.

Ken Blanchard

Leading at a Higher Level: Blanchard on Leadership and Creating High Performing Organizations (Revised and Expanded Edition). FT Press, 2009. 

a clear goal in life?

Do we have a clear goal in life?… Without a clear goal, we will always be distracted and spend our energy on secondary things. “Keep your eye on the prize,” Martin Luther King said to his people. What is our prize? It is the divine life, the eternal life, the life with and in God. Jesus proclaimed to us that goal, that heavenly prize. To Nicodemus he said: “This is how God loved the world: he gave his Son so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life” (John 3:16).

It is not easy to keep our eyes fixed on the eternal life, especially not in a world that keeps telling us that there are more immediate and urgent things on which to focus…. How then do we keep our goal clear, how then do we fix our eyes on the prize? By the discipline of prayer and the discipline that helps us to bring God back again and again to the center of our life. We will always remain distracted, constantly busy with many urgent demands, but when there is a time and place set apart to return to our God who offers us eternal life, we gradually can come to realize that the many things we have to do, to say, or to think no longer distract us but are, instead, all leading us closer to our goal. Most important, however, is that our goal remains clear. Prayer keeps our goal clear, and when our goal has become vague, prayer makes it clear again.


Henri J.M. Nouwen, The Only Necessary Thing: Living A Prayerful Life, Compiled & Edited by Wendy Wilson Greer. 1999. p. 184. Originally quoted in Here and Now. 1994.

it takes courage

Our Church leaders have counseled us to establish righteous patterns in our homes. Consider five fundamental practices that have the power to fortify our youth: family prayer, family scripture study, family home evening, family dinner together, and regular one-on-one interviews with each child.


It takes courage to gather children from whatever they’re doing and kneel together as a family. It takes courage to turn off the television and the computer and to guide your family through the pages of the scriptures every day. It takes courage to turn down other invitations on Monday night so that you can reserve that evening for your family. It takes courage and willpower to avoid overscheduling so that your family can be home for dinner.

One of the most effective ways we can influence our sons and daughters is to counsel with them in private interviews. By listening closely, we can discover the desires of their hearts, help them set righteous goals, and also share with them the spiritual impressions that we have received about them. Counseling requires courage.

Try to imagine what the rising generation could become if these five righteous patterns were practiced consistently in every home. Our young people could be like Helaman’s army: invincible (see Alma 57:25--26).



Larry R. Lawrence, "Courageous Parenting," General Conference October 2010

a precious manifestation of what you are becoming

We become what we want to be by consistently being what we want to become each day. Righteous character is a precious manifestation of what you are becoming. Righteous character is more valuable than any material object you own, any knowledge you have gained through study, or any goals you have attained no matter how well lauded by mankind. In the next life your righteous character will be evaluated to assess how well you used the privilege of mortality.

“The Transforming Power of Faith and Character,” by Richard G. Scott, General Conference October 2010

The men and women, who desire to obtain seats in the celestial kingdom, will find that they must battle every day [for this sacred goal]


Brigham Young (Discourses or Brigham Young, sel. John A. Widtsoe [1954], 392).

Your vision of your future will help you press forward. Take a few minutes to envision where you want to be in one year or two or five. Then take action to prepare yourselves. People don't just run a marathon when they decide to do it. They must train daily, slowly building stamina and endurance to run the 26.2-mile distance. So it is with life. It is daily diligence with prayer and scripture study that will help you reach your goals. Your daily decisions will influence generations.

Elaine S. Dalton

looking outward together

Life has taught us that love does not consist in gazing at each other but in looking outward together in the same direction.

Antoine de Saint-Exupery. French aviator and writer, author of 'The Little Prince', 1900-1944. 

Wind, Sand and Stars. 1939. P.288