[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]

GBlist: Philosophical issues for greenbuilding



I thought the article below was very interesting and expressed some
challenges that we as people who work for the "king/owner" need to be aware
of.


>>The New Bottom Line
Strategic perspectives on business and environment
v 6 n 16 July 29, 1997
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Everything I Ever Needed to Know About Management
I Learned 369 Years Ago at the Launch -- and Sinking -- of the Wasa Ship
-------------------------------------------------------------------------

It's a remarkable sight. A nearly intact 17th century warship, 69 meters
from bowsprit to stern, 52.5 meters from keel to top of mast, housed in the
seven story Wasa Museum <http://www.vasamuseet.se/indexeng.html> in
Stockholm's Djurgarden park. A stack of balconies enable one to view the
ship from below, above or side, to peer through the gunports at the cramped
interior spaces, to inch out on a sample "crow's nest" set as high off the
museum floor as the actual one was above the rolling deck on the Wasa ship.
It's a fascinating museum, complete with examples of clothing, weapons,
tools and shipboard life, but there's also a story behind it, and another
behind that. And there's a management moral to those stories too, so stay
with me please.

The ship is a marvel of archaeology, dredged up after three centuries at
the bottom of Stockholm's harbor in a two decade project of discovery,
excavation, dredging, raising and restoration, all carefully documented on
film with pride entirely appropriate for Sweden's equivalent of an Apollo
mission.

Commissioned by Sweden's king during the Thirty Years War, the Wasa was to
be a mighty psychological as well as naval weapon in the battles with
Poland for Baltic dominance. With its complement of 445 men and 64 guns,
the ship was one of the mightiest weapons of its day, its size and
extravagant ornamentation a testament to the wealth and power of the king.
Except for one thing. It listed to one side, then the other and sank 15
minutes into its maiden voyage from its construction drydock to the royal
palace.

The king, who was doing battle in Poland at the time, was not pleased and
ordered an inquiry into the cause. The initial hypothesis put the blame on
the incompetence of the crew, but that theory was somehow soon dismissed.
The designer, who had died before the fateful voyage, somehow survived the
inquiry, which closed without conclusive findings. Centuries later, naval
engineers concluded that the ship did not carry sufficient ballast to
offset structure and armaments.

But didn't these people know how to engineer stable ships, you  might
wonder? Well, yes and no. No, because warships of that day were none too
stable, Errol Flynn movies notwithstanding. Yes, because nothing quite like
this had happened before. But our tale doesn't end there.

Because the additional factor in this story was an order from the
campaigning king saying that he wanted ships with two decks of guns, not
just a single deck. The Wasa was already under construction, and no one was
sure whether the king meant to design a second deck of guns into the next
ship or to add one to this ship. Communications being slow in those days,
the doubt was resolved in favor of adding the second deck rather than risk
displeasing the king. Unfortunately, there was no room for additional
ballast to offset the high riding weight of the additional guns. But the
ship had to be built, and the work went on. Murphy's Law was at work, even
back then.

Now these were capable naval architects, not blind to the problem, so some
testing seemed called for. Under the watchful eyes of the admiral, sailors
massed along one side of the ship, then ran to the other, back and forth,
to see if the ship would begin to list. It did. And the admiral called off
the test!

What does this have to do with environment? Not much. But it has a lot to
do with the process of management, with technical prowess and ample capital
overshadowed by communication breakdowns and willful ignorance of the
facts. "Don't bother me with those details; we've got a spec to fulfill, a
deadline to meet."

Fortunately we've learned a lot about management in the last three and a
half centuries. We're much less likely to ignore facts, employee concerns
or experimental results to meet production deadlines or quarterly profit
targets... aren't we? And we certainly aren't likely to ignore fundamental
physics, whether it concerns naval architecture, the low-temperature
performance of o-rings in a rocket booster, or the constraints faced by a
growing industrial system confronting the laws of thermodynamics in a
closed biosphere.

Captain Dilbert, I presume?

                         #       #       #

      (c) 1997 Gil Friend and Associates. All rights reserved.
        Distributed by Los Angeles Times Syndicate. [970729]

    Archived on the World Wide Web at http://www.eco-ops.com/eco-ops
   For subscription information, send email to: nbl-info@eco-ops.com

         May be cross-posted intact--including this notice--
              via email as long as no fees are charged.
           Publishing--whether on a Web site or in print--
              and commercial distribution in any form
             require our advance permission. Thank you.

Gil Friend, systems ecologist and business strategist, is president of
Gil Friend and Associates, a consulting group specializing in strategic
environmental management, including Integrated EcoAuditing, Industrial
Ecology and ecological re-engineering.

*****************************************************************
*  Gil Friend                *  Tel: 1-510-548-7904             *
*  Gil Friend & Associates   *  Fax: 1-510-849-2341             *
*  48 Shattuck Square #103   *  Net: gfriend@eco-ops.com        *
*  Berkeley CA 94704         *  http://www.eco-ops.com/eco-ops  *
*****************************************************************
* "Nature's ecosystems have 3.5 billion years experience of     *
*  in evolving efficient, complex, adaptive, resilient systems. *
*  Why should companies reinvent the wheel, when the R&D has    *
*  already been done?"                                          *
*****************************************************************



______________________________________________________________________
This greenbuilding dialogue is sponsored by CREST <www.crest.org>
Environmental Building News <www.ebuild.com> and Oikos <www.oikos.com>
For  instructions send  e-mail to  greenbuilding-request@crest.org.
______________________________________________________________________