Hurricane Katrina, which made landfall on August 29, 2005, caused extensive damage across the Gulf Coast, particularly in Louisiana and Mississippi, resulting in an estimated $125 billion in damages and over 1,800 deaths. The storm surge and flooding led to widespread destruction, with 80% of New Orleans submerged due to levee failures.
Homes, buildings, and infrastructure across the Gulf Coast experienced significant damage, with many structures destroyed or heavily damaged. The storm also caused major beach erosion along the Gulf Coast, impacting coastal ecosystems to this day. Millions of people were displaced from their homes in the aftermath of the storm, and many remained homeless for an extended period of time.
Northrop Grumman Corporation experienced the horrific impact of Katrina on their operations and financial results of its Ship Systems sector, in locations along the coast with the primary facility in Pascagoula, MS. (known as the yard) For nearly 70 years, the. Gulf Coast operations pioneered the development and production of technologically advanced, highly capable warships for the surface Navy fleet, U.S. Coast Guard, U.S. Marine Corps, and foreign and commercial customers.
There was enormous damage to the basic infrastructure and the surrounding areas as well. This included extensive damage to the shipyard facilities, major shipyard assets, such as cranes, dry docks and most fabrication facilities. Many of the 12,000 employees were impacted by employment at the yard and many also lost their homes. At the time, the shipyard was the biggest manufacturing employer in the states of Mississippi, Louisiana and Alabama. About 2500 people worked diligently for 18 months to bring back the yard in a phased-in approach.
Some employees returned and many did not. At one point, the Navy and President Bush requested an additional $2 billion to restore the yard to full operation. In addition to funding, that process has actually taken about 10 years.
In 2009, I joined a small International Consulting Company as their Senior Vice President. One of their major clients was the CEO and his Team at the Northrup Gruman Shipbuilding Operations in Pascagoula, MS. They had been working with the CEO and his team of 22 Leaders for about a year. I began as an Executive Coach to several of the critical Team members at the request of the CEO. As those relationships evolved, I was aware that the yard was still in transition in its recovery from the impact of Katrina. The yard was not kept clean, quality was compromised, employees did not return so skilled labor was a problem, and most importantly, there were missed delivery deadlines to the Navy and US Coast Guard. This CEO was the 2nd in four years to lead the yard turnaround.
For the CEO, change was not happening fast enough. In a conversation with him, I mentioned the book, Your Iceberg is Melting by John Kotter. It’s a fable about a colony of penguins who have to find a new place to live because their iceberg IS melting. The fable reveals the steps of change. Here is a link to the fable: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=prNdb5dYdOg He loved the fable and began to share it with his Team. He even gave me an elegant coffee table book about Penguins.
With that opening, I began to socialize the idea of developing a future picture of all the changes he wanted to make to the yard over the next several years. I shared how that process worked at a pharmaceutical and a media and entertainment companies. He was intrigued. The process would involve interviewing him and every member of his leadership team about their vision for an exciting future for the yard. They all would have different perspectives. We would compile those interviews into themes and create an imaginative, yet realistic view of the future of the yard in story format. He loved the idea and laid the groundwork for the process to begin.
I brought in a respected colleague as a partner and a known professional writer. We conducted 23 interviews with his senior team. Some questions included:
- “It’s 2012, and the Gulf Coast’s Shipbuilding Operations has accomplished everything you’ve imagined. Tell me from a business perspective, what that would mean?”
- “Now that we’ve talked broadly about where the business will be, can you tell me what your functional area did to help NGSB-CG get there?”
- “That gives me a great picture of the shipyard in 2012 from both a business and functional perspective. Now can you tell me how the Senior Leadership Team contributed to these results?”
- “Do you want to say anything about culture or work environment in your picture of the future?”
- Before we conclude, what else might you want to tell me about the Gulf Coast Shipyard in 2012 that we haven’t talked about?”
We took copious notes and the content was only shared with the individual to maintain confidentiality and accuracy. This process produced terrific, innovative and realistic solutions. You could feel and see the leaders come alive with their insights and possibilities.
The consultant, writer and I began to synthesize these interviews into themes that we would want to bring forward into a future story. We also made a commitment to bring at least one idea from each leader to commit to foster commitment and ownership and implementation.
These are some of the themes we landed on: the customer, our reputation, what we value, become a fully-integrated service provider, our leadership philosophy and expected behaviors, focus on 1st time quality, condition of the yard is spotless, our reputation in the community, become partners with the community, and maximize human capital to name but some.
With those themes and some powerful quotes from the leaders, we got to work to craft that picture of the future. We actually ended up with 5 stories, a main story that focused on the yard and 4 short stories that focused on how and where the ships built here were deployed around the globe. We wanted to appeal to both the head/ intellect and the heart.
The main story was titled, “From Nearly Rusted to Clearly Trusted: How the Northrup Gruman Shipyard turned around its own Ship of Fate”. It was placed in the Gulf Coast Journal and dated August, 2012, three years out. The article describes a journalist looking out his window at the yard. He keeps hearing about great things happening there and decides to set up an interview with the CEO. The CEO led him around the yard, which is spotless (and the Navy likes that). He introduces him to leaders who are leading 1st time Quality efforts that are working, others who are setting up an Apprentice School and a High School Intern Program to grow future local talent and lots of other initiatives. The journalist was indeed impressed.
The 4 shorter stories include all ships either built or repaired at the yard. 1) “U.S. Marines Deliver Critical Aid to Earthquake Victims in Nicaragua” placed in The Seattle Chronicle. The USS The Makin Island-LHD 8 ship; 2) “Timely Arrival of USS William P. Lawrence+ In Persian Gulf Prevents Armed Conflict” and placed in The Miami Times; 3)” Coast Guard Foils High-Seas Pirates Off Haiti’s Coast” (USCGC Waesche (WMSL 751) came to the rescue of a merchant ship bound for Port au Prince) and placed in The Boston Gazette; and “Ship forged from World Trade Center returns Home for Fleet Week” (USS New York) and placed in The New York Bugle.
The stories look and feel very real as newspaper articles. The names of the publications are not. The CEO and his Team loved the stories and found them to be inspiring. To communicate this exciting vision, we designed a day long workshop to be led by each of the 22 team members. Their teams varied in size from 50 to 500 depending on the function. The theme was change and transforming the yard. The stories were assigned as pre-work for these conversations. At the end, all participants made a commitment to implement at least one of the actions suggested in the stories.
It took several months to complete the workshops. The tone and spirit of the yard began to change. Leaders and their team became more hopeful an actually began to implement some of the changes suggested by themselves. The Navy commented on the cleanliness of the yard, teams were meeting delivery deadlines for the Navy and Coast Guard, 1st time quality became the new normal, the Community became more engaged and that Apprentice School was established.
For several years, the Gulf Coast shipyard region is experienced a period of growth and activity, with both commercial and military shipbuilding contracts driving expansion and new developments. Several shipyards expanded their capacity and undertook new projects, including the construction of new vessels and the development of new technologies.
The CEO eventually moved on to another role at the Newport News Shipyard. His successor was one of the leaders I coached, In 2011, Northrup Gruman chose to exit the shipbuilding business to focus on defense and aerospace. The meant spinning off the Pascagoula shipyard. However, recently they announced they are back in the warship business.
They are teaming with DARPA on numerous projects, including autonomous aircraft, submarine technologies, and even lunar railroad concepts. They have been involved in DARPA’s Advanced Air Craft Infrastructure-Less Launch And Recovery (ANCILLARY) X-Plane program, developing autonomous VTOL aircraft for naval use. They are also involved in the Manta Ray program, a DARPA-funded project focused on advanced uncrewed underwater vehicles.
Click on the titles below to see booklets of the articles, mentioned in this story.
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