Against the Tide: Rickover's Leadership Principles and the Rise of the Nuclear Navy Hardcover – November 15, 2014

One of the great virtues of this book is its brevity. Yet toward the very end it seems to soldier on a bit too long. Nonetheless, the reader is not asked to wrestle with a "door stop" tome. Below, however, is what I DID wrestle with: [1] Much good discussion regarding the circumstances and the scene in which Rickover came into power and succeeded in initiating America's first nuclear power program for the US Navy. Despite "not fitting in", Rickover seized the opportunity presented by the Cold War and ran with this ball across the goal line of success. A marvelous story.[2] It's less clear where Rickover's dictum's relate to the general business of management. The author not only served many long years in various Navy submarine programs and management but also served many years in commercial, for-profit enterprises. Much is made of Rickover's fetish over accountability, but it is totally unclear to me how the author put this into practice in industry. I looked for instances where the author and subordinates sang out of this hymnal but couldn't find them. Jack Welch makes many of the same points but with greater bluntness and effect.[3] Perhaps the most controversial issue involving responsibility involves the loss of the submarine Thresher. Popular accounts have Rickover frantically trying to absolve himself of responsibility related to the scramming of the reactor and a fatal loss of power while Thresher plunged into extremis. All the reader expects is a discussion of the truth of the matter. Thresher references in the book are much too elliptical and brief. What was Rickover's role in the subsequent SubSafe program meant to re-mediate the supposed Thresher shortcomings? Did Rickover design SubSafe .. embrace it .. rail against it .. or what?[4] It's clear that Rickover's life was his work. Most CEO's are driven types as well. But the extent to which Rickover was driven seems unique. Perhaps it was a wonderful convergence of Rickover's personality and the staggering challenge of what he embarked upon. But what the reader {or at least this one} is totally mystified by is: where is the humanity of the guy? Not why couldn't he have been better liked or less abrasive or more empathetic? But the great mystery is: what type of MAN was he? When he unchained himself from his rock, what did he turn into? Married twice and father of a son, where did his humanity show beyond the fact of the matter? What about his personal life should management students find worthy of emulation? Did the mask of Naval Reactors ever slip once he was in the parking lot? At IBM I had a wonderful boss who worked in one of the large headquarters buildings in White Plains. I would come visit him from my laboratory in Cambridge, and at the end of the day he would graciously escort me to the front door. As we took leave he would say: "Remember, you are returning to the real world [meaning my family] not leaving it [meaning IBM]."[5] Speaking of IBM, T.J. Watson, Jr. had a poster printed up that said something to the effect that : "We tolerate/encourage our wild ducks rather than try to tame them." People have made a case that IBM played a most significant role in the Age of the Computer and the computer is not in the 21st century struggling for a role as is the nuclear submarine. The navy's "Wild Duck" {singular} was Rickover while the computer industry is populated by a great many. Today's young people rarely know who Admiral Rickover was yet a good many people {young and old} know who Steve Jobs and Bill Gates are--on a worldwide basis.There are a good many very fine books which cover Rickover's engineering accomplishments and systems. Within these books and in publications such as the "Naval Institute Proceedings" there are a great many vignettes about Rickover and some of these try to get at the humanity issue--SOB or KOM [kindly old man]? Submarine admiral Yogi Kaufman sets a good pace here. This book, thankfully, does not set out to spin many yarns about Rickover. Yet under the rubric which the author sets, the muffin comes out of the toaster pretty dry. The reader needs the butter and marmalade of humaneness to make this slim meal a nourishing one.

My boyfriend is a nuclear engineer and bookworm, and he's been obsessed with Rickover for a while. When he mentioned around Christmas that he wanted a Rickover book he had noticed, I took my best guess as to which book it was and bought this book for him. He had the book finished in two days and LOVED it.I am not a nuclear engineer and had never even heard of Rickover until I met my boyfriend. It was enough for me to know that Aaron loved the book... but then he wanted me to read it. I was hesitant thinking there would be a lot I would not understand but I decided to give it a whirl anyways since I love non-fiction and history, and really didn't know much about the Cold War era.This book catered to both of us fantastically!The author ends each chapter with questions meant to cause the reader to think about Rickover's leadership tactics. Unless you are someone reading the book for this purpose, that last paragraph at the end of each chapter, really doesn't serve a huge purpose, but it's still cool. The content of each chapter however is very fascinating and easy to read, particularly if you care at all about learning the history of a man who is not frequently recognize as a hero, but should be considered one nonetheless. Rickover is likely one of the biggest reasons the US won the Cold War and one of the reasons we still have an amazing nuclear department to this day.There were only a handful of times I paused to look up a word, but for the most part, the book was put in layman's terms and easy to follow. Context clue were usually all I needed to get through random words I was unfamiliar with and honestly, I'd be worried if an engineer didn't have a better vocabulary than me, anyways.If you are someone who likes Rickover, history, biographies (although this isn't technically one), the Cold War, or nuclear engineering, this is a great book to add into the mix.P.S. This wound up not being the book Aaron had originally wanted but he said it was probably better than any other book he would have asked for anyways! :)

Great book and well worth the money. Not only related to navy or nuclear but general leadership and management.