A captain in command who chooses to abandon his ship and all of the souls whom he is sworn, by ethics and Maritime Law (the "Law Of The High Seas") to protect, without regard to his own safety until the last of his charges is safe is a coward. He made a decision to be derelict in his sworn duties. He is not a leader. There is no gray area here -- the implications are carved starkly in black and white: He probably should be blindfolded, hands tied behind his back, and made to walk the plank.
Having said this, this article is not about the captain, but about the Officer-In-Charge at the Port Authority, who spent an hour of critical time engaging in a futile conversational exchange with the derelict deserter in an attempt to "convince" a proven self-serving coward to cooperate, instead of immediately using the threat of lethal force to accelerate the cowardly captain's compliance. The OIC was an enabler, if not an accessory, to this circus of childishness surrounding a heinous crime.
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Synopsis, excerpted from a situational case study by the American Management Association: Please read through this rather indecisive, uninstructive situational analysis by a bright group of people with an analytical but "non-action" orientation, and then read my more pointed TAKING COMMAND comments, which follow:
-----------------"When a tragedy claims lives in a shipwreck or an aircraft crash, like the Italian vessel that capsized this week, working out responsibility is urgent and important. The causes and the chain of command get investigated and blame gets apportioned. It’s not always that way in life.
The wreck of the Italian liner Costa Concordia is desperately sad, and shocking for anyone involved. Inevitably, there will be an investigation, prosecutions, and law suits. This is a tragedy—people have died, and the environmental impact could also be devastating.
In an incident such as this, the questions of responsibility—whose fault is this? What happened? Will be critical—and they will be answered.
In business life, we often look at questions of responsibility when things go wrong: who gave the orders? Who responded? What happens when people make mistakes?
The answers are usually shades of gray rather than black and white. And the chains of consequences are hard to work out. Things go wrong because of many factors, and it’s often hard to say whose “fault” something is. We usually end up by saying, in a vague way, that “mistakes were made.” ####
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TAKING COMMAND Commentary...
The captain should now, simply put, walk the proverbial plank. But he was not the OIC - Officer In Charge. He was not the commander. Sometimes the situational dynamics dictate who is justly and most effectively in command.
In certain situations, an individual must determine whether or not a person-in-charge is competent to be there, and must take action accordingly. The communications officer at the Port Authority had become, after very simple situational assessment, the OIC. From the second he made that determination of the captains lack of willingness or ability, it was his obligation to take complete command.
Instead of a childish back-and-forth duck-and-dodge game of asking questions and trading sarcastic insults which wasted a precious hour and caused further damage and loss of life, the OIC should have made it clear (perhaps with some audacious bluffery involved):
"Captain. You have abandoned your ship, and have been derelict in your duty. You are hereby commanded, in accordance with law, and under penalty of death, to return to your ship and board immediately, without delay. Once there, you will contact me immediately to give me a full situation report. You have 30 minutes to do this -- if you have not confirmed that you are back on board the vessel within exactly 30 minutes, I am prepared to issue the order to fire on your life vessel. Am I perfectly clear? [pause and wait for acknowledgement].
Do not contact me until you are on board the vessel. Over."
The object, on the part of the OIC was to get the cowardly captain back on board his vessel immediately. The easiest way to accomplish this would be giving the captain a simple, definitive choice -- re-board the vessel, or face execution.
Extreme approach? Possibly. Effective? It certainly would have generated better results than the travesty that we will all be reading about in the mainstream media for months.
Douglas E Castle [http://aboutDouglasCastle.blogspot.com] for
Taking Command! [http://TakingCommand.blogspot.com]
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