If Grace Hopper were alive today, her name would be familiar to all of us. She had the remarkable gift of looking around corners and seeing our technology future with amazing clarity. Her innovations in programming, software development systems, and programming languages are remembered as some of her greatest contributions.
But as I watched (2 times) this never-before-released
video from the NSA, I couldn't help but believe that her leadership insights were what made her contributions possible. I can only imagine how inspiring -- and just plain fun -- it would have been to work with and learn from her.
42 years ago on August 26, 1982, Rear Admiral (then Captain) Grace Hopper presented
Future Possibilities: Data, Hardware, Software, and People to a group of Navy personnel.
To non-tech folks, this topic probably sounds like one you would gladly skip. It's anything but boring and dry. And if you have 43 minutes to watch this video, you'll be surprised and entertained. Grace Hopper was a smart, insightful, quick-witted presenter.
While some of the words and phrases like microcomputers sound dated now, this feels like a discussion we could all be having right now.
1. Information is underestimated. Grace noticed how little time leaders invested in considering the value of information. She predicted that the demand for instant information would increase rapidly. At the same time, the volume of available information would grow exponentially.
Without systems to analyze and prioritize this information pool, demand and availability were in conflict. The Navy and other organizations began to ask practical questions such as: Who needs what information and when?
2. Information is the product that flows throughout the organization. Data is the raw material. Hardware and software are the tools that convert data into information. Simple.
3. Technology's growth is like the invention of the automobile. When Henry Ford invented the Model T, people were able to buy a car for the first time. Gas stations sprang up. Standard interchangeable parts led to auto supply stores. Roads were built. Malls appeared. Transportation as a whole lost focus.
This is the pitfall Grace foresaw with technology too. Instead of planning for the flow of information throughout an organization, companies would buy hardware. They would put software programs on each piece of hardware. Piece by piece companies would expand their processing power without an information-first plan.
Was Grace on-point? Absolutely.
4. Grace consistently followed the never-take-the-first-no-as-the-final answer rule. She believed that "no" people fall into one of two categories.
The first are those who are basically lazy. Saying "yes" means they will have to do something. "No" eliminates that risk. The second group are preferred. These are the people who want to know how committed you are to what you're proposing. Keep asking them until you get "yes".
Grace once had a commander who always led with no. It didn't matter what it was. "No" was the default. She knew that it took at least 3 tries to get to yes. So she simply started their discussion by suggesting they pretend they were on the fourth no. They would save themselves a lot of time and get right to yes.
5. She was a strong, unfailing supporter of those coming up through the ranks. Grace firmly believed in the military approach to leadership -- up and down, down and up the chain of command.
Leadership is respect at every level of the team without regard to rank or title. It's not the command and control management tactics that rely on status and stifle collaboration and innovation.
6. Prioritizing information asks five questions.
a) How quickly do we need to act?
b) What are the costs?
c) How many lives are affected?
d) What's the importance of the work to be done?
e) What happens if we don't do it?
Grace found that most people stop thinking at c).
7. Incorrect information has a real cost. If Grace were around today, she would be having a field day with our overabundance of readily available, flawed information. Back in 1982 there was a little known provision in the federal government's privacy policy that exposed the risk of bad information.
If a federal employee's personnel file contained incorrect information that would cause them harm in some way (I won't go into the details), the employee could sue the federal government. It was one of the rare instances where suing was an option.
Needless to say, numbers were crunched with a lot of guesswork involved to arrive at the $495,000 cost of bad information.
8. We've always done it this way was forbidden. Grace found that people make decisions based on what they're doing now and the equipment available. Where we fail in long-term planning is to consider what will become available in the future and the things we will be doing then.
All plans should consider two potential outcomes:
a) All future events that would be impacted or involved
b) Costs of not doing anything
9. Leaders weren't keeping up with technology. This one made me laugh because I thought I had been saying something new and profound. Grace repeatedly reminded leaders to listen to the "youngsters" coming up the chain. They were the future. Leadership had a responsibility to keep up.
Linda Rolf is a lifelong curious learner who believes a knowledge-first approach builds valuable, lasting client relationships. 