Spotting Weakness: How a U.S. Nuclear Sub Commander Changed the Game

This is the story of a U.S. Navy nuclear submarine commander’s ability to challenge the Soviets when they were at their weakest. He changed the rules of the game.  And won.  He secured asymmetric advantage, but for a moment. It was by targeting the decision-making weaknesses of his Soviet nuclear counterparts for but a moment. The Cold War ended three years after his exploits. 

This is a story pieced together from reviewing thousands of pages of now declassified documents and images from the U.S. Government, including the Department of Defense, Central Intelligence Agency, and U.S. Congress. It reveals how one decision-maker – the commander of the U.S.S. Guardfish – was able to obtain all the secrets of the Soviet Navy at a time when Cold War tensions were at their highest. 

The Soviet Navy had long had submarines that were larger and more powerful than the Americans. In 1985, the Soviets brought to sea a new class of submarines, the Akula. They were much more stealthy.  It was a dramatic advancement. It changed the fundamental nature of submarine warfare.  The Americans, which had long been able to track the Soviet submarines from long distances, now had to get in close. The commander of the U.S.S. Guardfish did just that, getting within 20m of two new Akula submarines, photographing the entirety of their new ships and engineering advancements. 

The lessons for CEOs managing their own undersized, less powerful companies against larger incumbents are many, including: 

• Look for advantage in environments in which there is a strategic shift by a competitor; Intelligence-gathering is key; 
• Look for environments in which decision-makers are forced to operate under significant stress; 
• Target actions when players are at risk of making mistakes in their decision-making;
• Recognize that these moments of opportunity for the weaker player are fleeting;
• Prepare for these moments by preparing your team, advancing quickly up new learning curves, and preparing gameplans, playbooks, and operational processes for critical moments; and 
• Use decision-making as your weapon.  

Chris Mailander, author of Judgment: The Art of Momentous Decision-Making (Ironheart Publishing, available on Amazon) provides several exercises CEOs can use to evaluate their own decision-making within their own situational context, all designed to provoke an a-ha moment.