Mandate to my New Senior Enlisted Advisor

The number one priority for our command is tactical execution of Mine Countermeasures Units in support of National objectives.  Always keep that mission in the front of your mind. We will quickly fail if admin, personnel issues, GMT, support to other commands, etc overshadow that priority.  However, reconize the Ying/Yang component of our relationship and be sure to advocate for the long term health of our sailors even if it creats short term impacts to the mission.

You have been in the Navy long enough to know what right looks like. Enforce it.   I’m ok if your “right” is different than the last CMC’s “right”.

Everything in this command is in your domain to question, investigate, influence and make right.    That includes myself the XO and Department heads.

You are my mandatory buddy, BFF and my accountability partner.  If you see me going off the rails in any aspect of my personal or professional life I expect you to step in and take positive action.  Anything short of an award and a band at my Change of command is a failure on both of us.

You are the lead sled dog at this command. You can bark, growl and nip at anyone who is not pulling their weight.  That includes the JO’s

You know the rules when you disagree with your boss.  1) support in public, 2) disagree in private.  That is the easy part.  I’m going to add a 3rd harder rule. That is “ you MUST tell me when you disagree whether it is large or small.   Most CO’s receive caged feedback from their troops; I need you to shoot it to me straight.

Remember why DIV 31 exists,  to do our country’s biding.  As such we prioritize the Mission over the unit and unit over the individual.  We need a hard talk first if you want to change up that order

FITREPS and EVALS are not to judge performance in the current rank.  Rather they are for APTITUDE for the next rank.  No matter how hard a 1/C petty officer works or how senior he is, if he is not ready for chief he will never get an Early Promote, or a CPI recommendation from me.

I am a fan of investigations.  This is because the investigation normally finds a deeper root cause than what may be initially observed.   Once that root cause is determined it is then up to US, the command leadership, to fix it.

The Navy’s Inspector general is the eyes and ears of the CNO. Likewise you are my eyes and ears.  Be sure to have a good pulse of the command and periodically communicate that with me.

We need to talk when there is nothing to talk about.  This is why I hold sacred our 0900 Thursday sync.   Doing that often results in the best conversations.