Chris Groves – No room for shouters

When you join a submarine, one of the first things that you do as a Commanding Officer is that you write what are called ‘The Captain’s Instructions to Officers’ the CIOs, Captain’s Instructions to Officers.

And it’s your ability to be able to put a bit of personality on to how you want your submarine to be run, how you like to interact with your ship’s company, how you like your ship’s company to interact with you, and one of my key things was, and I can remember writing this into my Captain’s Instructions to Officers, and basically I said that any member of my ship’s company who shouted for anything other than a situation of immediate safety criticality, I would have considered to have lost it, and it was not acceptable.

I was not a shouter myself; I’ve never been a shouter, it never helps. There is a time for it.

You know if you need to kick the Control Room into action because there’s a safety issue or there’s an operational safety issue or a submarine safety issue if you like, then there is a time to raise your voice and make sure everybody is listening, and get everybody to react, but not in  a sort of b*llocking sense, there’s not a requirement for it.