Recently I read the book Skunk Works by Ben Rich, this book is a fantastic read that gives some insight into the history and operation of the Skunk Works. For the uninitiated, Skunk Works is a special group inside of Lockheed Martin that is given creative freedom and reduced oversight in exchange for pushing the boundaries of aerospace and defense. The Skunk Works is not subject to the constant oversight and micromanagement that large companies and even it’s competitors are subject to from inside Lockheed Martin. Skunk Works exists to make quantum leaps in aerospace and defense, which they have done many times over with planes like the U2 spy plane, the SR-71 Blackbird, the F-117a and the more recent F-22 and F-35. The track record of the Skunk Works is unprecedented, and the book is filled with quotes from pilots, leaders, rivals and even Foreign government agents that have nothing but praise and good old fashioned jealousy for the things the Skunk Works has done over the years.

But… How? How does this relatively small group do things so efficiently, what makes them so effective?

I stumbled across many leadership principles and lessons that I found both enlightening and thematic between the Skunk Works and other sources. There was such an overlap between things called out in this book and other works from leaders I respect, I felt inspired to write this post to capture some of them and highlight those lessons for people who are interested in leadership and operating effective teams.

I’m not going to attempt to summarize the book as I believe it is worth reading no matter what your profession is, but my hope with this post is to try and capture some of the insight I took from this book. In short, I want to capture some of the magic behind how such a hyper successful group of people accomplished so much that Skunk Works almost reads like a science fiction novel rather than someones biography. I will try and overlay references to themes in this book to other works I have read just to drive home some of the historical consistency between various high performing teams, and high performing leaders.

Lessons On Leadership#

Kelly Johnson’s Management Rules#

There is a section of this book where Ben Rich, the author and eventual second director of the Skunk Works, approaches Kelly Johnson, the then acclaimed aerospace engineer and current director of Skunk Works, with the request to attend Harvard Business school to learn how to lead people.

Kelly responds with some of the most forthright and effective leadership principles ever written, I have found many similar references in my notes from other readings that support every single thing Kelly says.

“I’ll teach you all you need to know about running a company in one afternoon, and we’ll both go home early to boot. You don’t need Harvard to teach you that it’s more important to listen than to talk. You can get straight A’s from all your Harvard Profs, but you’ll never make the grade unless you are decisive: even a timely wrong decisions is better than no decision. The final thing you’ll need to know is don’t half heartedly wound problems – kill them dead. That’s all there is to it. Now you can run this goddamn place. Now, go on home and pour yourself a drink.” - Kelly Johnson

It’s More Important to Listen Than to Talk#

If you are a leader then the ability to simply listen to those in your charge is one of your most important skills. Create environments and relationships with people that empower them, and listen to the obstacles they encounter. As a leader you must foster communication. This can be a double edged sword if you let it, and as a leader you must be hands on enough to sniff out bullshit when you hear it, a trait that Kelly Johnson fully embodied. leaders cannot ignore the things that are giving you the real state of the world. It’s very important to gather what is on the mind of those you are responsible for, as a leader you need this data, and use this data to make calculated decisions that put your people in the right places to succeed.

A relevant quote taken taken from my notes on the book The Campaigns of Napoleon:

“A general’s most important talent is to know the mind of the soldier and gain his confidence”. - Napoleon Bonaparte

If you do not listen to your “soldiers” you will never be able to understand what they need, how to build their confidence, and how to become a dealer in hope and aspiration. Leaders deal in hope, if you don’t know what is on the mind of your people, how can you give them hope?

Be Decisive#

“secrecy builds power, decisiveness delivers it” - Sun Tzu, The Art of War

Leaders must be decisive in how you go about your business. Build as much of a knowledge bank as you can so your decisions are informed, but making decisions with haste is a vital aspect of every leader. Sources that support this are in abundant if you have ever studied great historical leaders. Sources I enjoyed stretch from how people spoke about Shackleton’s decisiveness on the Endurance where decisiveness kept everyone alive, to Alexander the Great cutting the Gordian Knot and that becoming an analogy for centuries about how to approach problems. Great leaders share this decisive trait, be the leader that makes the call, inspire those with you, and get things done.

“More is lost by indecision than wrong decision. Indecision is the thief of opportunity. It will steal you blind.” - Cicero

Don’t Half-heartedly Wound Problems – Kill Them Dead#

I have personally been the subject of making this mistake many times in my life, the attempts to pacify some ailment or issue which only creates a larger and more formidable problem that will surface at the most inconvenient times. As I realize personally the value in this statement, I search though my notes and find an example of this trait that I enjoy thinking about.

An example to not completely eliminating your problems is one of the most infamous conflicts in history, Hannibal vs the Romans. Hannibal and the Carthaginian’s wanted to defeat and ultimately conquer Rome so they could become the predominante Mediterranean superpower. Hannibal had the golden opportunity to crush Rome after his victory at Cannae, where he had eliminated any force between him and marching on the city of Rome, a feat that had never in history been possible. In opposition to the philosophy of fully eliminating problems, Hannibal hesitated and ultimately never marched to sack Rome, instead he held out for some sort of surrender. This indecision would lead to Rome rebuilding, adopting new strategies and Rome would go on to not only survive but foster a general who would eventually defeat Hannibal. Because of Hannibal’s decision to not march into Rome and fully eliminate the Romans, Rome survived and ultimately produced the only general to defeat Hannibal, Scipio Africanus.

Rome survived because it was given the chance to survive, it was not eliminated. This failure is the type of problem Kelly Johnson trying to warn against, Rome was not fully eliminated, and resurfaced later to strike down Hannibal even though Hannibal suffered no real material loss between his victory at Cannae and his eventual defeat.

Moral of the story, if you let your problems linger around, they will always resurface against you to strike you down, stronger than the first time you faced them.

Effective Teams#

Solutions that work for one group may not work for another, that is why it is so important for leaders to understand their work and their teams. I will outline some of the lessons that I took from the Skunk Works that have merit for building and leading effective teams.

  • Less Oversight and Supervision: Giving people and groups the autonomy to make decisions and get work done is the only real progress accelarator. The Skunk Works was not only able to make advances in Aerospace, but make quantum leaps that just aren’t possible in a normal rigorously supervised environment.

  • Limit Objectives: In order to do things really really well, you must trim the things you are trying to solve down to the things that are the most important. Spreading into too many domains leads to stalled progress. As a leader you must be dilligent to keep these objectives low in number.

  • Difficult but Specific Objectives: Build a plane that can overfly our enemies, can’t be detected, and even if it was detected couldn’t be stopped or caught. That was the objective that lead to the SR-71 blackbird, the fastest plane then in the 60’s and still today almost 64 years later. Be deliberate with what your objectives are, make them difficult enough to inspire, and make them clear enough everyone knows exactly what they are doing.

  • Trade Oversight for Solutions: Reward the problem solvers, don’t add more red tape to try and squeeze more out. Allow creative freedom to produce solutions you would have never thought of in the first place.

  • Hire Generalists over Specialists: When you are trying to push the boundaries, finding the people who are curious about the vastness of problems will be more valuable than those who narrowly focus on domains. Experts can always be consulted, but to get truly unique ideas you need unique thinkers.

  • Open Communication: There should be no friction for the leader to talk to the people, for engineers to talk to designers, for fabricators to talk to engineers. If someone putting a plane together has an idea for the person designing the plane, he should be able to find him and deliver that information. Kelly Johnson required that his Aerospace engineers work right next to the assembly line, so communication was as fast and instant as possible. There are multiple sections in this book that talk about groups of engineers or designers removing doors from their building so they could talk directly to who they needed. Communication is key.

  • Viciously Attack Red Tape: At every turn you should fight back against any process that doesn’t make sense, if it slows you down and provides no real value then fight like hell to remove it.

  • Be Weary of Distributed Problem Solving: Ben highlighted towards the end of the book that the way some of the Skunk Works’ competitors went about building airplanes seemed flawed. The B2 bomber was described as being designed by one company, the wings being built in one place, the body being built in another, the engines being assembled in an entirely different place, etc etc. Ben warned against this kind of thinking, problems begin to carry a very high level of risk, when instead having everything built in a single place allows the real thinkers to have the whole problem right in front of them. The SR-71 blackbird was designed, fully built and tested all in the relatively small warehouses of the Skunk Works, all the problems were right there next to the problem solvers.

  • The last 10% of perfection costs 40% of the budget: This is why it is important to clearly state objectives, do you need perfection to be achieved or do you just need to solve the problems at hand. Perfection is a dangerously expensive and time consuming thing, be sure you need it before you try and find it. Clearly outline when you have achieved success, and don’t mistakenly keep going when you could put that effort elsewhere.

  • Hire Talented People, Pay Them Fairly: If you want the best, make it worth their time.

Why aren’t there more Skunk Works?#

The Skunk Works is under surveillance from every major aerospace manufacturer inside and outside of the US, they show up in foreign nation security briefings, and they line the history books with engineering marvels, but why aren’t there more groups like this? Why don’t more companies set up their own Skunk Works?

Instead of me doing an injustice, there is a direct quote from Kelly Johnson about why this is the case, and why his Skunk Works is hard to replicate:

“I’ll bet my ranch against Northrop starting its own Skunk Works. Companies give it lip service because we’ve been so successful running ours. The bottom line is that most managements don’t trust the idea of an independent operation, where they hardly know what in the hell is going on and are kept in the dark because of security. Don’t kid yourself, a few among our own people resent the hell out of me and our independence. And even those in aerospace who respect our work know damned well that the fewer people working on a project, the less profit from big government contracts and cost overruns. And keeping things small cuts down on raises and promotions. Hell, in the main plant they give raises on the basis of the more people being supervised; I give raises to the guy who supervises least. But most executives don’t think like that at all. Northrop’s senior guys are no different from all of the rest in this business; They’re all empire builders, because that’s how they’ve been trained and conditioned. Those guys are all experts at covering their asses by taking votes on what to do next. They’ll never sit still for a secret operation that cuts them out entirely. Control is the name of the game and if a Skunk Works really operates right, control is exactly what they won’t get.” - Kelly Johnson, Skunk Works