# VCNO Interview with Fed Gov Today at Sea Air Space 2024

### 15 Apr 2024

**Francis Rose:**Thank you very much for joining me, admiral. It's great to have you here...talked to CNO at WEST and the conversation there revolved around America's Warfighting Navy and her vision for that. What is your role and responsibilities in executing on that vision as kind of the COO of the Navy?

**Adm. Jim Kilby:**I think it's a great question, Francis. I view it as I'm the execution arm. And in that, it means how do I work with the different stakeholders across the board to make sure we're getting the results she desires? So, that could be our nuclear shipyard maintenance system, is that aligned to produce what it needs to produce? If not, why? What are we doing about it? It's Navy recruiting, are we hitting our numbers? If not, why? Let's be thoughtful about that and look at the data, hold ourselves accountable and and try to get after it. So, I think that is probably a really good analogy.

**Francis Rose:**We talked a little bit before we turn the cameras on about your desire to make the Navy a better learning organization. In what way and how will that manifest itself to the Sailor on the frontlines and Marine on the front?

**Adm. Jim Kilby:**We've had some spectacular non-learning events and I'll highlight one for you. For example, one is the fire on the USS Miami where we lost that submarine, it was a fire in a shipyard and as a result, we struck that submarine from the record.

And similarly, most recently, we've had the same event happened on USS Bonhomme Richard...different causal factors with the same result. And in between we wrote a pretty in-depth instruction called the 8010. To try to prevent that from happening, which it didn't.

So why did that occur? Did we write the instruction in a manner that is easily digestible by the various organizations that have to execute it and are we holding ourselves accountable to the types of behavior and check and balance you need to not put yourself in that position where we lose the ship? So, we cannot afford to do that. And I want to reverse that for the CNO and make us a better learning organization. So, we're not in a position to try to reline on if that makes sense.

**Francis Rose:**Yes. How do you individually and how do you as a Navy, reorganize, reorient, restrategize, or whatever is necessary to get to that point and how will you know when you're there and just building momentum?

**Adm. Jim Kilby:**I hope we never say we’re there. I hope we say we're closer there and then where needed to be. A lot of times in these events we found clouded command and control. Like there's multiple people that are involved but nobody singly responsible.

We don't always do a good job of understanding what the standard of performance is, and what our actual performance is against that standard. And then once you know those things, you can plot a course to correct and get better.

So, there's an accountability and a day-to-day functionality of how we do our jobs and I think we can do better. And this structure we're implementing through a process called Performing to Plan is aimed to do that.

**Francis Rose:**One of the theaters of operation where you have an opportunity to learn a lot is in the Red Sea right now. What are you taking away from that and how are you analyzing what Sailors are doing there to apply to concepts of readiness, concepts of training, hardware performance, all those kinds of things?

**Adm. Jim Kilby:**Thank for that question, Francis. First of all, the Ike Strike Group is doing great. That means the airwing and the ships, we're talking about the destroyers a lot but there's fighters in F-18s that are knocking cruise missiles down and UAVs down as well as ships.

I think the aviation community has done a better job at data reconstruction than in the past and they do that through a process called PBED, that's Plan Brief Execute Debrief, and we haven't always been as responsive in the surface side.

In this specific effort, we've really shortened the ability in that short amount of time it takes to take a data reduction from the Aegis combat system, get it off the ship, analyze it, and return that for consumption from the crew and multiple crews. So, did the Aegis system performance design, yes or no? If it didn't, do we need to fix something in the Aegis system? A...B...did the operators perform as they should have against the tactics, techniques and procedures we had in place? And if they didn't, let's correct that and then teach that and if all that works, we need to have an adjustment for the system. But if you wait weeks, people forget what they did and they kind of get foggy on it. So, it's just time is of the essence.

And we've really cracked that code and working with industry, the Navy and our warfighting development centers to do that. And I think that's a key to learning as well.

**Francis Rose:**You mentioned data a couple of times in this conversation. You spoke about it here. I've seen you speak about it before. What's your sense of how the Navy is doing at becoming a data driven organization?

**Adm. Jim Kilby:**I think we're doing better. I think we've got a ways to go. I mean, so we have to be thoughtful about what the data source is. The term of art I think it’s an authoritative data source so you can trust that. But once you have that data, are we being thoughtful about how we use that data? At what currency do we need to look at it? And I want people to ask, Francis, if I say are we winning today? And that can happen on the factory floor...it can happen in the combat system of the ship. I want them to be able to understand and say yes. And so that's using data and holding ourselves to a standard to achieve an outcome that I don't think we've always been disciplined about.

**Francis Rose:**What improves that in your view, what is the enterprise view of the Navy and improving that and what do you and your capacity as the VCNO? What can you do to drive that? Do you think?

**Adm. Jim Kilby:**One view is my using daily visual management of data to help my decision making and typically when we get in this conversation, we think more is better and more is not better. Because if I'm looking at 50 things, I probably can't make sense of it.

But if you look at some of our top performing companies out there, they've got a handful of metrics that they measure against day in and day out, 365 days a year, and that becomes their ability to guide whether they're on track or off track. So, choosing those metrics, exposing our workforce to those metrics, and then holding ourselves accountable to those metrics I think is what I'm talking about.

**Francis Rose:**Okay, so when you frame it in that way, then I'm going to take you back to America's Warfighting Navy because then you have three metrics right there, how the Navy is doing and warfighting readiness for warfighting, warfighters and foundation. Am I on the right track?

**Adm. Jim Kilby:**Yes, you are. And it applies to all of them. There's overlap between those three pillars. I think in the warfighting capability, are my systems doing what they think they should do? In the warfighter capability...the two metrics might be - am I retaining and am I recruiting at the level I need to have a healthy organization?

Those are some metrics that are used by successful organizations. And then from the foundation - is the foundation doing what it needs to do to produce those two first categories? So, the foundation is an element that supports both events.

**Francis Rose:**When you come to a show like this, there's a lot of terrific displays here a lot to see. How do you how do you decide what you're going to take back to the Pentagon and think about do something with and how do you communicate with industry when you're here beyond say, the things that you and your colleagues have said on stage? "We need your help...we rely on the partnerships"...all true.

What, what's deeper than that in your view and in the way that you connect with industry?

**Adm. Jim Kilby **

Well, I don't know that I come, I may come with a game plan. I may say I want to go see this person or that person or this company or that company. But in general, I want to be open to the experience because everyone I've found in general wants to do a good job and believes they have a product worthwhile to the Navy. So, I'm trying to be open to that experience here. And then if I commit to closing a loop, I'm going to close that loop. So, when I asked for your card, I'm going to close and connect to people in an email or ask them for a meeting.

We're trying to understand that space better. It's not a commitment to do it. It is a commitment to understand and therefore you've engendered an environment that's healthy.

**Francis Rose:**Admiral, it's great to have you on the show. Thanks for your time.

**Adm. Jim Kilby:**Thank you, Francis.