On 4 December 1950, the U.S. Navy sent six fighters to provide air support at the Chosin Reservoir in Changjin County, North Korea, during the Korean War. While the fighters were searching for targets, the enemy damaged one aircraft with small-arms fire. The pilot of the stricken plane attempted to set it down. Unfortunately, the fighter broke up on impact, and the pilot was trapped by the burning wreckage.
When the wingman of the downed pilot saw his trapped friend, he did something incredible. With more than a hundred thousand Chinese soldiers in the area and temperatures dipping to the negative 30s, the wingman crash-landed to try and help his friend escape. Despite this incredible heroism, the wingman could not save his downed comrade.
The downed pilot was Ensign Jessie Brown, one of the first African American U.S. naval aviator. The wingman who tried to save him was Lieutenant (j.g.) Thomas J. Hudner. In an era of segregation and legalized discrimination, Brown proved Black Americans could be brave and capable pilots. Hudner proved people of different races could work together and sacrifice for one another.
Where We Are Now
Jessie Brown became a naval aviator in 1948. Six decades later, according to the CNO’s 2011 Report on Naval Pilot and Naval Flight Officer Diversity, only ten aviators receiving their wings that year were Black. Only two (one percent of the total) would be joining the tactical aviation community. In context, African Americans were 12 percent of the U.S. population and 10 percent of college graduates in 2011. To put it simply, in sixty years, we improved from graduating one Black fighter pilot per year to graduating two. Such a slow rate of progress can hardly be called progress at all.
It gets worse further along the career path for naval aviators. Data from 2019 shows that only 10 percent of female naval aviators and 30 percent of minority naval aviators continue to serve beyond their initial obligation. This means diversity decreases with rank increases. Women and minorities make up only 3 and 9 percent of naval aviation’s commanding officers, major commanders, and flag officers. If Jesse Brown served today, the odds would be stacked against him leading a fighter squadron.
This goes beyond naval aviation. In 2015, only 7 percent of naval officers were Black. In 2020, this had improved by just a single percentage point. Hispanics (18 percent of the total population) went from 7 to 9 percent of the officer corps. Women went from 18 percent to 20 percent. Compare this to the data collected by management consulting firm McKinsey & Company on the diversity of more than a thousand companies between 2014 and 2018, which found a third increased minority and female representation by 17 and 20 percentage points, respectively. Yet, the Navy has managed to increase its diversity by only one to two percentage points.
Military services do not have the latitude to change personnel policies as rapidly as private companies can. Even so, other armed forces have made more progress. Between 2015 and 2020, the Australian Defense Forces reported an increase in female representation of 3.9 percentage points. Even more impressive, the Royal Australian Air Force showed a 5.6-point increase. Between 2014 and 2020, the Canadian Armed Forces showed an increase in minority and indigenous representation of 3.9 percentage points.
Buy-In Campaign
The Navy has taken steps to address the problem. In 2021, the CNO-directed Task Force One released a 142-page report on how to increase diversity. With almost 60 recommendations, the report is a good starting point. However, the Navy needs to add some additional elements.
Before proposing any solutions, the Navy must answer the question, “Why should we care about diversity?” When delving into the why, militaries should set social justice arguments aside. This is not because they are invalid or unimportant, but because discussions on how to organize society are best left to the people and their representatives. For service members, only one answer to “why diversity” matters: It helps achieve the mission.
Many studies have shown a correlation between diversity and effectiveness. In three separate reports spread over six years, McKinsey found that firms in the top quartile for diversity performed better than those in the bottom quartile.1 Furthermore, as the difference between the top and bottom quartile’s diversity increased, so too did the likelihood of outperformance by the top quartile.
There are other benefits of diverse teams. In a 2018 study of 1,700 companies worldwide, Boston Consulting Group found a “strong and statistically significant correlation between the diversity of management teams and overall innovation. Companies that reported above-average diversity on their management teams also reported innovation revenue that was 19 percentage points higher than that of companies with below-average leadership diversity.” Greater innovation is critical to success in the corporate world and even more vital in modern military operations.
Failure to increase diversity also increases the risk of flawed decision-making. Today, the best illustration of this is the Russo-Ukraine War. President Vladimir Putin’s decision to invade was an egregious miscalculation. While there are many reasons for this error, one of them likely is the echo chamber at Russia’s top. Putin has surrounded himself with a small, like-minded group of advisors with similar backgrounds.In his book, Rebel Ideas: The Power of Diverse Thinking, journalist Matthew Syed states that “when you are surrounded by similar people, you are not just likely to share each other’s blind spots but to reinforce them.”2
Many recruits come from families with military backgrounds, which means they are coming from a similar background at least in this regard—thus narrowing their perspectives. This limits the military’s diversity. If the military does not make a concerted effort to continue improving diversity, it risks becoming an echo chamber. According to former Google CEO Eric Schmidt, “homogeneity in an organization breeds failure.”3 Failure in Google means lost profit. Failure in the military means the loss of lives and global security.
Despite the benefits, some service members see campaigns to increase diversity as political theater. As Matthew Syed states in Rebel Ideas, “Diversity is often regarded as a politically correct distraction, an issue of morality and justice, but not of performance and innovation.”4 This mindset encourages distrust and suspicion among sailors and officers. The Navy must spread information on diversity’s benefits to leaders of all ranks. Professional military education required for advancement at all levels should include segments explaining the benefits of diversity—and back it up with science.
Metrics, Goals, and Data
Even if naval leaders convince everyone of the importance of diversity, bias will still be a factor. Everyone has biases—most of them unconscious—and they are not easily eliminated. According to behavioral economist Iris Bohnet, “Once an initial category-based assessment has been made, thereafter new information is interpreted in a biased way.”5Even if an organization has diversity as a goal, attempts to increase it will be hampered by bias. However, this can be countered by setting clear goals, creating specific methods to reach those goals, and then using data and analytics to measure the effectiveness of those methods.
It is not enough to have goals such “institutionalize inclusion and diversity across our Navy.”6 While it sounds good, it is vague and not measurable. There need to be clear, measurable goals with defined timelines. The Navy also needs to make its goals public. Among the companies at the top of Forbes’ 2022 List of Best Companies for Diversity, many set aggressive goals with numbers and deadlines and then publish them. Progressive Insurance (number one on Forbes’ list) aims to double minority representation in leadership by 2025. VMware (number two on the list) has the goal of gender parity in leadership by 2030. These are straightforward goals against which it is simple to measure success. In addition, VMware’s Diversity Report is easy to find and review. This promotes open discussion of where the organization is and how it can improve. In addition, aggressive, public goals communicate to the workforce and potential recruits that diversity is essential to the organization.
It is important to note that goals are not the same as quotas. Quotas determine recruitment and promotion. Goals drive methods. They do not predetermine results. Data will show whether the methods used are effective.
Creating a more inclusive workplace requires constant experimentation informed by analytics. Lazlo Block, head of People Operations at Google, states that “data is central to how we built and run People Operations.”7 For example, Google wanted to know why its female employees quit at a higher rate than male workers. Analytics found that it was young mothers who were quitting at a higher rate. This insight informed the company’s decision to allow mothers five months of parental leave. Almost immediately, mothers became no more likely to leave than any other group.8 The Navy needs a similar, comprehensive effort to collect and analyze data and use it to predict and shape the future. Only once this is instituted will the Navy be able to analyze the effect of Task Force One’s recommendations or find the way toward different efforts.
The Navy must also be honest when the numbers do not paint a rosy picture. After investigating gender inclusion in the tech industry, software engineer Tracy Chou found, “Every company has some way of hiding or muddling the data.” For example, Google has refused to share gender pay discrepancy data with the Department of Labor, insisting there is no pay imbalance.9 This is where a genuine top-to-bottom commitment to diversity comes in. Unless the Navy sets goals it means to hit, data on diversity will just become another spreadsheet hidden in a quad slide.
1. Vivian Hunt, Dennis Layton, and Sarah Prince, Why Diversity Matters, McKinsey & Company, January 2015; Vivian Hunt et al., Delivering through Diversity, McKinsey & Company, January 2018; Vivian Hunt et al., Diversity Wins: How Inclusion Matters, McKinsey & Company, May 2020.
2. Matthew Syed, Rebel Ideas: The Power of Diverse Thinking (New York: Flatiron Books, 2019), 21.
3. Eric Schmidt and Jonathan Rosenberg, How Google Works (New York: Grand Central Publishing, 2014), 107.
4. Syed, Rebel Ideas, 234.
5. Iris Bohnet, What Works: Gender Equality by Design (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2016), 36.
6. U.S. Department of the Navy, U.S. Navy Diversity and Inclusion, February 2020, 7.
7. Lazlo Block, Work Rules! Insights from Inside Google That Will Transform How You Live and Lead (New York: Hachette Book Group, 2015), 357.
8. Block, Work Rules! 280.
9. Caroline Perez, Invisible Women: Data Bias in a World Designed for Men (New York: Abrams Press, 2019), 108.