Titanic revelations from Dr. Robert Ballard at Lethbridge’s “Greatness in Leadership” conference

He said one day the crew members’ wives came to a dock expecting the USS Scorpion to arrive, and no one ever did.The submarine had been carrying nuclear weapons, and the U.S. government didn’t know what happened to them.

“We didn’t want to leave them laying around,” said Ballard. “And so, it turned out that the two submarines were on either side of where the Titanic went down. Fortuitous.”

It was just pure fate, he said, that the USS Scorpion was found to the east of the wreckage, and the USS Thresher was found to the west. The weapons were intact.

When the massive ship was discovered in between them, government officials weren’t happy it had been found. But as an Oceanographer, Ballard asked if he could also search the wreckage.

“We needed a cover story,” he explained. “And I said well, why don’t we tell them [the public] that we’re going to find the Titanic?

“My biggest concern when I found the Titanic was, am I going to get in trouble? Turned out the public was so enamoured, they never figured it out [that he wasn’t even looking for it].”

National Geographic will have an exhibit in Washington D.C. May 30, called “Robert Ballard: The Untold Story.

In the years since then, Ballard has been part of 150 expeditions, including discovering the wreck of the battleship Bismarck in 1989, and the aircraft carrier USS Yorktown in 1998, among others.

In the 1990s he also founded the Institute for Exploration, which specialized in deep-sea archaeology and geology, along with the Centre for Ocean Exploration and Archaeological Oceanography in 2003.

For the last 30 years, he has remained at the top of his game.

He says key to doing it, and leading others so successfully is doing something you’re passionate about, working hard and knowing when to lead, and when to follow.

“I was always taught before you can lead, you have to learn how to follow,” explained Ballard. “And that’s hard for people. People need to realise you gotta earn your stripes. You know, work your way up.”

He also learned that once you ARE on top, it takes a lot of work to stay there.

“And you’re not going to stay there if you crawled over people to get there. People can scramble up to the top, but their time on the top is not long. So how can you sustain it? I’ve been at this for over 50 years.”

One way he says, is taking the time to invest in your team.

“The last thing you want to do is lose a person that you’ve invested five, six, seven million dollars into. So, leadership is important because you need to be able to have those individuals want to stay with you.”

And as someone who has been told time and time again what he wants to achieve is impossible, he believes it’s his goal to get them to change their minds, and to lead by example.

“I’ve always had people say, ‘you’re absolutely nuts.’ And then I do it. And they go ‘well, that was pretty good.’ But then the next idea is, you’re nuts.”

Ballard believes that as soon as anyone can move the conversation away the notion that a goal is impossible, then all kinds of possibilities open up.

“If I run into a ‘can’t do’ individual, that’s the end of the conversation. I’m not here to talk with a ‘can’t do’ person. I’m here to talk with ‘well, let’s give it a shot.’ And so that’s what you really need to get people to do.”

Ballard’s E/V Nautilus will be working with Ocean Networks Canada in June and July on the west coast. Teams will be mapping the ocean floor and providing fibre optic cable maintenance and support in the Strait of Juan de Fuca, Barkley Canyon, Clayoquot Slope, Cascadia Basin, and Endeavour Vent Field.

More details are available at https://nautiluslive.org/

by Lara Fominoff @LaraFominoff on Twitter

Titanic revelations from Dr. Robert Ballard at Lethbridge’s “Greatness in Leadership” conference

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