Ben Simonton

Thanks for taking the time to visit my profile.

IF you manage ONE person or thousands, or want to help someone else do so, I can help you to become an exceptional manager of people. Just ask.


I have a wife anyone would kill for and two lovely daughters both living in New York City. Unfortunately, one daughter was across the street on the 20th floor and watched the first plane crash into the WTC. She got her 25 people down and out quickly and was on 20th street headed north when the first building fell. To say the least, it is not easy to live with having watched people jumping out of a building and thinking of the safety of your 8 year old son.

I spent 25 great years in the Navy on surface ships. I commanded a destroyer escort and a nuclear-powered cruiser and served on the nuclear aircraft carrier Nimitz as her Reactor Officer. It was an honor for me to serve with so many great sailors and their capabilities never ceased to amaze me. My last naval tour was on the Navy's central staff in the Pentagon directing ~$3.5B for the research, development, acquisition, installation and life cycle support of all surface ship weapon systems. I have a solution to that large bureaucracy, but it can't printed here. I was privileged in that tour to provide significant assistance to the UK Navy during the Falklands War.

I then went to work for New York City's electric utility company and had my first experience with a unionized workforce. Anyone who tells you that union people can't perform at the highest level given superior leadership just hasn't tried it. These people also never ceased to amaze me and gave me a real appreciation for the fact that all people are capable of truly superior performance if only their bosses will treat them as valued team members.

During 34 years of managing people, I developed, tested and proved a values-based leadership strategy that was able to unleash each employee's full potential of creativity, innovation, productivity, motivation and commitment, making them more than 300% more productive than if poorly motivated. Though this may sound too good to be true, I used this strategy to effect four successful turnarounds of seriously deficient management situations, including a nuclear-powered cruiser and a 1300 person unionized group in New York City.

I admit to having had significant help from two events, which I can only term revelations from above, and three people; my father, my wife and now deceased Admiral Rickover, the father of the nuclear Navy and the civilian nuclear industry.

After retiring a second time, I wrote a book which contains all of what l developed and proved about managing people. I have just recently begun to actively promote it and to offer my services to anyone who would like to become an exceptional manager of people. My book provides everything you need to know to manage people and their frailties. It includes the whys and how tos of: demonstrating 21 relevant workplace values, conducting 9 support functions in a way that reflects high value standards, listening to create commitment and to detect and correct support that reflects low standards of leadership, conducting one-on-one and group meetings to establish a values-based culture of highly motivated and committed employees, and finally dealing with stress and 22 problematic workplace conditions and behaviors such as bosses, bureaucracy, negative attitudes and personality clashes.

Please read a review HERE of my book by Ecademist Peter Hunter who is the author of "Breaking the Mould", also a book which should be read by anyone trying to understand the specifics of causing people to take ownership of their workplace.

My favorite quote -

Sun Tzu 400-320 BC
"The consummate ruler cultivates the moral law and strictly adheres to its methods and disciplines. The moral law causes people to be in complete accord with their ruler so that they will follow him regardless of their lives, undismayed by any danger.

Thanks for reading. Is there anything I can do for you?? Please don't hesitate to ask.

Best regards, Ben Simonton
Author "Leading People to be Highly Motivated and Committed"